Can I use zoom during a flight plan?

[Shiningmonk]

Is there any way to use zoom during a flight plan, either automatically or manually (without stopping the flight plan)? I would love to fly at a safer, higher altitude but look as if I'm much lower by zooming into the point of interest. T

 

[Rocky the FS]

Since you can control camera pan up or down in a Flight Plan, I would imagine the zoom control would also work. You just can't use the flight controls so all camera directions (drone headings) have to be set up in the Flight Plan.

Give it a try by panning down to your POI from a higher altitude and zooming in. I'll bet it works.

 

[Shiningmonk]

Since you can control camera pan up or down in a Flight Plan, I would imagine the zoom control would also work. You just can't use the flight controls so all camera directions (drone headings) have to be set up in the Flight Plan.

Give it a try by panning down to your POI from a higher altitude and zooming in. I'll bet it works.

Thanks, I will try this, I was afraid that touching the RC would stop the FP.

 

[Rocky the FS]

No, only the right and left sticks

 

[Reconnaissance Squadron]

Thanks, I will try this, I was afraid that touching the RC would stop the FP.

Touching the remote does not stop the flight plan. I will have to experiment to see exactly what it does but you need not worry about touching the camera controls during a Flight Plan. If the camera angle is under the control of the flight plan it ignores your efforts to move the camera, I know that from experience. I suppose that if you wanted to move the camera you could stop the plan and fly on manually. I don't know how it would respond if you tried to resume the plan. Might it resume so that it took the drone directly to the next waypoint after the last one it visited according to the plan? That might be too much to hope for. It might go straight to the first waypoint again, which might be a really bad thing.

I will do a short and safe Flight Plan with some bits with the camera under control and some bits with no camera instructions beyond the video still rolling and see what playing with various controls does.

Post your results or prior experience here.

 

[Rocky the FS]

I suspect that if the FP has a POI, the camera angle is not variable, but that doesn't mean the zoom isn't. I'd try this out if it wasn't raining cats and dogs today.

 

[Rocky the FS]

So I was able to test this today after the rain stopped. On both a FP without a POI and the same one with a POI, the camera both panned up and down and zoomed in and out, but ONLY if the camera was set to 1080p. At 4K 30 fps the zoom only provoked the camera into buzzing with the "max lossless zoom" message.

I noticed that as soon as I started gimballing the camera in the FP with a POI it stopped pointing at the POI, leading me to believe that manual gimballing cancels the POI but not the whole FP. It will take another test to see if ONLY zooming during FP with POI works without losing the POI. I need more practice using Flight Plan anyway because it is one possible way to orbit a house or other interesting POI and keep a constant distance from it while the camera keeps it centered.

The other thing I noticed is that the Anafi went around the FP at about twice the rate I wanted. The FP was about 50 meters on one side and 100 meters on the long side. I'll have to fiddle with the parameters to see if I can get a nice, slow orbit.....when it gets above 50 again. ?

EDIT: I found out how to adjust leg speed from within the FP....you touch and hold anywhere on the leg line between points and an Insert/Edit box comes up. Touch Edit and the current speed shows, tap that and edit it then accept it. You need to think about speed as you add the second point, then all the rest of the speeds will stay at that value. Otherwise you have to tap every leg and change it....kind of a PITA if you have 10 legs! Or maybe you want different speeds for different legs! Flight Plan is a really powerful tool and it will take many flights to explore all its complexities.

 

[Reconnaissance Squadron]

EDIT: I found out how to adjust leg speed from within the FP....you touch and hold anywhere on the leg line between points and an Insert/Edit box comes up. Touch Edit and the current speed shows, tap that and edit it then accept it. You need to think about speed as you add the second point, then all the rest of the speeds will stay at that value. Otherwise you have to tap every leg and change it....kind of a PITA if you have 10 legs! Or maybe you want different speeds for different legs! Flight Plan is a really powerful tool and it will take many flights to explore all its complexities.

Yes. It is very important to set that leg speed as it is inherited from the previous waypoint. Most of my Flight Plans are ambitious and I fly most of them at top speed, with a possible exception orbiting a point of interest. It has become second nature to overrule the defaults. The first waypoint starts at 3 metres, what's that all about? I suppose that's for people shooting people. I tend to make my first and last waypoints just over treetop height over an empty field next to where I plan to stand. Then I zoom out the map and make the next waypoint quite a distance away and high enough to clear all the obstacles, then I adjust the speed because the default is 5 metres per second which is too slow for a big flight. That way all the waypoints which follow should inherit the sensible height and speed. I remember once plotting an ambitious flight with a few orbits. I was concerned that it might be a little too ambitious so I pressed the button to reveal what time it would take: 34 minutes. Agggh! I hadn't reset that first leg speed so it would have been trying to do it all at a mere 5 metres per second rather than 11. It was easier to just start again!

 

[Rocky the FS]

Is there any way to use zoom during a flight plan?

I have finally (between rain showers) been able to verify that you can in fact use the zoom while in a flight plan with a POI that the camera is holding in the center of the frame. I haven't been able yet to verify if you can use both up/down gimbal motions and zoom in a flight plan that does NOT have a POI, but I suspect that is true.