today we're going to cover 30 mistakes that new drone and even seasoned drone pilots make
and to do this my friend jevin dovey came all the way to alaska
we're going to cover this let's jump into it one mistake that new pilots make is flying over
reflective surfaces or water and thinking that the downward sensors will work it's not always
the case when you're flying over something like ocean waves while the ocean's moving up and down
and the drone might not always realize that the water's moving because it's a reflective surface
and it can't judge how far the distance is between the drone and the wave so what will happen is your
drone will crash into the water and this could also happen in other reflective surfaces as well
so if you're flying with reflective surfaces on the ground just be aware of how high you
are from that surface because the drone might not be able to judge exactly how close it is and you
might end up crashing and another mistake a lot of people make is thinking that sensors will detect
everything and they really won't things like power lines small branches or branches without
leaves on them these sensors generally won't pick those things up and you have a really high chance
of running into anything like that so be really cautious when you're flying around really small
objects because the sensors generally really won't pick them up now another mistake is not
understanding how your obstacle avoidance is going to work when you're tracking yourself so i like to
use the tracking feature all the time when i'm out shooting by myself and there's two ways that
your sensors will work when you come towards an object and so if you're moving and there's like a
tree or a bush in the way well the drone can do two things and you can set this up in the menu
it could either break where it's just gonna stop or it could try to move up and around that object
now that feature works great and it's going to try to find you when it moves up and around whatever
that object is however it's not always perfect and i've definitely been in some situations where
it swings up and around it's trying to find me and it starts moving really fast and then
there's another object off to the side and your side sensors well they don't exist so it just runs
right into something so you need to understand the limitations of your sensors when you're tracking
yourself and might be something that you should go out and just test in some different situations to
see how the drone reacts when it's trying to find you moving around an object a mistake a
lot of us made as new drone pilots was taking off in dusty environments and that's really
bad for the drone one all that dust gets in the motors and causes issues but it can also
cover the camera lens which then really kind of ruins any footage you might get so an easy way
around this is to get a drone landing mat it gives you a nice big area to land on and take off from
but as you get more experience you can also do things like learn to hand launch and hand catch
your drone but that's a little bit advanced so i wouldn't start with that i definitely just start
with something like a drone mat if you plan to fly from places that have lots of dust or sand
small debris so one mistake is flying too close to wildlife if you take your drone off and you're
flying around birds like seagulls at the beach well there's a good chance that they're gonna
come after your drone and there's also stories of new pilots flying near wildlife and disturbing
them and causing some bigger issues which ends up hurting the whole drone community so just try
to keep a respectful distance from wildlife when you're out filming one thing a lot of new drone
pilots don't understand is how easy it is to lose these little control sticks either when you're
screwing them in and then they fall out in a place like this they'll disappear forever there
is a handy little storage place back here but it's important to be really careful when you're taking
them off or putting them on and another thing i don't think a lot of people understand is how
fragile these propellers are i've broken a few of them just taking this out of my camera bag or
putting it in and so one thing i really recommend is make sure you have extra sets of propellers and
because these ones screw on and off you've got to make sure you've got that little screwdriver
otherwise you're not going to be able to fly it at all one big mistake is not checking your
propellers before a flight or after you're done flying so if you accidentally nick something well
you might put some damage on those propellers also if they've just been in your bag and they've been
moving around well there's a chance that there could be a crack or there could be a break and
if you take the drone off and there's a crack in the propeller well there's a chance that it
could break in half and then your drone could just fall out of the sky it does happen so make sure
every time that you're taking your drone out to fly look at the propellers make sure that they're
ready to go and one thing that you're going to want to do is just make sure you always have a
set of backup propellers and always make sure you have that little screwdriver so you can take your
propellers on and off when you need to replace them another big mistake a lot of people make
is not knowing your stopping distance in other words when you're flying towards something and you
let off the throttle it takes a minute for the drone to stop and this changes based on how fast
you're going so if you're flying in cinematic mode or a slow mode the stopping distance can be much
shorter but if you're flying in sport mode or the fastest mode it's going to take a lot longer to
stop because it's going that much faster and so learning your stopping distance is really
important before you start flying really close to or really close to toward something before
you accidentally run into it or end up in a tree one big mistake that a lot of new pilots make is
getting out to a location and not having an sd card or not having a card that you can format
i mean i've actually done this before a few times and it's really frustrating to go somewhere and
not be able to record or only have like a couple minutes to record so you just want to make sure
before you go out and you're trying to get to some epic spot check your memory cards because you'll
want to make sure that you have a completely empty memory card that you can use and fill up also a
big thing that i like to do is have big memory cards i use 128s when i'm out filming and so that
way i just never run out of space when i'm out filming a mistake a lot of newer drone pilots make
is not understanding the different speed modes that are on most drones most of them have three
one is sport mode or ludicrous mode or it might be different depending on your
manufacturer but that's basically the drone is all out as fast as it can possibly go
and basically doesn't hold anything back and if it has obstacle avoidance obstacle avoidance is
pretty much off all the time on every drone and then you've got your normal mode which is pretty
fast but gives you a little bit higher level of control and then you have cinematic mode or the
slowest mode on most drones and that gives you these really smooth slow movements that give
you a lot of really cinematic feel but you really need to know how the drone responds in each one of
these modes so you know when to use them and you understand how the drone operates and responds
to your controls when you're operating in that cinematic mode the normal mode or the sport mode
another big mistake when it comes to your memory cards is not having fast enough memory cards so
if you use slower cards you get a cheap card or something well you're gonna have footage that
stutters you can see from here this is footage shot on a card that's not fast enough and when
you're out flying and you have this happening you might just think the transmission's cutting out
but what's actually happening is the card's not fast enough to continue writing that clip and so
when you get back to edit well all your footage is going to be choppy and unusable so just make
sure that you're using fast enough cards and to see what's compatible you can go to dji's website
and see the list of cards that are accepted with the dji mini 3. a mistake a lot of new pilots make
and i made certainly when i was first starting out is not understanding how to use nd filters
properly i mean i've done a whole video about it it's going to be linked down in the description
but for your first few flights don't worry about it just go out fly learn to fly your drone but as
you learn to fly your drone and get more confident it's really important to understand how to use
nd filters so that your videos and your photos can look the best they can possibly look from your
drone the next big mistake is not letting your drone set the home point before you take off and
fly so i'm out here on the beach i could take the drone up and it connects to the controller and i
can start flying and what i could do is just start flying out over the ocean well the drone needs to
lock onto the gps and once it locks onto gps up in the sky well then it sets the home point so
if you're already flying and you're way out over the ocean and just like in sport mode flying away
well it's going to set that home point somewhere where you don't want that home point to be set and
then so when you return to home or you're getting low on battery it's going to return to that point
that's like out in the ocean so just make sure that before you take off and fly that your drone
connects to the gps signal and it sets that home point a mistake i made with my first few drones
and other beginners make as well is not making sure that the drone is updated and activated
and that everything's ready to go before you go out to fly you go out to fly you end up finding
out that you have to update something and you've got to activate it before you can even take off
the ground so when you first take your drone out of the box it's important to turn it on connect
everything to your phone and make sure there are no updates and make sure everything's activated
and that the drone is ready to go before you go out to try and find some awesome place to go fly
for the next 15 mistakes you need to go to this guy's channel and the video is linked right there