I have been flying a CS6 for a year and a half. The standard APC props have worked fine - no serious issues. I finally made the plunge to try the new Graupner props for increased rigidity. I have shot a few projects and the results are fantastic. In particular, the flying performance in windy conditions. The APC's would tend to catch wind where the Graupner's allow me to punch through wind gust situations. The flex of the APC props would also require the ship to "settle" in windy situations, when changing directions. It's hard to explain but the "settling" characteristic of the APC's is that fraction of a second where, you as the pilot, know you need to wait to give new inputs to flying the ship. The Graupner's just seem to finish off the CS6 and not to mention, it now looks a lot less like a toy with the black props. The Graupners are about 36 grams and the APC's are about 10 grams less, at 26 grams. So you do gain some weight but the durability is great. I would imagine that carbon fiber props would be amazing if you can loose weight and maintain rigidity. What are other people's experience with other props, who have tried the Graupner's? How do the wood Xoar props compare? Here's the first project I completed after the switch. Wind gusts over 20mph. My folding chair that I place the ground station on even got knocked over once and the CS6 with radians still got the job done. -Josh
I switched to graupner from APC's and saw a definite improvement, then I went to Xoar's and saw yet another improvement. It feels like the xoar 14x6 has the same lift as the graupner 14x8. The xoars are noisier and more fragile and more prone to loosening up, but I like them a lot. Especially descending is smoother. Edit to add: I was flying on windy day and turns out it was blowing about 22mph. And I got usable footage. Also, I have a boom mounted fpv cam for safety. When I had the Graupners on, I would see it shaking around all the time when flying fast, but with the Xoars, it is very stable, so I think they cause less vibration. I did balance them very carefully though, and some of the hub balance was WAY off. I have almost a 1/4 inch of aluminum tape on one or two hubs.
Impressive stuff! The video looked a little choppy to me on Vimeo (common problem) so I downloaded the original from the video page, and it looks a lot better. But I noticed a possible cause for this. Your video was output at 60FPS (59.94...probably what you're shooting on your camera), but that's not a good frame rate for online video. If you set your NLE to change the video to 30fps (29.97) when it renders, it'll look a lot better online. Plus, shooting 60fps gives you the option to "conform", or slow, your video down to 30fps or 24fps to get that glassy smooth slow motion. You may find with the kind of video you're doing that it looks super nice. The way to do that varies depending on which editor you're using. You should look into this.
That is very helpful information Steve! I have noticed that youtube does a better job with playback, particularly with the content I have been uploaded since I have been uploading the 60fps. Like you said, either site will convert it to 30fps. Glad to understand a bit more about how to get a final better product. How do I go about changing the output to 30fps from Final Cut Pro X? I can't seem to find that setting option.
When you create a new project in FCP X, the default option for video format is based on the first clip you drag on. But you can specify 1080P 30 fps (or 24fps), so when you drag your 60P file onto it, it'll automatically convert it. You'll find that your file sizes will be a lot smaller, too. It'll also give you the option to "Conform" clips to get smooth slow motion.