- So this has been my latest obsession.
These are called Cinelifters.
(drone buzzing)
Basically your fully manual high performance
acrobatic FPV drone,
but instead of it carrying a GoPro,
it carries a cinema camera.
Didn't crash it yet.
It is scary to find something so expensive,
but kind of makes it more fun, too.
(onlooker laughs) (drone whirring)
Now, the way you fly these are very different
from a typical drone
because it's fully manual.
Most drones you could kind of let go of the controller.
Oh, snap.
Oh, hold on.
Ooh, I really messed that one up.
I think I have to replace the motor.
That was not a good crash.
You can't just let go of the controller
or else it'll do what that just did.
But yeah, when it comes to learning how to fly FPV,
crashing is definitely a big part of it.
Oh! (grunts)
Now, the Sony FX6 that's on here
is actually a really ideal FPV camera.
Comes in at just two pounds,
has built-in ND filters,
records gyro data, doesn't have IBIS.
But the feature that I'm most excited about
is the 4K-120.
In this video, I wanna test out high speed cameras
on high speed drones. (drone buzzing)
(upbeat music)
Oh, crap. - Wow.
(upbeat music)
- [Gene] Now, the thing with FPV is that a lot of times,
the best shots come from when you're right there
in the middle of the action.
So, it could definitely be a high risk,
high reward type of thing.
(upbeat pulsing music)
Oh, crap.
Oh crap, I can't see.
- [Camera Operator] You can't see anything?
- No, nothing.
Hold on.
- [Camerawoman] Okay, slow, slow, slow,
slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow.
You're about to hit.
(shutter clicking)
- Just in case you thought
my FPV addiction couldn't get any worse. (laughs)
Whoa!
Shout out to Lumenier and GetFPV.
This is the QAV-Pro.
Last week we went out
and flew some FPV drones with Sammy and Josh,
and I was filming with the O3 air unit
at 120 frames per second.
And what's kind of cool about 120 frames per second
is that the math works out
so that if you play it back on a 24 frame per second project
as well as a 30,
and it has an evenly distributed amount of frames.
Now, of course you could take that footage
and slow it way down,
but if you want that footage
to still look like it's moving,
you have to be moving the camera fast as well.
Of course, when it comes to my experience
with these Cinelifters,
I started off with the iFlight Taurus X8,
which kind of got me started
and also taught me some lessons
on how not to crash.
And then we started flying a little bit more
with the bigger brother, the X8 Pro.
And with that we've flown
all kinds of different cameras and stuff,
but that one also
I do need to do a little bit of work on.
(drill buzzing)
This has 31-15 motors,
so bigger than what I'm used to flying here
and nine inch propellers.
So, just bigger all around.
Before I fly with the FX6,
I wanna just kind of get used to the thing
and I have a dummy weight on there.
(drone buzzing)
It's just gonna make me nervous
because it thinks the battery is somewhere where it's not.
The battery's super freaking low.
I gotta land over here.
- [Camera Operator] Yep, land.*
To the right of that big bush.
- I think I would've learned my lesson
for the first time I flew the battery too low
but I saw the numbers dropping pretty quick
and I was like, "Oh crap,"
I just set it down over there.
(camera operator laughs)
That's what I get for now coming back in time.
Ah, figured it out.
Just have to go into BetaFlight
and adjust a few of these parameters.
These are nothing like the DJI drones
that basically tell you when you're on a low battery
and flies itself back, basically.
You have to keep an eye on the voltage.
- [Camera Operator 2] Let try the real thing now.
(drone buzzing)
- [Gene] Honestly it flies freaking great.
Like, I can barely tell that the camera's on there.
- [Camera Operator] Whoa!
- [Gene] I can whip this thing around pretty good actually.
The one thing I do wish it had was GPS.
Not necessarily for like the GPS recovery,
but I like to have to look in the corner
and see how fast I'm going so I could brag.
(drone buzzing)
This thing handles really good
considering what I'm kind of pushing it to.
(drone buzzing)
That was fun.
Alright, so basically my goal for this week
is to fly a fast camera,
120 frames per second
on a fast drone.
So, 120 kilometers an hour.
I gotta do the calculations there.
Pretty sure it could do that.
All right, first dive with the camera.
- [Camera Operator] Whoa!
- [Gene] All right, got four minutes of flight time.
That's pretty good.
(drone whirring)
Let's see if I can hit that landing pad, all right.
Does it count?
I mean, the propellers are kind of poking out, but.
