I am photographing a large technology conference in San Francisco this week, and I brought along the Cinestar 8 to do some tests. I'm not going to be using it as part of my coverage of the event, but I wanted to show both my client and myself the operating parameters and capabilities while the halls were not full of the 15,000+ attendees. So I did a couple of test flights (one with stills and one with video). The Cinestar attracted quite a crowd, as you can see (it always does!), and it performed well. I was flying a stock 4S setup with dual 8000mA Zippy bats. I have a Canon 5D Mark III with 17-40L lens on the Radian-stabilized 2-axis gimbal. I haven't downloaded the flight logs yet, but I'll tell you that this payload feels a little heavy, and my motors were very warm when I landed! I prefer the 24IS, but I wanted to go as wide as I could. I cranked the ISO to 3200 on the stills to get 1/500 second exposures at f4, and the quality was excellent. Very happy with that piece. The video is a little jerky, partly because I haven't yet received my adjustable tilt bars so my 5DM3 isn't perfectly balanced. But all in all, it was a very successful test, and I made a lot of new friends (and handed out a lot of business cards!).
Looking good Steve. Its funny how many people you will meet when flying these. Even way out in the bush I run into people in places I thought there was going to be nobody.
Nice Steve! We shot in the San Diego Convention Center with both our large and small copters and man what an awesome time that was! Looks good! josh