iphone 5 on Phantom

[loabinman]

I have been thinking of attaching my an iphone 5 to my phantom and photographing still with it. The quality of still image is far superior to the stills from the GoPro and as I understand it I control it from another iphone. Early days yet but wondered if anyone here has any experience with using an iphone5 as a camera from above? The other advantage is that in the event of a flyaway I can track my phone. IF I can mount it I would want to do so in both landscape and portrait mode depending on what I was photographing.....

Thoughts anyone??

 

[auck]

the 8 mega pixel camera on an iphone 5 is superior than the 12 mega pixel of a gopro hero 3 black edition? i think not. even if you got the silver edition of the gopro, the stills are 11 mega pixel. the lens is also bigger on the gopro, so that generally equates to better picture quality over all, specially in low light situations.

sure you can use your iphone to track the phantom if it was attached and had a fly away event, but that's one expensive tracker. forget about a fly away, what if you crashed? are you willing to take a risk of breaking the phone? however if you have multiple iphones that will allow you to take pictures with your iphone 5 attached to the phantom, then you're probably well off enough to not care if anything does happen to your iphone.

of course there's always the "can i mount this xxxx to the phantom" situation. i've seen adapters for the iphones for photography purposes, but you would have to fork out about $60 and up for them and none of them are meant to attach the iphone to the phantom.

not worth it in my opinion.

 

[loabinman]

My understanding and advice from a professional laboratory is the issue with the GoPro is not the resolution of the camera as such but the compression the images are given in producing a jpeg. IF one could get a raw file then great. They tell me that the file produced from an Iphone 5 is far superior to the GpPro file. As one of Australia's largest professional photographic laboratories I think I will take their advice unless I can prove otherwise. Of course IF one could hand a better camera that worked in time lapse mode even better.......

 

[Alex]

Tried that earlier this year with an iPhone 4

Worked poorly due to the vibration and was a little nose heavy to fly with the added weight.

 

[Driffill]

How do you tap the screen to take a photo while the phantom is flying???

 

[CameraGuy]

I've produced and sold over 1.5 million DVD's on digital photography. I've personally owned over 145 cameras in the past 10 years, and that doesn't include any cell phone cameras.

I teach photography professionally. You can check out my youtube page http://www.youtube.com/dbkcreative

Those are my credentials.

Here is my definitive statement on the iPhone vs GoPro debate.

THERE IS NO WAY THE iPHONE CAMERA IS BETTER THAN THE GOPRO IN IMAGE QUALITY!!!!!

First, the sensor in the GoPro is larger in physical size. It is the size of the sensor that matters most. You can check it out in the specs. I've seen each sensor in the RAW - in other words outside the cameras.

Second, the lens on the GoPro is superior to the iPhone. It has a better speed, and more actual glass in the make up of the construction.

Now, on the subject of compression, which is what your argument is based on. Take a look at the file sizes. The GoPro file size is larger. It has LESS compression, not more. The file that the iPhone makes is purpose built to be emailed using cellular data. It has the most compression of the two cameras. Neither takes a RAW file. RAW files only matter if the sensor is larger, and if you intend to modify the image. RAW files are like working with negatives.

Third, If you use the wifi networking on the iPhone or for that matter the GoPro while flying the Phantom, you can guarantee a flyaway. The two radios will interfere with each other. Read the threads carefully. There are lots of warnings from even DJI about it.

Lastly, there are purpose built accessories for the GoPro and your Phantom. Thing like gimbals, mounts, and even ND filters, which will improve your image.

If image quality is important, buy a bigger bird, and put a DSLR or APS-C sensor camera on it with a real lens. Of course, you are now in the thousands of $$.

I don't care what a photo finisher has to say on the matter. He doesn't even spend a second looking at the image. It's all done by the computer now.

I hope this helps.



Darren

 

[CameraGuy]

As one of Australia's largest professional photographic laboratories I think I will take their advice unless I can prove otherwise. Of course IF one could hand a better camera that worked in time lapse mode even better.......

Simple to prove.

Take two pictures - one with each camera - then look at the image at 100% in size. Shouldn't take more than a second or two to figure this out.

Oh, and the GoPro has time lapse mode, way more controls and settings than even the best app for the iPhone.