Now, just like anything that makes a lot of noise,
that also draws a lot of attention
and there's definitely a few questions
that everybody asks.
How fast can that thing go?
And in this case, this is the Lumenier QAV-PRO
and this is supposed to be able to fly
over 86 miles per hour,
but there are Cinelifters out there
that can go faster.
This is using the DJI O3 Air Unit
to send the video across.
So, in perfect conditions we could get up to 10 kilometers.
Currently, they do come with the original air unit
but they set this one up with the O3 for me,
'cause I love the range and the quality out of the new one.
And they are gonna be selling
with the O3 as well.
Now, even though this video
is more about flying big cameras on big drones,
I still love flying the little ones.
I mean, with a small drone I could just whoop,
okay, line it up.
And then just bail out last second.
There's definitely some pros and cons
to heavier setups like this.
Like, it definitely has a lot more weight
and you feel it.
It's kind of the difference
between trying to stop a bowling ball
versus a baseball, right?
This takes a little bit more momentum,
so you have to pull out dives a little bit early
and all that.
And I feel like the benefit of this weight is that
when I'm approaching a gap
there's not much of this like, whoa,
it's just kind of like solid and locked on.
So I do feel like when I'm approaching like a gap
or something, I just have that finer control.
So it's definitely a different flight experience,
but I honestly love it.
Like it's so much fun.
I'm having so much fun right now. (laughs)
Hey guys, we're just stopping by here real quick
to help out on a shoot.
We're getting a Porsche
that's driving down this road over here.
- [Friend] Is it fun?
- [Gene] Oh, yeah. (laughs)
Always.
- [Camera Operator] A little stressful couple times.
- [Gene] Always a little like exciting when -
- [Friend] It's always stressful.
- [Gene] Any little mistake is like $10,000 gone.
(all laugh)
I'm gonna try diving that mountain right there
but it's in the shade.
So the exposure's gonna change when I get there.
I'm actually gonna use the auto ND exposure.
So my shutter speed, my F-stop and ISO all stayed locked in.
With the variable ND I actually adjusts my exposure.
Yeah, so playing with auto exposure --
(drone chiming)
this will be interesting.
(drone whirring)
So here the auto exposure is probably closing way down
because I got the sun going straight down the lens here.
But I would say this is probably a good turnaround
point right here,
and going to go in for the dive.
Man, these things fall so much faster than what I'm used to.
Soon as I kind of just like let off and just
go into a free fall, like this thing just goes, so yeah.
Yeah, this is pretty epic out here though.
And I'm very curious what the auto exposure's doing.
(drone whirring)
Don't show this landing.
Show the other one where I got it spot on.
- [Camera Operator] That was perfect.
- Oh perfect.
I think we finally got some good lighting
and a cool subject.
- [Camera Operator] Does he know how to do wheelies?
(motorcycle firing and revving)
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
there he goes.
(dirt bike motor revving)
(intense music)
- [Gene] Dang, he's getting some speed.
Holy crap.
He must be hitting at least 50.
(pulsing intense music)
Definitely going so fast.
Holy cow.
I'm almost at full throttle here.
These are some fast wheelies here.
Huge shout out to Kale.
We were just driving around and we saw him on his bike
and we were like, can we film you?
And here we are now.
I am super excited
(shutter clicking) to see this footage.
- [Camera Operator 2] You got great comedic timing too.
They're like, "can you do wheelies?"
(all laugh and murmur) - Yeah.
And then just instantly like, oh my god, look
at this mud on here.
- They're like, oh, they're FPV too.
- Hey, what's going?
Are you the other pilot?
- Yeah.
- Gene, nice to meet you man.
- I love your stuff by the way.
- Oh, appreciate it.
Heard another drone.
It's like that sounds like an FPV flying a cinema camera.
- Well I was like over then I was like,
I hear something over here.
I was like, which way am I facing?
I have to look at my GPS. (scattered laughter)
- See you were out here find FX 6 also.
- Yeah.
- But there's only a few of us.
- What are the odds of that?
My setup.
And look at that.
(shutter clicking)
- [Gene] You fly Komodo also or are you -
- All Sony.
- For the frame rate or -
- Low light and image quality.
Everything about the La Mamba is -
If I have a a heavier lens,
I can sit the battery back a tiny bit.
- [Gene] And lock it in.
Oh that's cool. - Yeah.
Make sure it's balanced.
- Do you ever use Catalyst Browse or Gyroflow?
