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Drone Terminology

Lesson 5 from: Beginner Drone Photography

Dirk Dallas

Drone Terminology

Lesson 5 from: Beginner Drone Photography

Dirk Dallas

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Lesson Info

5. Drone Terminology

Like learning photography, aerial drone photography comes with a long list of new terminology. Dig into aerial photography jargon and learn the tools of the trade. Pick up terms like gimbal, GPS and propellers.
Next Lesson: DJI Go App

Lesson Info

Drone Terminology

So, drone terminology. Let's just chat a little bit about drone terminology. The gimbal, this is probably the thing that has made the drone so magical. So, this piece right here that holds the camera is the gimbal, and when this is powered on, the gimbal will keep the camera nice and stable. So, if the drone was gonna go left and roll left, it would typically go like that if it was fixed, right? It would roll with the drone. But the gimbal instead says, "I'm gonna keep "the camera level and I'll let the drone roll," and it keeps it nice and stable. So, this is really where the magic came in. The first Phantom drone had a gimbal that would hold a GoPro, but it would not keep it steady. So, when your drone is going like this, your footage is going like that. You couldn't get any video footage. It was pointless, right? (laughs) So that gimbal is like the magic. It keeps it nice and steady. GPS, this is another big thing that makes the drone so amazing. GPS will help with the smart flying ...

features, so I'll talk a little about that later today. But when you let go of your sticks on the controller, the drone just hovers. It's just flying, it's just staying still. Why? Because it's connected to GPS satellites and that tells it where it is and it says hold the drone right there. So, if some wind came, right, let's say some wind came, the drone would counter the wind to try to hold right here. It would try to counter it. Amazing, amazing technology. Whereas, I mentioned one of my hobbies used to be flying RC helicopters. You have to constantly be on the sticks. You can't just, like, let go and just hang out. You're constantly on the sticks and I would constantly be on them, like left, right, left, like keeping it stable and it would still crash. Tons of money out the door. I'm like, this is not my hobby, right? So, amazing feature, that GPS. And motors and propellers. So, on here we have four. These pop off, so you can pop 'em off. But just to let you know, we have two that spin in one direction and two that spin in the other, and that's the magic of how this drone can stay nice and stable. So, thanks to artificial intelligence keeping those calculations going, it can stay in place. Battery, the one thing I just want to mention about this, you can read all about battery care, but I do want to point out to you is, if you're flying with your drone, you do need to take out your battery and then keep this with you as a carry-on. Don't check your batteries in your suitcase. Keep it with you in the pressurized cabin of the plane. So, I always remove my batteries, and you can tape it right here. These batteries are really sophisticated. They're smart batteries, so they actually also have a feature where after like 10 days, it starts to drain the battery, so that it's not fully charged, so that if you happen not to fly for a while, it still will be nice and conditioned when it's ready to go. So, it's a really cool feature. Next, we have the FPV. So, that's a fancy word, FPV for first-person view, and depending on how you fly, that could be with goggles, so if you want to fly with some goggles on, or probably like most of us, at least in here, we're gonna be flying with our screen. So, this just means you're seeing what the camera sees. Really cool feature. Again, the first GoPro, or the first Phantom, it was all a guessing game, like I hope I got that shot. You would never know until you got back. Which, there's kind of a cool thing about that, because it reminds me a little bit about of film. But then after a while you're like, I wanna just get my shot, right, like, come on. Okay, next up, telemetry. This is the drone's data is being sent back to you. So, this is the fancy word for the drone's letting you know how high it is, how fast it's going, where it is, all that stuff. And you can all know on your screen, because it's sending all that information back. You can send information to it, right? So, really, really cool feature. The new drones all have this feature, so super handy. The controller... Again, as I mentioned, you can put your phone in this one, or if you have the built-in one like mine you can use that. Or you could just fly without it. You don't have to see your picture, or see the picture. But if you hear me say sticks, I'm referring to these. And we have a shutter, a record, exposure, a gimbal, so we can move the camera. Makes nice smooth movements. We have another class on that, which we'll speak more about later, where I go into depth a little bit more on that.

Ratings and Reviews

MARGARET NICOSIA
 

Dirk really did a nice job taking new students thru exercises to gain confidence. The work in Lightroom and Photoshop was helpful, but I wish more time could have been focused on flying or tips. Dirk has presets that he offers. It would have been helpful to see the results using those presets. Looking forward to the free which Drone to buy class and the advanced class

JBPhotoDesign
 

I definitely recommend this course if you are thinking about getting into drone photography looking for the fundamentals. I now feel pretty confident I can get started and that my learning curve will be greatly shortened thanks to the technology available today and a great roadmap of getting started. If you are already started... follow up with his advanced topics... I know I will.

MikeD
 

Super class. As a beginner I had little idea what to expect and never got started because of all the talk of people crashing drones right and left and losing a fortune. Dallas made it seem simple. So I bought a Tello beginners drone (great starter by the way), got hooked and am now flying a DJI Mavic Pro 2 and studying for a commercial license. Not sure, this is a great class to start with.

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