Has anyone tried to fly an Insta360 PRO with Inspire2?

[RobH2]

Has anyone tried to fly an Insta360 PRO with Inspire2? I've seen Youtube videos of people doing all kinds of crazy lifting challenges with drones. I've seen an Inspire2 lift 4 or 5 water bottles, seemingly without trouble.

From a practical standpoint, I have a client with an Insta360 PRO video camera and he asked if I could fly it. I know it would drain the batteries but all I need to do is get about 5-minutes flight time. It weighs 3lbs 7oz.

 

[Dobmatt]

Has anyone tried to fly an Insta360 PRO with Inspire2? I've seen Youtube videos of people doing all kinds of crazy lifting challenges with drones. I've seen an Inspire2 lift 4 or 5 water bottles, seemingly without trouble.

From a practical standpoint, I have a client with an Insta360 PRO video camera and he asked if I could fly it. I know it would drain the batteries but all I need to do is get about 5-minutes flight time. It weighs 3lbs 7oz.

Hmm, interestingly challenging project, but don't take it lightly. Lifting water bottles seems easy for YT idiots. Flying them is another story due to a dangerous pendulum effect. It's doable, but not without serious engineering.

 

[The Editor]

Has anyone tried to fly an Insta360 PRO with Inspire2? I've seen Youtube videos of people doing all kinds of crazy lifting challenges with drones. I've seen an Inspire2 lift 4 or 5 water bottles, seemingly without trouble.

From a practical standpoint, I have a client with an Insta360 PRO video camera and he asked if I could fly it. I know it would drain the batteries but all I need to do is get about 5-minutes flight time. It weighs 3lbs 7oz.

Maximum payload capacity is 1.99lbs or 0.810kg.

What you have to remember is should anything happen, you then have to explain to the insurance company that you were operating commercially at over 150% of aircraft's designed payload capacity.
Me thinks they would void the claim and walk away.....

 

[MrTVR]

I made an adapter that allowed me to replace the X3 on an Inspire 1 with a 360fly 360 degree camera. This approach kept the aircraft below its MTOM and maintained the COG, which is important.

The Inspire 1 flew well. However, I only made a couple of flights because the resulting footage was more or less unusable. Without a gimbal, the horizon wobbled quite violently and I couldn’t find an effective way to remove the wobble in post.

 

[RobH2]

Excellent prudent responses and suggestions. I share the caution. I'll probably try to just fly my GoPro Fusion instead and see if it will suffice. I don't want to be a YT idiot for sure...lol....

Thanks all...

 

[Donnie Frank]

Hmm, interestingly challenging project, but don't take it lightly. Lifting water bottles seems easy for YT idiots. Flying them is another story due to a dangerous pendulum effect. It's doable, but not without serious engineering.

My sentiments, exactly.

I flew one of the first 360° GoPro arrays with an X8 heavy lifter. Because of the nature of the job, I designed it with a 4' long rigid 1/4" 20 all-thread "arm" that articulated in all directions at the connection to the bird. I was given 24 hours to design, build and test this thing.

For testing, I strapped an old hard drive to the all-thread because an HDD weighed almost exactly as much as the GoPro array (about 1.5 lbs, if memory serves). Needless to say, it wasn't necessarily the weight of the load, but the dynamics in stronger winds that made this rig downright scary to fly. Fortunately, we were flying a mere 40' AGL and not over people.

We got to the job site the next morning and, unfortunately for all of us, wind was blowing about 10 mph with 17-20 mph gusts. The director wanted my pilot to fly out over a canyon, but winds were just WAY too strong out there.

About 1 hour into the shoot, when things were not going well (as that **** GoPro array swung like a pendulum), I had the idea off putting the bird in ATTI mode and letting it drift with the wind. This was the winning ticket. I had my pilot fly upwind SLOWLY to our destination, and then just let the bird drift with the wind. The footage was glorious. The director was happy. My pilot was happy.

Safe to say that the X8's maximum payload was much greater than 2 lbs....probably closer to 10 lbs. or more. But that swinging, dynamic load was VERY hard to keep in control. I don't think I would fly any such array ever again with anything other than a heavy lifter like the M600 Pro or equivalent.

Remember that in ANY design/engineering situation, one must severely derate capacities and capabilities for dynamic loads. It's not uncommon to derate 5:1. In other words, if you're lifting a 2 lb. dynamic load, you better have a vehicle rated for a 10 lb. payload.

D

 

[RobH2]

Donnie, I appreciate that information. I may try it with my GoPro Fusion but now with the larger camera.

 

[EpicJib]

This is my Fusion mounted on the I2 as a test but the quality is so poor its just not worth it....

 

[MrTVR]

This is my Fusion mounted on the I2 as a test but the quality is so poor its just not worth it....

That’s a lot more successful than my tests with the 360fly a few years ago. It doesn’t seem to suffer from the wobbly horizon or jello that the 360fly produced.

