Edit:
Sold my Mavic Pro to a guy at work and I’m picking up the Air.
It’s a mix of pros and cons vs the Mavic Pro, but most of the cons don’t affect me (I only fly line-of-sight, so shorter range isn’t a minus), and the smaller size is a huge bonus. I can just pack my camera equipment and the Mavic all together in a backpack for travel. The Air will make it much easier to bring everything along. Plus it has some nice camera advancements.
If I wasn’t going to Hawaii later this year, I’d probably have just stuck with the Mavic Pro for now. But the Air will be easier to pack for that trip.
Also, as I’ve watched some reviews, I see the Mavic Air is fixed focus, instead of variable focus like the Mavic Pro. Thank GOD. I’ve lost some cool stuff due to having not realized I’d forgotten to focus on the Mavic Pro. My f’ing eclipse shadow footage is blurry, and I’ll never get that chance again.
Yeah, out of focus is human error, but I like that the Air doesn’t allow that human error. The variable focus was an almost completely useless footage. I certainly never did anything other than set focus to infinity, or forget to set focus to infinity.
Yay for feature removal!
Thankfully, the video looks neat overall since it wasn’t about the fine details, but dayum, it must have sucked to realize/see that the footage was out of focus.
Yeah, I was able to process it a bit and you still get the whole shadow effect. And honestly, the video was a stretch goal. I walked “out of the state park grounds” (to the sidewalk at the end of the parking lot), sent it up, pointed it the right direction, and went back to my family and camera. Primary focus was enjoying it in the moment, secondary was getting a few good photos. But while the eclipse was so amazing that we’ll likely travel to see the next one, that one won’t be over the water.
I’ve loved the Mavic Pro overall, other than the focus thing. I just hope the wi-fi based transmission of the Air isn’t too noticeably worse than the Occusync. That’s my only concern.
Quick run around the neighborhood… I really like this music track but it doesn’t 100% fit with the video. It WAS exactly the right length tho, which was awesome. Free Music Archive for the win.
I thought I’d post a question here, since I respect the opinions of you folks much more than those on something like Facebook.
Last night at about 10:40 PM while behind my house and walking my dogs I heard a strange noise. It was a drone, it followed me through my dog walk and hovered outside my house when I went back inside. I would estimate the height of the flightpath from as low as about 20 feet (when I finally heard it) to about 50 feet. I’ve asked my neighbors and none have come forward, but I have a quandary here in my opinions on someone doing that. It was unnerving and creepy. Part of the walk was on public neighborhood land, the rest was over my property. It’s pretty wooded, so I’m unsure how the operator was avoiding trees so well in the dark. I also dawned on me that said drone operator could just as easily peeped through my blinds/windows on multiple floors, as well as others in my neighborhood at that time of night.
Is this something that laws cover (over residential areas) or not? If it’s perfectly legal to do something like that, I’ll keep my mouth shut and mark it as something I know about. If not, that seems SO wide open to non-legitimate use, and illegal from the standpoint of allowing something akin to a peeping tom style operation within a legal framework.
I live in North Carolina if that makes any difference.
Just shoot it. You live in NC, the cops will think it’s funny.
So this guy (surely a guy) is guilty, alas, mostly of being an asshole. I hate that people who do things like that are going to ruin drones for the rest of us sooner than later.
Technically you have ownership of the airspace above your property up to 500 feet. But the FAA has limited consumer drones to 400 feet. So at some point a court test is probably going to clarify that conflict. Realistically, if it happens again, you can probably get your local cops involved if you can figure out who’s doing it, because most law enforcement officers aren’t really versed in drone and airspace laws. It’d be unlikely to make it through court, but you could probably get to the “cop asking him to cut that crap out” stage.
I wouldn’t worry about peeping. These drones have wide-angle cameras, and to get close enough to a house/window to see anything untoward, they’d have to fly so close to the house that you’d hear the buzzing hornets nest sound from the drone. They’re not going to see anything significant from 50+ feet up. You’re in far more danger from someone at the edge of your property with a good telephoto lens or cheap binoculars, if you’re doing private things with your curtains open, than you are from a noisy wide-angle drone.
Anyway, I would guess he was a lot higher than 20 feet, as even the quietest drones are loud. I had to take my Mavic Pro up to about 300 feet before you’d stop hearing the noise, and it was one of the quietest camera drones around. (Also would explain getting around the trees.)
Following someone outside and then stopping above their property is douchy behavior, but it’s unlikely they could see much of anything. Probably a teenager or bubba who picked up a new Mavic Air and decided to try the camera tracking feature on a stranger instead of a friend.
On behalf of civilized drone operators, I’m sorry for this idiot.
Assuming you’re talking about the US, can you cite that? (Asking seriously, not snarking) My understanding is 49 USC 40103 a claims sovereignity of all airspace of the United States to the Federal Government, and gives FAA regulatory authority of the navigable airspace. Navigable airspace has been held by the courts starting with Causby vs United States 1946 (Supreme Court) to be starting at 500ft up. But aircraft in the undefined unnavigable airspace below 500ft have been found to be required to comply with FAA registration and tax requirements (e.g. Stahmann Farms vs United States, 1980, 10th circuit court of appeals) and state- or local- regulation of drones has been found to be pre-empted by federal regulation in 3(?- might be more, my file on this is at the office) appeals court cases so far. Which doesn’t leave much scope for private airspace ownership.