- I tried Gyroflow and it was gorgeous, man.
It just looked like GoPro footage but cinema quality
I just couldn't believe it.
- [Gene] Oh, you like the 20 mil?
- Yes, this or the 24.
Quick hack though,
I had some problems - - Uh-huh.
- with the battery jiggling back and forth.
So I got some of the foam
that you get in all your FPV motors
- [Gene] Oh.
- shoved it between there, because,
- Oh. - when this isn't here
like listen, you have a little bit of play.
(drone clicking)
- Oh, interesting.
Are you flying, uh, Lumenier batteries?
- Yeah, that's the only thing I fly.
- You need a little duster here.
(drone whirring)
- No I think you do like - (Gene laughs)
- [Gene] What do you mean?
No, mine looks perfect.
- You just got back from Burning Man over here. (laughs)
- No, this is the filter.
It's the dirt filter.
So dirt bike shots came out really good.
Now we're back out here and look at this.
So on this one I'm gonna try zoom in all the way
into 35 millimeters.
So we're zoomed in, which is kind of tough to frame
up the shot exactly, but since I'm recording 120 frames
per second, even though the shot isn't tightened
I may not be framed it perfectly.
I only really need it to be in frame for just
like a quick second so that I can slow it
down and expand that out to a couple of seconds.
- Look at the boy ripping.
(all laughing and overlapping murmuring)
- What do you guys think of the Jeep?
- It looks great. - Yeah.
- That drone looks good too.
- I'm pretty sure my lens is just coated in dirt, so,
you can go ahead and bring that back.
- I never get to see the drone fly.
I'm always that guy.
- You're always in the goggles,
huh? - Yeah.
- What's the tightest lens you guys usually fly?
- 28. - 35.
- [Gene] 28?
Is there a lot of guesswork in the framing on 35?
It's pretty tight.
- Yeah you draw like lines. - You change your -
- Oh, you draw the lines on the goggles?
- Yeah.
- I don't know how to do that.
Yeah, because right now I'm just looking at a super
wide image and I'm just like, I don't know
- [Jordan] Yeah. (friends laughing)
- maybe some of it will be in frame, but
- Throw the cross hairs up and it'll help.
- I've been asking for a light craft sweater forever
- Oh. - bro.
Hell yeah.
- Shmedium. - Thank you.
First impressions of the QAV-Pro
- I like the thumbscrews.
- Jordan builds frames.
So you can build this stuff. - Really.
- What are you looking at?
- It's very wide.
That's what I'm noticing.
But it's, it's really cool.
It's like all the machining.
It's beautifully built.
Nautica has lights.
You see the little lights?
- Yeah, yeah. - Wanna fly it right now?
- Sure. - Cool.
(low music)
- It's stable for how windy it is.
- [Gene] If you go like a few feet behind the dust
do you think it'll take down the drone, or -
- [Jordan] No.
- [Gene] Do you think you're pretty safe?
- [Jordan] You're pretty safe.
- [Gene] It just clouds up the lens.
So I guess just save that for the end. (laughs)
- Oh it's crazy,
it like barely even notices that the wind is here.
Yeah, this thing flies pretty well, man.
We're gonna have to get you to fly one of our rigs.
See how high my throttle is right now?
- Yeah, it's in the middle.
It's maybe 60%? - It's, it's -
- Yeah.
- We wouldn't even get up to this range with ours.
- [Gene] Really?
- [Jordan] This battery's getting pretty low.
- Yeah, we got about like four minutes.
- It's just, I can feel it starting to sag out here.
It's definitely heavy.
The, I think the heft of it is helping it
in this scenario because we're getting a ton
of wind and it's kind of just able to push through it.
It's very stable.
- 60 mil, 120 frames per second.
Do you guys do a lot of 120?
- If we do shoot high speed, we shoot a lot with a wave.
Are you guys getting the new Freefly camera?
- I, I want -
- The Ember? - I want one.
- We really gotta switch to 03,
it's incredible. (drone whirring)
- [Gene] Once I switched over I can't really go back.
- It's a lot heavier than our rigs.
- [Friend 2] Yeah.
- But it kind of helps with the stability.
You're not gonna get like the maximum performance
but you'll be able to film really well with it.
- It feels ready to go right out the box though
which is sweet.
- I want you to try flying one of ours.
- Oh damn this wind is great.
- Yeah, it is.
- So you guys fly 12S?
- Yes.
- Custom made.
Just all the power you can possibly put into it.
Are these, these are the carbon fiber colors.