 

[Eric Braun]

I flew a "mini" version of this. I hung a GoPro Fusion off a cinewhoop class Squirt V2 that weighs just 10oz (w/o battery). The pendulum effect is difficult as well as dealing with wind. The Fusion acts like a sail. I usually fly in "acro" mode but that just wasn't possible with this load so this is flown in "horizon" mode.

I launch from a little trash bucket and hand-catch.

And, my partner thinks the "overcapture" result is usable on the web, but I do not. Overall, interesting technology and results, but not terribly useful. Resolution isn't great when using overcapture and exposure is influenced by the entire view of the camera, not just the overcapture part.

BUT... no wobbly horizon or jello! This is amazing for a rig that weighs just 1.5 lbs all up flying in the wind. Exposure problems show up at the 20 second mark. Overcapture moves show at the 30 second mark.

 

[mediabymartin]

Has anyone tried to fly an Insta360 PRO with Inspire2? I've seen Youtube videos of people doing all kinds of crazy lifting challenges with drones. I've seen an Inspire2 lift 4 or 5 water bottles, seemingly without trouble.

From a practical standpoint, I have a client with an Insta360 PRO video camera and he asked if I could fly it. I know it would drain the batteries but all I need to do is get about 5-minutes flight time. It weighs 3lbs 7oz.

I attached an Insta360 OneX to the top of my Inspire 2 with the selfie stick fully extended.......here is the edited version of the result....I thought it was pretty cool - GPS will not work though !

 

[davidjmurray]

I'd love to fly an Insta360 Pro on my I2 but won't for the reasons listed above. I have flown my Fusion on my I2 and also on my Mavic Pro (gen 1). It worked well from a flight characteristics and video stability point of view. The camera "is what it is", so the quality of the footage is, of course, no better from the air than from the ground. The good news is that it is also no worse from the air. The stabilized 360 footage I got out of Fusion Studio was stable enough most of the time: no jello, about as smooth as with a gimbal most of the time, and only occasional jumps of any kind. But compared to 4k X5s footage, the fusion footage looks relatively low res. It is more likely to look ok when subjects are fairly close so they fill more of the frame than when viewing distant subjects, like the ones captured from 150+ feet up! I mounted my fusion fairly close to the bottom of both drones. The benefit of this compared to hanging it from a long pole, is that the camera had less of an impact on the drone's stability, and the camera shook around less relative to the drone. The downside is that the drone occupies a large portion of the upper half of the 360 sphere in the footage. In my application that was fine as the subjects of interest were below the drone , and the customer understood the tradeoffs. The newest version of After Effects has a video content aware fill that might do a decent job masking out the drone...haven't tried it yet.I recently got an Insta360 One X and plan to try it on my drones, but have not had a chance. It seems to have comparable video uality as the Fusion, is lighter, and has a better/faster workflow using Insta360 Studio For OneX than the GoPro Fusion Studio.

 

[Eric Braun]

...I recently got an Insta360 One X and plan to try it on my drones, but have not had a chance. It seems to have comparable video uality as the Fusion, is lighter, and has a better/faster workflow using Insta360 Studio For OneX than the GoPro Fusion Studio.

I'd like to try an Insta360 too. It weighs almost exactly 1/2 of the Fusion and doesn't have that "stitching" process that takes 10x the length of the clip. It has a little more resolution (on paper at least) and uses just one SD card. You can import directly into Premiere Pro and use the excellent and free GoPro plug-in. It seems the workflow is much quicker and more direct.

 

[jeffbhester]

I flew a Kandao Obsidian S on my I2 with a custom mounting bracket off the bottom, and then attached a GoPro fusion on top to patch the sky. As everyone else has mentioned, and as I'm sure you're aware, just be mindful of payload, center of gravity, insurance not covering etc. etc. It took a few test flights to work out some kinks. I did a few shots with the Fusion itself hanging from a longer bracket mount and the drone handled without a problem, adding the Kandao (we wanted stereo 360) definitely put things on edge, and we were also flying from a boat. I think battery life was in the 12 minute range. Here's a trailer with the aerials at the beginning...

 

[davidjmurray]

I flew a Kandao Obsidian S on my I2 with a custom mounting bracket off the bottom, and then attached a GoPro fusion on top to patch the sky. As everyone else has mentioned, and as I'm sure you're aware, just be mindful of payload, center of gravity, insurance not covering etc. etc. It took a few test flights to work out some kinks. I did a few shots with the Fusion itself hanging from a longer bracket mount and the drone handled without a problem, adding the Kandao (we wanted stereo 360) definitely put things on edge, and we were also flying from a boat. I think battery life was in the 12 minute range. Here's a trailer with the aerials at the beginning...

Fabulous work!

 

[timmydjr]

I sold my Insta360 Pro and never had the cahoneys to try it. I have flown my Panono on the front gimbal for photos and that worked nicely but it is much lighter than "The Beast"! I purchased a mounting plate from a guy overseas (outside USA) that was actually made to mount a handle under the I2. But it works well to drop a monopod down from. the picture below if hanging from the front gimbal which I did not feel warm and fuzzy about.