Note that I am not a lawyer. I work for a state fish and game agency which has had to develop policy related to people wanting to operate drones over our wildlife management areas. Some of the western states make explicit claims to airspace below xxx ft, which may or may not then transfer to the local landowner. Mine doesn’t.
I agree, video I’ve taken of my house you can’t see in through the windows due to glare usually.
Possibly more concerning is that both the (part 101) hobbyist and part 107 rules prohibit flying at night without waivers. But I’ve never heard of an actual prosecution on that.
Well, it’s not from a credible source, it’s from Wikipedia. :-)
The “navigable airspace” in which the public has a right of transit without affecting a landowners property rights has been set at the height of 500 ft in urban or suburban areas,[5] and 360 feet above the surface or tallest structure in rural areas.[6] The exact altitude(s) at which the airspace over private land becomes “public” airspace, or where the upward bounds of national sovereignty extends is often debated, but the Supreme Court rulings and space treaties are clear. A landowner’s domain extends up to at least 365 feet above the ground. see Causby v US (1946),[7] and no nation can prevent orbits above the Earth’s atmosphere.
I’ve heard others say that once you’re in the air, you’re good. So I don’t think it’s clearly defined.
This all just comes back to my question of which stock Nerf guns could knock a drone out of the sky? You know what, I bet I should just check YouTube, someone must have already answered this.
This is the best I could find:
Some Nerf gun in the Mega line hits a DJI Phantom 4 in the propellor, the drone is fine (or at least unaffected, I don’t know if it did any minor damage). The dart was cut in half!
Still need to find someone willing to assault a fancy drone with a Nemesis or something from the Rivals line though.
Got the Mavic Air today. Because January and Washington State, I only had five minutes to fly between rain showers, but I’m super impressed. Soooo small. I can use my favorite camera bag again! And the red matches my Mazda 6. :)
No footage/images worth posting from today, but there’s plenty on the YouTube.
My biggest fear was the lack of Ocusync transmission for the video. Flying in my Wi-Fi deluged neighborhood, no issues at all with clear video from the drone, with no more perceptible lag than my old Mavic Pro.
For someone like Krayzkrok, using the drone to survey things, etc. the longer range and more stable (at range) video transmission of the Mavic Pro makes more sense. But for photographers who keep the drone line-of-sight, the Mavic Air is a really nice, compact alternative for slightly less money.
I’m expecting a Mavic Pro 2 this year with many of the more advanced features of the Mavic Air plus Ocusync, etc. But as long as it’s the size of the original Mavic Pro (which is definitely compact in its own right, but not as much), I won’t regret my slight downgrade.
Couldn’t make any direct comparisons because I sold my Pro the day they announced the Air, before the market got saturated. :)
I appreciate the comments, guys. That gives some perspective. His height was pretty low, based on where it was compared to a nearby tree, maybe 20-30 feet. I could hear it, but when he hovered, it blended in with the sound of my gas furnace fan, which is pretty loud from outside. Perhaps that marks it as an indoor drone or something smaller. It had a red and blue run light, I the the red was solid and the blue flashed, but I may have those reversed.
Regardless, based on the comments about the cameras, I feel better, somewhat. It does make me wonder if someone bothered you with one over your own property, theoretically could you chuck a rock at it? What would, say, a Hollywood type be able to do about stuff like this?
I also talked to two friends who are heavy into drones and both gave a similar summary: jackass probably just being a jackass, nothing crazy.
Again, thanks for the comments.
If someone on the sidewalk was pointing a camera at you, could you throw a rock at the camera? Nope, no matter how annoying it is. Though you could call the police if the camera was taking pictures of you through your window.
According to the FAA, the airspace over your property is basically the same as the sidewalk in front of your house. You can’t keep the public from using it. But if they use it to snoop inside your house, then you can call the police.
Good to know, though I can’t see that holding forever. If enough people are harassed, things might get attention to the point of a change. It only takes a few bad apples, etc.
Occusync meaning the radio that hooks to your phone? The Air is only wifi? Crazy. I do most of my flying in the mountains so I definitely will stick with my original Mavic Pro for now - although I’d really like to have the fixed focal length.
Yeah, it’s a connection via the remote (not the WI-Fi transmitter on your phone), but it’s using the Wi-Fi bands/protocols, which isn’t as efficient and resistant to interference as the Ocusync on the Mavic Pro, Phantom 4 Pro, etc. Still hella better than the Spark, which apparently connects directly to the drone from the phone for video transmission.
I’ll be interested to give it some more thorough testing. Weather’s not looking cooperative for playing with the new toy for many days, though. :(
In the UK, it’s totally illegal. You basically can’t fly in urban areas at all, as it’s illegal to fly within 50m of someone else’s property. Obviously, however, North Carolina is very different from the UK.