3 Tips to Become a Better Camera Drone Pilot! 

One tip I'd like to give to all drone users is to attach your controller to a lanyard for attachment around your neck.. For some reason I've never seen anyone even mention this; very odd as I can assure you that it's a very useful and practical.

As someone who's been flying my drone for over a year now I never once realised how useful that histogram was. Just had to guess if I had my shots too over or underexposed. You learn something new everyday, thanks 51 Drones!

I agree with you, that we should aim to land on hand/palm first then, only grab it. I did a mistake by doing the opposite. It was so bad, the propellers cut my fingers and I instantly lost half of my finger nail on my middle finger. Just a MINI 2 is enough to cut your nails off. Thank you for the tips! Keep up the good work! 👊🏻☺️

There are lots of drone channels but yours and Ian in London are the best. Thanks Russ for really clear, simple tutorials 👍

Thanks Russ. Sage advice as always. Appreciate you sharing your time and experience with us. Largo, FL

Excellent Video and Excellent Advice Russ. Thank You.

Thanks again Russ. Another great video. Hand launch is my favorite. Have a great holiday.

Excellent Russ, thank you. Planning is soooo important :)

Great content, thanks! Have fun in Estes, we have seen some large herd of elk there in the fall. While they may be up in the park during the summer, it was an amazing scene outside our winds at the Stanley Hotel to see some 30+ lounging on the lawn/parking lot.

Thank you Russ, I have learned so much from you. Practice, practice and practice.

3 great tips for flying Gus. Definitely all three are great ideas, and will help any pilot. Thanks again for your. 👍👍👍

Thanks Russ for another great video. I try to improve every time but sometimes it may be a month between flights. What helps me is getting my drone out aways and start doing large figure eights, after a couple of circuits, I start making the eights a little tighter and tighter. Thanks again for the info.

Thanks for the time you spend teaching new pilots such as myself tips and tricks and how to be safe and legal.

Thank you for this information. When I’m flying alone, I use the hand launch and landing. When I’m around my Aeronautics STEAM students, I use a landing pad. The previous tip, about letting it hover for a short while to get a better accuracy when it returns home was a helpful tip to teach my students. Sometime, can you talk about insurance for those with their 107? Like types of coverage ,amounts, are there times you need it and times you don’t, etc?

Good summation of some top of mind drone tips, Russ. Great tips for less experienced UAV pilots wanting to step up their skills.

Thanks! Will definitely use this info.

Thank you very much for the video very interesting. Can’t wait to try the over exposure.

Great suggestions. I especially appreciated the tip on hand launching and hand catching!

Great information Russ. Thanks for sharing.

Wife and I stayed at Woodlands On Fall River in Estes Park. It was amazing. The Stanley Hotel tour, and any hike overlooking Lake Estes is a must. Enjoy.

Very Helpful..Thnx for sharing

Thanks Russ, great tips as always.

Thanks Russ. I just got a Air 2 S and 51 Drones has been my go to channel for usefull information.

Thank you very much for the video, very interesting.

This channel is a must watch for new drone users.

Thanks Russ Happy Flying!

Thanks it was good informative I rarely used my drone but thanks for good information

Thanks Russ great advice

Great information for this rookie. Thanks.

Thank you. Very useful... I wish I had this l8 months ago when I started flying my Air 2S... Now I can only confirm how valid and relevant these issues are. On the other hand, I would still like you/us to go a bit further into arriving at a correct exposure and the practical challenges we may face in our daily drone work regarding exposure... I had tried to use the frame/rate-to-speed ratio in PRO mode, changing various degree of ND filters to slow the speed to the desired value to get correct motion blur, and I have also been using the histogram. However, in practice, once the drone is up with a specific ND filter, there is little you can change and the exposure may be drastically changing during the flight (like sunset going from full brightness to orange and below the horizon in less than 20 minutes), but also with each turn of the drone. And that includes a POI and orbiting shots, or POI going from low to high or vice versa. So I have kind of settled for AUTO mode and trying to keep the histogram happy by adjusting the EV quickly.... I still use ND filters to ty to be in a vague ball park for speed, but obviously have no real control over it in auto mode.... So how do I make quick adjustments in PRO mode keeping the frame-rate-to-speed ratio at ideal? How do I handle changing conditions turn-by-turn or in the course of a single-battery flight? How do I keep the numerous clips of the same subject in a sequence look consistent? PRO mode has no exposure lock. Only AUTO has it. How do I use exposure lock like a pro? Thank you for all your videos....

great... very simple, very useful

Thanks Gave you a little tip. Your video's help me a lot in becoming a better drone pilot. I fly a DJI Mini 2 and I love it. Thank you.

