Two features it should have: Optical Zoom and 1080p Lightbridge

[Bocephus-73]

Sorry, but subject tracking and Tap-To-Fly are gimmicky and for noobs! Any experienced pilot won't have a need for this stuff. Even obstacle avoidance is mostly rubbish for well-prepared flight plans.

However, an optical zoom and 1080p FPV is something that EVERYONE would find useful --- not just the new people coming into the hobby who need lots of safeguards to make sure they dont crash their new toy. 99% of these newbie hobbyists are too ADHD to RTFM and practice becoming good pilots.

If Inspire 2 has both optical zoom and 1080p FPV then I am tossing my P3 Pro in the dumpster and upgrading so fast it'll make your head spin!

 

[lookin4pain]

sounds like a typical plan to cater to the masses for business, not the individual professional. Maybe you need to go the professional route and just build your own so you have zero room to complain about features and you can be as pro as you want

 

[mirrorimage]

Don't discount the tap-to-fly and obstacle avoidance. It is going to be a lot better than you expect. DJI has a team of Tesla Autopilot engineers working on it's autonomous flying stuff. They are stepping up their game. Hopefully it will be amazing.

None of these will have optical zoom for 3-4 years. That's why they offer the interchangeable expensive camera.

I wish the 4k video would have offered 60fps…

 

[Bocephus-73]

sounds like a typical plan to cater to the masses for business, not the individual professional. Maybe you need to go the professional route and just build your own so you have zero room to complain about features and you can be as pro as you want

It's been painfully obvious for years that DJI is following Apple's vision when it comes to it's customer base --- keep dumbing the product down until even a 1st grader or 99 yr. old granny can use it. I find this sad, but they make $$ so that's all they care about. I fully expect DJI to eliminate the sticks for the P5 and just have a huge smiley face icon on the GO App that says "FLY".

 

[Bocephus-73]

Don't discount the tap-to-fly and obstacle avoidance. It is going to be a lot better than you expect. DJI has a team of Tesla Autopilot engineers working on it's autonomous flying stuff. They are stepping up their game. Hopefully it will be amazing.

None of these will have optical zoom for 3-4 years. That's why they offer the interchangeable expensive camera.

I wish the 4k video would have offered 60fps…

Optical zoom is not that difficult a feature to incorporate into the existing camera of the P4. Yes, interchangeable lenses is a big leap forward, but even a rudimentary 10X zoom would be a nice holdover for the interim.

The upgrade from the 640x480 FPV on the P2 Vision+ to the 720p Lightbridge on the P3 was amazing. I can truly enjoy FPV now like these machines were intended. However, I still find I miss certain details when flying 720p FPV using my Headplays. Plus, whe you think about certain applications like search-and-rescue it could mean the difference between life and death. 1080p FPV is something the P5 must have or else the competition will eat them alive.

 

[lookin4pain]

It's been painfully obvious for years that DJI is following Apple's vision when it comes to it's customer base --- keep dumbing the product down until even a 1st grader or 99 yr. old granny can use it. I find this sad, but they make $$ so that's all they care about. I fully expect DJI to eliminate the sticks for the P5 and just have a huge smiley face icon on the GO App that says "FLY".

business model, to make a profit, profit of $$$. Making people happy doesn't line pockets with gold... it's typical business.
if you own a droid, build your own drone

 

[Bocephus-73]

business model, to make a profit, profit of $$$. Making people happy doesn't line pockets with gold... it's typical business.
if you own a droid, build your own drone

It just saddens me when DJI adopts the Steve Jobs' mantra of "Customers are too stupid to know what they want --- so we have to give it to them".

Greed begets greed --- and innovation dies.

 

[lookin4pain]

it's unfortunate, so unfortunate that this world revolves around greed, in every way and every thing we do
very sad

 

[Solar Deity]

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.

Gordon Gekko

 

[Kenneth Marsola]

Sorry, but subject tracking and Tap-To-Fly are gimmicky and for noobs! Any experienced pilot won't have a need for this stuff. Even obstacle avoidance is mostly rubbish for well-prepared flight plans.

However, an optical zoom and 1080p FPV is something that EVERYONE would find useful --- not just the new people coming into the hobby who need lots of safeguards to make sure they dont crash their new toy. 99% of these newbie hobbyists are too ADHD to RTFM and practice becoming good pilots.

If Inspire 2 has both optical zoom and 1080p FPV then I am tossing my P3 Pro in the dumpster and upgrading so fast it'll make your head spin!

You will NEVER get optical zoom, for a camera at this price level.

 

[Bocephus-73]

You will NEVER get optical zoom, for a camera at this price level.

You can get optical zoom on a $50 hand-held digital camera --- but you can't get it on a $700 4K camera on a drone?

Wow, that is some brilliant logic going on there. You work for the Trump campaign?

 

[Bocephus-73]

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.

Gordon Gekko

That mentality worked for Gordon Gekko and Donnie Trump in the 80's --- but we live in a leaner age where customers demand better innovation for their dollars! Without that kind of innovation, computers would still cost $10 million and be as big as a house.

