Lens Flare anyone?

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New to the Forums. Little about me:

Had my PV2+ for 2 weeks or so now, 20+ flights.
Haven't gone above 400' or further than 1000' (i'm old school trained in the ways of 'never lose sight of your craft')
pushing the comfort zone further each time.

couple questions and comments I'd like you all to chime in on:

1) during sunsets, looking at the sun, I get a terrible GREEN lens flare? Anyone else experience this?
2)Night video is terrible. Appears as if there is a 'screen' infront of the lens. Not a very clear picture to say the least. I've seen a few youtube vids that have a similar effect, just curious if this is common.
3) any advice for flying over the ocean? I haven't had the balls to do it yet due to all the horror stories i've read so far.

I am an experienced pilot and can fly well without full GPS lock, but these "FLY AWAYS" moments, are the PV2+ just completely non-responsive to the radio? Haven't had one yet, hope I don't anytime soon.

Thanks Everyone!
 
Hi & Welcome.

1) Don't point a camera at the sun, ever. It can easily damage or destroy the CCD sensor. You might consider getting a UV filter for the lens. A couple of people sell adapters for them.
2) The camera is not high enough quality for really dark shooting. The grain you are seeing is as a result of the camera trying to bump up the ISO to compensate for the lack of light.
3) Good luck. No real advice for this, except to be sure you follow your pre-flight checklist. Make sure everything is calibrated, make sure you lock in your home position.

Most flyaways that we hear of here, people report losing complete control. The bird just takes off or dives. It seems pretty terrifying. I've upgraded my antennas in hopes of avoiding this, but there is no real proof that this will even help.
 
The most of the flyaways are pilot error.
What i noticed is that when you go in a full decent on the left stick the bird doesn't respond to other commands. So watch out for that.
 
Thanks for the input so far!

i'll get some some vids of the lens flare to show you, it's not directly at the sun, but in it's general area. The sunsets here are too good to not film!

Pre-flight check list includes:
everything on
gps connected and locked
compass calibrated after each update(usually not traveling more than 10miles, small island)

what else do you all recommend for pre-flight?
 
every spherical lens has flare when pointed towards the sun or even a bright object in some cases. THe green flare is normal for this lens. Every lens has a certain set of characteristic and the better the quality the lens , the more consistent the flare is for every lens. The v2+ lens is a piece of crap, so its best to use its uneven characteristics as a creative tool. As a cinematographer I buy lenses specifically for their quality of flare and the older lenses that do not have multiple coating have a lot more flare than a modern day lens made by Arri, Cooke or Zeiss.
 
1. Yeah. All the time.
2. Normal. The camera is terrible in low light.
3. Double check everything. Make sure the only thing that can possibly go wrong is mechanical failure and try to make sure the likelihood of that is low.
Make sure you have plenty of satellites (>9). Make sure the wind isn't too strong. I wouldn't fly out if the wind was >10mph
Oh, and don't ever descend straight down. Always descend at an angle with forward momentum in order to avoid VRS
IMO, most "Flyaways" are caused by pilot error. Some are caused by losing GPS lock in flight, the Phantom switching to atti mode and letting the wind carry it away.
A very few are probably caused by a software glitch in , or complete failure of the flight controller. Not much you can do about that. If you want to get the shot, you have to take the risk.

This was my first (and only so far) flight out over the ocean. Shot last week.
I kept my eye on the satellite count and was cautious about descending too far down the cliff face since I knew I'd lose satellites and might run into an updraft.
Stay away from the sides of cliffs or buildings, the updraft can flip you upside down without warning.
Make sure you have the range you need so you don't lose control signal. I range tested on the beach before this and had good control and video at just over 800meters away while it was over sand.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvFfsNe_UXk[/youtube]

On a side note, the Phantom seems to gather a crowd of onlookers every time I take it out of the trunk.
 
Knowing that others have the green flare helps me rest easy. I thought i may have gotten a defective lens/camera at first. Mostly because the green is so pronounced. (my dslr has lens flare but not as bad, and that's they only experience i've had with that until now).

Thanks everyone!
 

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