Sweet vid. Can you explain the icons on the map (mini 3 pro, on the right of the map) as well as the compass and how it works? Cheers.

All are great, solid tips...

Another great info video. Now if we could just find a app to make the snow go away. Colorado is o-so fun to fly from Estes Park all the way down to Bishops Castle.. So many great things to film and explore. Besides the high winds and fires, flying lately has been at a nil. Should be a great summer.

Thank you for talking about the histogram, makes more sense to me now how to use it.

Another good tutorial video Russ

Great Video! I am planning to purchase the Mini 3 Pro....

Good stuff Russ.

Great tips Russ, and thanks for sharing. But I have admit I never hand catch.

Nice,,, I like that hoodie as well,, think ill be ordering a couple of them...

Good tips Russ! Been a hand launcher since day one

Great tips. I got dirt in my gimble motor by landing on a dusty road... hand launching / landing would have prevented that - now I know how!

Good idea also to research how place you are staying is powered. Cables are always going from one place to another. So if it start somewhere it will cross the road or river you want to follow few times. Good to scout in advance.

Do like your studio setup, the color and the light.

Well done Russ! Thank you! T :-)

Thanks Russ

Great work Russ, awesome list of recs and tips. Thanks a lot for sharing!

As a new Drone flyer and considered an old man at 54 doing this- I find that I must fly every single day, sometimes during light rain to get more and more comfortable even if it is just around my block- Oh and I also practice night flights as much as I can- with all my lights and beacons and safety gear-

Good video thank you

Great video, this is interesting.

Hi Russ. All good tips. However, the true judge of how ‘good’ a pilot might be, is how the vision actually looks when played back to his/her audience. In this case, the clear winner is ‘smoothness’. Not just with drone and gimbal movements, but in transitions & edits as well, even though edits and transitions are not strictly pilot moves. Nothing screams ‘amateur’ louder than jerky movement, both in the flying and later, in transition edits.

Good video. I cut the crap out of my hand, hand catching on a rough river bar. Stones were to big to land the drone. It was a good thing I keep a big first aid kit in my airplane. I was just being sloppy and overconfident.

I do recommend to use some cheap motorbike gloves when hand catching, especially if youre new to hand catching. It is slightly more cumbersome but it will protect your fingers if you accidentally put them into the propeller.

Thanks for the video. I wanted to see if after a year I have become a better drone pilot, LOL! I have always leaned the phone or tablet against my chest so that I could use the sticks to manually launch, forgot all about that button on the screen!

Good episode. One challenge for me is that I use an iPad mini to fly my Air 2. Hand landing works great, but launching is a no go. The geometry of the controller and iPad is just not conducive. Now, if there was a way to attach a lanyard...but there is not. I sometimes fly an Inspire 2 and that controller does have a lanyard which I love. Any ideas out there for me are welcome.

Highly recommend checking out the Stanley Hotel in Estes! Take the tour. Our fam loves it.

Nice tuto

Hi, love your videos. Need some advice. Been using Mini 2 for roof inspections (residential). Want to buy thermal to start offering commercial roof inspections. Have chance to buy a Intel Falcon 8 plus with Flir Tau 336 camera. I know this is about a 5 year old drone. Any reason I should not buy this, line possibly old technology? Thanks and sorry it this is the wrong place to ask.

What is the app for air space aloft? Haven’t heard of that, did you apply it to your Google map. Great video, thank you.

I’ve hand landed but not hand launched. Mostly use my pad. Never used histogram use my exposure with Mavic pro. Serves me well. Don’t travel due to the fact I have no money. Good tips though. 👍👍✌️

With the drone world blowing up over the mini 3, russ I wanna know your opinion on the what we've seen thus far, unless they've sent it to ya and cant talk about it just yet

Hey Russ .. your friend Howard here. I live in Colorado, a police office and would love to meet you while you are in Colorado. If you can take about 20 minutes while you are here please let me know.

Oh wow 👌 thank you so much for the information, some may say, who is this guy. This guy loves to just be able to fly and have fun, I don't look to make money with my drones. I had and have all the DJI Mavic drones, from the spark to the mavic 3 but I sold my earlier drones, now I have from the mini 2 on up. Honestly what I'm getting from this video Russ is some very good information some things I never tried and some things I will try I don't fly much because my area is very limited but I do have all my license but it's crazy I can't even fly off of my own property because I live too close to the airport and I don't want to go everywhere I just want to go up 🤣🤣 and I'm not a very good photographer and I was getting those zebra lies and didn't know what it was I didn't have everything turned on and you always give some very good beginners information because I am always going to be in that category no matter what kind of drawn I buy or fly. I notice this is getting long I just appreciate the things you do on your channel I'm quite sure these are some questions you had for yourself when you first started flying. To me it's like going fishing, all you try to concentrate on is catching that fish 🐟 😄 😅

Ouch first time hand catch hurt like hell

In the video you mentioned DJI go 4 what is the difference with that app would it be better then the DJI fly app?

