DJI Phantom

DJI Phantom    Buy Now! 

The go to camera quadcopter is, without a doubt, the DJI Phantom vision + 3.0! If you are tired of messing around with the toys and ready to upgrade a quality camera quad, this is the one. There are various versions of the Phantom, each of which is great in their own right. Phantom 2 doesn’t come with a camera or a gimbal but has a place to mount one and use a GoPro.  The Phantom 2 vision has a camera built in but no gimbal. This never made much sense to me seeing as if you got a camera, you’d want a gimbal for clean smooth shots. Now this has been discontinued by DJI, instead they rolling with the vision + 3.0, which has a built in camera with a 3 point axis gimbal, gyro transmitter, and GPS, so this is the one we are going to talk about. This built in camera is good, but said to be a better back up camera than a primary one. The best option is slap the trusty old GoPro 3 or higher for better recording. Don’t get me wrong, the standard camera is running at 1080p and is a good one so don’t feel like it’s not going to get the job.

 

Controls 

The transmitter has gyro control for the gimbal, meaning that if you want to control the camera or tilt it another angle then all you do is tilt the controller and it moves the gimbal. Smart devices such as the ipad, iphone, and androids are used in conjunction with the transmitter for FPV, recording, and taking pictures. One of the upgrades was done to the transmitter and that is that it doesn’t take batteries anymore. It has a built in rechargeable battery. On the smart device, you have all of the information that you really need. Two of the more important ones, in my opinion, are the altitude and the battery life. In addition, you do get things like speed and signal strength. When you get out of range for the video streaming, then it starts to get static and will go black, but this does not affect the video quality or footage in anyway. There is a slight latency when streaming, but because you are going to want to have very deliberate and slow movements when recording, this is not really an issue. You can in fact, and probably will, find yourself flying via FPV.

Range

Getting back to range, this quadcopter easily exceeds the 400 ft. fly zone set forth by our government, by having the ability to reach heights of 1000 ft. and a distance of about ½ mile. Now you may be upset that you legally can fly this thing to its limits in terms of height but 400 ft. is enough to get some amazing aerial shots. GPS is really cool on the Phantom. It stays around where it took off from while hovering, meaning that it will actually fight the wind and use the GPS to get back to that area. You can even pull the quadcopter by hand while flying and you will feel the resistance of it fighting to get back. Not a huge deal if it is flying right next to you, but this is especially useful when flying at high altitudes when wind is fiercer and your visibility is lower due to the distance. The GPS also assists you if you lose transmission or if the battery starts to run out, then it will fly itself back to where it took off from. If it is at a high altitude, then it will fly over to its spot, then descend to about 20 meters. Cool stuff going on with the GPS.

 

Plan Your Own Course

Let’s talk ground station! What is ground station anyway? It’s a waypoint app, basically. Plan yourself a course with different points and set your speed and altitude and let it rip. You can alter course in real time during flight. It also has one push takeoff and landing. You might ask yourself, “But why would I want it to control itself? That takes the fun out.” The benefit of this is now you can focus on just controlling the camera for perfect shots while your quadcopter is flying a predetermined flight plan. Also, it comes with a no way point area. What is this you ask? Well as most of you may already know, you can’t fly near airports, and this automatically sets a 5 mile radius around airports so that it will not let you set a waypoint within the radius. Good heads up play DJI!

 

Conclusion 

Bottom line here folks, is that the Phantom 2 vision + 3.0 is a fan favorite when it comes to camera drones. It’s used by professionals and hobbyist alike. The reviews on Amazon alone just about say it all. People of all ages and for different uses absolutely rave about this high quality fun flying camera drone!