(overlapping background conversations)
- They're carbon blend.
- I don't know if I can fly this thing - (laughs)
- No, if this goes down, I'm gonna take responsibility
and have to repair that one myself.
- Oh man.
They're letting me fly a Lightcraft rig.
- Every time he says that I get a little more nervous.
(Gene laughs)
- So on this thing
you wouldn't never really hit the full throttle?
- No.
- Oh this is smart.
- So then you can't yank it out.
- Okay, that's what I need to do.
(drone whirring)
- Yeah, you look good out there.
Got the power to get around it
- [Gene] Man.
It could, yeah, I could swing it pretty easily.
I like, I'm rarely over 50% throttle.
- [Jordan] Right, it -
- [Gene] It still feels heavy
in the terms of like the momentum.
- [Jordan] Right.
- [Gene] But in terms of just trying to get out of things,
it's like easy. - Right.
- Oh look at that.
Yeah.
- Okay, okay, just be careful
not to crash it. (laughs)
I haven't crashed a drone yet on this video
which is a problem, I gotta fix that.
- Yeah, one of yours not one of ours.
(both laugh)
- I'm at like 70% throttle here.
(drone whirring) Holy crap.
Yeah.
- Yeah, it's fast, huh?
- [Camera Operator] You're not helping the addiction.
- We'll help with his addiction.
How's the wind affecting it?
- [Gene] It's not bad, honestly.
- Yeah?
- [Gene] You know, the drone is fine.
I'm like being blown around though.
That was exhilarating.
A 12S.
It's just like the intimidation, but after you get up
in the air it just like can go faster
but it doesn't have to go faster.
- Right, right.
- I never hit full throttle at all.
Like just coming out of a dive.
I might be at like 70%.
You could into a dive much longer, huh?
These just dropped so fast. - They're heavy.
- Like they accelerate to terminal velocity like instantly.
- They're really heavy - - Yeah.
- and it takes a lot of power to pull out of those.
- Yeah.
- You got the Gimbal FPV out?
- Yeah, man.
I'm flying a little RS3 and a Komodo.
- Whoo!
I used to have a Wrangler
so this brings back good old memories.
Traction control off please.
There we go.
- Oh my, my gosh. (camera operator laughs)
That's so much better.
- [Camera Operator] Oh (laughing) my --
- [Gene] I miss my Jeep.
(all laugh)
- Here Gene we'll um -
- Alrighty guys.
- See you later.
- Drive safe homie.
- Thank you. - Bye guys.
(drone whirring)
(intense thumping music)
(camera operator squealing)
- Oh crap.
Oh crap, I can't see.
I can't see.
- [Camera Operator] Okay, okay, hold on.
- Hold on.
- [Camera Operator] You can't see anything?
- [Gene] No, nothing.
Hold on.
- [Camera Operator] Okay, you can just land right -
Slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow
slow, you're about to hit, two feet.
- Hold on.
Hold on, hold on.
- Okay.
(wind whipping) (drone whirring)
- Holy crap.
(drone buzzes)
Oh my God.
I lost visual for a second on that.
A piece of mud just went, pfft, straight into the lens.
(laughs) Oh my God.
How's the camera doing?
That's what happened to my lens.
In my goggles I could see the particles flying past
and I'm just like oh this is gonna be so nice.
Let me just put the camera right here.
Just looks so good.
Just right in here.
And then one just went straight
into my eyes and I was like,
(all laughing) I'm blind.
I had to take off my goggles
and get like find it quickly and then fly it back.
Oh my gosh.
That was freaking awesome.
I'm excited for that shot,
because we shot it at one 20 also.
Yeah!
(shutter clicking)
- Is this the Inspired 2.5?
- (laughs) Sammy builds drones from the ground up
like printing the carbon fiber and all that stuff.
- Design. - Designed.
- I designed, fabricated, designed it with Josh.
- This is what I've been flying.
- Oh this is light.
- Yeah.
- 16-35 F4.
- And this has a dual ISO of 12,800, so -
- Oh, you're good.
- It's like I never really need the F14.
- You don't need that.
- A little bit dirty.
- Finally I gotta clear -
- This is just for protection.
- Yeah.
You like having GPS on all your setups?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- Does it have GPS?
- No. No.
- It's good to have GPS on everything.
- Oh yeah, image quality on on these, on these FX6
are great. - Yeah.
- Yeah, it is really nice.
- You know we had a couple of clients
that asked for the FX6.