When you change the little box on the bottom left of the screen to the horizon thing or what ever its called sometimes it will show red dots and or lines what is this? Its on a MA2?

When I used to hand catch my mavic 2, I would put my palm out with my fingers bent back slightly so that my fingers wouldn't get cut. But then I found out the hard way that since the mavic 2 was so big, if it landed on your hand off balanced the props would hit your wrist. Hurt like heck, almost had to go to the doctor, and the wife was pissed off. But hey at least my fingers were good! Moral of the story, follow what Russ says.

How about suggesting a lanyard for the controller instead of that juggling thing trying to hold it, and moreso so you don't drop it

When you use the center "point". Is it true, that if I fly close to objects and the point isn't on that object I won't crash?

Next video...How to give yourself stiches and apply bandages.......🤔

I thought Shutter speed should always be 2 x your frame rate ?? or use Filters to get this setting right?

Enjoy your vacation to beautiful Colorado and remember you will need a reservation to enter RMNP at the most convenient hours.

You'll like RMNP.

What about hand catching in slightly gusty winds-is it wise?

Hey, I've got a cap that looks like yours! 😀

Nice video but take off not working and never has for me. Using a Mavic 2 Pro. There used to be a checkbox so the drone would lift off and go up 20 feet. Check box is no longer showing on the box that appears. My drone lifts slightly and then drops to the 4 foot height it's suppossed to be at. It doesn't go upwards until I push the left stick. I let it lift slightly and then pull my arm out of the way.

Good video, nothing to argue with, however I suspect that if you ask every professional drone pilot to name three of the most important things to be able to do to improve your skills or necessary to become a better pilot, you will rarely hear the same three mentioned twice. My 3 biggest needs are to fly, fly, fly as I don't get enough practice to remember which direction to raise and lower the gimbal or to zoom in or out, or even to fly intricate patterns...

Awesome tips, Russ. We wouldn't want those hand launches to cut your beautiful face, as you said. 😉👊

I've been flying for about 3 months.i can fly ,operate the drone fine .but I'm having problems with data retrieval. I have a tripletek 8 pro and I have shot a video of a house .I can watch it but when I try to send it to the customer its just trying to load and never does..what am I doing wrong.please do a video of this issue thanks

Hey Russ I have a couple Tripltek 8 Pro Tablets for sell!!!!!

Aloft isn’t 100%. Skyvector is a good supplemental resource to make sure you’re legit. Example: I was about to fly in Ashley national forest in Utah. Aloft gives no warnings at all. It’s actually located in a federal wilderness area and skyvector shows it.

I have kinda of a small budget so i kinda can’t afford to crash 😂

I wish they had single launch button on the remote!

Congrats for another job well done with good introduction that’s so helpful, thanks for sharing and hopefully u enjoy my video too my friend there :)

I call it holding your hand like you are playing a guitar for hand catching

Hi Russ .. I received a message and it claims to be from you and I am just trying to verify if possible. Thank you Howard

yea right that phone number not sure

Don't believe hand launching is even possible due to my FII GIM2 drone requiring both joysticks to start the rotors. In all of these videos I see other brands of drones. I was new to this and didn't know which drone to start with, but i didn't want a child's toy and didn't care for the vibrating or blurring videos that I saw when watching reviews from a lot of drones. My FII GIM2 drone videos are very clear.

can i ask you to review my latest video, and give me any pointers? it would be very much appreciated! i've been trying to film in all different ways, and i think that with a better editor, that would be key, as i only use windows video editor currently. thanks in advance. Aaron

it is an OSHA violation to hand launch and land a drone

Hi Russ - just so you know there is some knucklehead trying to impersonate you and saying that someone has been selected to win a prize. They emailed me as if they were you responding to my post on this board.

I'm sorry Russ, but risking chopping your fingers while launching or catching your drone in the air is not a "Pro" method in my book unless you wanna impress someone. No Pros use that ever. We use landing pads. That's it!

The whole hand catch / Launch is just unsafe

Don't fall for that fake "reply" asking you to text a number, pretending to be Russ by using his logo. I'm reporting the comments as I find them.

The hysteresis and overexposure lines are a useless annoying feature ...anyone that can see knows if it's overexposed. Total distraction in your shooting! A total gimic. Not used In a Dslr cameras and there is a reason for that.

Never trust a drone pilot with missing fingers

How do you know I have a beautiful face? . What I I have an ugly face

First. Take. Off those useless thumb sticks! U get way better control without em! That's 1! U tell the rest

Thanks Russ