New use for old drone

Chrislaf · Apr 14, 2024

My Phantom 3 Standard is over 7 years old and is still flying. I don't use it anymore for photography/video but I do use it for light painting. Thanks to Litchi and to @DJ Wes's Mission Utilities I can use this old drone to fly Light Painting Missions. I use cube lights that are attached to the drone and I do a long exposure photograph of the drone flying the Litchi path with my DSLR on a tripod.

Here are some recent shots.

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Chris

Sky Guy2 · Apr 15, 2024

That looks like a heck of a good plan. Nice.

Chrislaf · Apr 15, 2024

Sky Guy2 said:
That looks like a heck of a good plan. Nice.

Thanks. Yah, my newer drones have taken over the photography duty. I have done light painting with my Mini 3 pro but the path is not as smooth because it uses virtual sticks.

I find it amazing that my old basic P3S is still able to be so useful.

Chris

Capt KO · Apr 15, 2024

Recognize the first one but the next looks like a signature. Well done

Chrislaf · Apr 15, 2024

Capt KO said:
Recognize the first one but the next looks like a signature. Well done

The second one is a kayaker. It’s more abstract. Light painting works best with a continuous line drawing.

Chris

Chrislaf · Apr 15, 2024

It was less windy tonight so I re-did the kayaker mission and updated the image above. The new image is a bit sharper. Also I did a timelapse of the drone flying the mission and have included the short clip below.

Chris

CoreySnipes · Apr 18, 2024

Chrislaf said:
It was less windy tonight so I re-did the kayaker mission and updated the image above. The new image is a bit sharper. Also I did a timelapse of the drone flying the mission and have included the short clip below.

Chris

This is very clever. I love to see older equipment put to good use.

Chrislaf · Apr 19, 2024

Before I discovered Wes’s Litchi Mission Utilities and Mission Rotator my Light Painting was basically limited to doing spirals and circles. Mission Rotator changed everything - I could now take simple line drawings and convert them to a waypoints mission for light painting, which is something I have always been interested in.

It has breathed new life into my old P3S which wasn’t getting much use. I had to purchase another battery because I needed more than one working battery (all my others had been retired).

I too love to extend the service life of old tech.

Chris

RodPad · Apr 21, 2024

Wow!

Rod ..

Chrislaf · Apr 21, 2024

RodPad said:
Wow!

Rod ..

Thanks

GFields · Apr 22, 2024

Awesome photos!

Chrislaf · Apr 22, 2024

Thanks.

RodPad · Apr 22, 2024

Are you going to share your mission?

Actually that doesn't matter but what was the time of the exposure like maybe 30 secs more or less?

Rod ..

Chrislaf · Apr 22, 2024

RodPad said:
Are you going to share your mission?

Actually that doesn't matter but what was the time of the exposure like maybe 30 secs more or less?

Rod ..

I could share the missions on the Mission Hub but both of the photos I posted above are created from licensed Adobe stock images (line drawings). I have a free account and have 10 free credits so I have a licence to use those images as long as I don't sell them, so I don't think it would be wise for me to share the missions where others could reproduce the images and not have the licence for them.

With regard to the long exposures, the butterfly shot was 102s, ISO 100, f13. The kayaker shot was 106s, ISO 100, f13. Both images were shot at 10mm (15mm equivalent).

Chris

RodPad · Apr 22, 2024

Thanks!!
Good enough for me.

Rod ..

Chrislaf · Apr 22, 2024

Here's another one from tonight. This image has over 99 waypoints so the drone has to pause to upload the second batch of waypoints. Tonight there was strong wind gusts of around 30km/h. Even though my P3S can handle a stiff wind, it's not the best conditions for light painting. Decided to paint the goose image in white to make it look like a snow goose.

Chris

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RodPad · Tuesday at 8:53 AM

OMG!!
Have you seen anybody else do this?
This could get crazy!

Multiple drones and colors!!

I still have all the parts for my P3S.
But on a litchi mission 200', it found a 220' Pine tree.

Rod ..

Chrislaf · Tuesday at 9:25 AM

RodPad said:
OMG!!
Have you seen anybody else do this?
This could get crazy!

Multiple drones and colors!!

I still have all the parts for my P3S.
But on a litchi mission 200', it found a 220' Pine tree.

Rod ..

There are lots of examples of drone light painting on the internet. I have been doing it for a few years, mostly spirals and orbits but it wasn’t until I discovered @DJ Wes mission utilities that I really started to see the potential. It has breathed new life into my P3S and I have been using it so much I needed to buy a new battery.

The Ulanzi cube lights I use have a selection of coloured gels I can choose from to alter the colour.

As far as multiple drones goes, I have light mounts made by @IronSky1 that allow me to use the cube lights and others on my Mini 3 Pro. The drawback with the Mini 3 is that it uses virtual sticks and the path is not as smooth. I am currently exploring lighter lights for it. In Canada as a sole operator it would be illegal for me to be operating two drones at the same time, however if I was coordinating with another operator it would be ok as long as we were 30m apart.

Sorry to hear about your P3S. My P3S was my first DJI drone and it has been super reliable.

Chris