- You could put the hand grip on there
and all that stuff or you could just strip it off
and have it as a box camera pretty much.
- 4K 120.
- That's crazy.
- The one downside of 120 frames per second
is that it doesn't record the gyro data off -
(drone whizzing) off the camera.
- I definitely would want to run bigger, heavier props.
- So you said you could put on thicker props
but then it would just reduce the flight time.
- Yeah, cuz you, you're gonna get a higher pitch
if you change props, you probably get a little more punch
on it to see if it can hold like a hackey sack.
That held it good.
(drone screaming)
But I would change new props for sure.
I mean that's probably my biggest thing
but you're gonna lose at least like 30 seconds.
- [Gene] Oh, flight time?
- Motors are nice and cool. - Yeah.
- So this is your setup here. - Yep.
- Hey look, you got, you got the same controller as I did.
What? (Sammy laughs)
I'm just kidding.
I actually, I was just like, I brought this over
to Sammy was just like, Sammy, I don't know how
to set this up can you do this for me?
You wanna try flying it?
I'll fly it, yeah.
Feels a little bit like doggish.
It's probably just the props pitch.
- [Gene] So it's just not as grippy around the corners.
- [Josh] Yeah, I mean it still has plenty enough.
- I noticed that for the most part it's pretty stable.
Like, it's -- - Oh yeah, it's very stable.
- it rarely requires stabilization.
- Yeah.
Overall, it flies pretty good.
I think that you could literally,
if you change the props you'll be fine.
- I just don't want to cook the motors, but -
- Yeah. - You won't cook the motors.
- That's the same motor as we have.
- So yeah, I want ahead and ordered some
wider nine inch propellers to try that out.
It sounds like it's a performance to battery
life trade off there.
But anyways, I'm really happy
that we managed to make it to the end of this video
and this camera is still in one piece.
Right?
Whoo-hoo, alright.
But one of the coolest things I saw while editing this video
is how many different flying styles
there are.
For example, Jordan came in
and started off with some classic FPV shots, but then threw
in some real funky shots that were really cool
and I didn't even know were possible.
And then Sammy also did some free styling with this
which is very cool.
So now going back to some of the commercials he shot
I could see a little bit
of his fingerprint on some of these shots.
And then Josh came in and doing the surf like motion.
You can see that in the Toyota commercial he shot.
Of course there's Robert McIntosh who got me
into FTB in the first place.
And he is the thin whoop master.
There is no such thing
as a gap too small for him to fit through.
And then there's Nerc,
the first one to ever show me a Cinelifter in action.
And lately Ellis van Jason has been giving me advice
on how to fly long range.
If you wanna just see some of the craziest long-range dives
definitely go check him out.
And then of course there's me that's still just
struggling not to crash.
(drone whizzing) (drone beeps)
So I just disarmed it.
My joystick got stuck, (blows)
a little piece of dirt got in the joystick
and it just dunked this thing for a second.
And luckily it was only like a few feet.
I think it's because I'm sitting too close
to it as it takes off and all the rocks come
up and get all over my controller and stuff.
I'm gonna come back here where it's safer.
Well I was very close to making it
through the whole video without crashing, but man
luckily it was very minor, actually,
not even a single propeller loss.
So we're good.
We're back in the air.
Now in terms of the set-up, really happy with it.
The camera quality of course is awesome.
And the QAV-Pro, it's got a lot of nice touches.
Like just plug it into beta flight here.
I like that it's just one screw to adjust the camera angle.
And there's four screws here, so I could slide the camera
up back and forth in case I wanna put a heavier lens on.
- [Gene] You sure about this Dan?
- I feel good about it.
I generally get around five minutes
of flight time if I'm just doing a light cruise.
I know if you're used to Mavix where you get
like a 30 minute flight time, that sounds terrible.
But you know these just have so much output when
they're flying that fast through the air, so,
it really discharges these batteries pretty fast.
These are not small batteries either.
I'm also doing a little bit of testing with this thing here.
Inspire 3.
So let me know when the comments, if you have any questions
about that.
But that is all.
Thanks for watching.
Click on stuff.
I crashed.
- You crashed what?
- (laughs) This thing.
The dumbest thing, man.
A couple of like pebbles came and like landed right here
on the thing. - Holy shit.
- [Gene] And then it jammed it.
- That happened to me.
- [Gene] And then it was kind of heading towards me.
I'm like, oh crap.
And I disarmed it right there.
- That happened to me before.
(drone whizzing)