 

[Myetkt]

Ken said "Optical zoom" and he's right, you might get a digital zoom but they look crummy and probably would never happen with privacy the way it is.

 

[Bocephus-73]

Ken said "Optical zoom" and he's right, you might get a digital zoom but they look crummy and probably would never happen with privacy the way it is.

The mechanical parts needed to make a 10X optical zoom don't weigh 5 pounds --- probably a couple ounces at most.

Trust me, a 10X optical zoom is very cheap and feasible for a drone camera. DJI just decided to focus on noob features like Active Tracking to sell more units. They want to maximize profit and sacrifice some innovation. I get it.

 

[gringorio]

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.

Gordon Gekko

Your Greed is killing the planet, the very thing that sustains us.

 

[Myetkt]

Then why don't you go out and buy a 10K drone, one that can hold a Canon camera from it, and stop calling those who like what they are getting "noobs"? Phantom 3 and 4 are prosumer at best.. But I don't think calling people names because it what's offered at a price point is right.

 

[herein2014]

You can get optical zoom on a $50 hand-held digital camera --- but you can't get it on a $700 4K camera on a drone?

Wow, that is some brilliant logic going on there. You work for the Trump campaign?

I agree with Kenneth, it's just not going to happen. I won't say never, but I will say no time soon. The part you are missing is the stability that would be required to take a picture or film a video from a camera platform with 10x optical zoom, IMO the Phantom and Inspire platforms aren't even close to being stable enough. Not to mention the fragility of zoom components small enough to fit onboard a Phantom would guarantee their rapid demise.

Besides, I don't really get the infatuation with zoom. You are limited to 400' of altitude, you can clear most obstacles at around 100', from 100' pretty much anything worth filming is within focus, what do you need zoom for? I have filmed everything from TV commercials to real estate with my various drones, I've never wished I had optical zoom.

Now when DJI starts releasing cameras with more dynamic range....I'll break out the excitement.

 

[ianwood]

I hate to burst your bubble, but optical zoom is not that easy. Two primary reasons: stability and weight.

When you add camera weight, it has a knock on effect. So it creates roughly 3X the actual camera weight.

But that's easy. Stability on the other hand. That's hard. Your P3 is not stable in the sky. It just seems that way. Convert it to 75mm zoom and you'll see it's actually bouncing all over the place.

The cheapest RTF system that can support optical zoom is an Inspire Pro and Olympus zoom lens. About $5,000. And it can only handle about 75mm before it gets sloppy.

You want to zoom further? That'll be about $20,000 for an RTF system that weighs 35lbs and flies for 12 minutes on batteries that cost $800 a set.

 

[Bocephus-73]

Besides, I don't really get the infatuation with zoom. You are limited to 400' of altitude, you can clear most obstacles at around 100', from 100' pretty much anything worth filming is within focus, what do you need zoom for? I have filmed everything from TV commercials to real estate with my various drones, I've never wished I had optical zoom.

You're looking at this issue with a lot of tunnel vision. PLENTY of people want optical zoom -- there are literally hundreds of uses for it. I quoted in another thread about how I've used my P3P for scouting game ahead of hunting season for deer and turkey. You might not be a hunter or have knowledge of animal behavior, but I can tell you it's very hard for a P3 to descend on a herd of deer in order to check antler points on a trophy buck! They tend to scatter once you get below 200 feet because of the prop noise. A nice zoom would allow me to stay above 200' to not spook the critters while I snap some choice photos of any possible big-rack bucks. I've snapped photos with my P3P at 200' and all you can see is deer-shaped brown objects --- not good enough for analyzing rack size and points.

Also think about the implications of zoom on search-and-rescue teams that already use Phantom drones. When time is running out on finding a missing person, you dont have the luxury of doing broad panoramic shots from 400' high and then heading back to the office to analyze the video. What's urgently needed is a zoom feature that can allow teams to easily distinguish between a rock or a dead body hidden in the underbrush. These kinds of details can mean life or death.

Try to open your mind and you'll see that there are many, many uses for a zoom camera on a drone.

 

[Mako79]

The mechanical parts needed to make a 10X optical zoom don't weigh 5 pounds --- probably a couple ounces at most.

Trust me, a 10X optical zoom is very cheap and feasible for a drone camera. DJI just decided to focus on noob features like Active Tracking to sell more units. They want to maximize profit and sacrifice some innovation. I get it.

They could have focused more on the camera, but I think safety was priority in the P4. DJI was making sure that their Phantoms could be more safe and uncrashable by removing human error. I am sure they built the crash avoidance system and they found out they had a by-product, called the Active tracking.

I do think DJI will implement the 4k digital zoom to 1080p in both p4 and p3. I am sure they are building so that users don't mistaken the zoom and ending up messing their spacial awareness/depth perception.
And I do hope they build it with a transparent 1080p mask to help FPV.