Between the Cinestar 8, camera, and everything else needed to have a complete setup, how much do you guys have in your setups? Could you give me a list of what you have and a total price for everything?
Hey Will, these set-ups cost a fair amount of money everybody has a little changes in there bird to there liking!! you can get a rough idea by checking out some of the distributors websites located here http://www.freeflysystems.com/distributors.php
Hi Jason, thanks for responding. I have checked out this site and it's all Greek to me. I am completely new to this, so all I know about right now is that you need a UAS with a thimbel to attach cameras, and then there's a ton of equipment I have no idea about nor do I understand it. So if I could see a list of what everybody has and how much that cost them it would give me a better understanding of what I needed. I also just need to talk to a Sales specialist to gain knowledge of it all. I realize everyone has different setups, but that's fine with me. I'm just a newb.haha
Will, if you're in the US, check the Quadrocopter.com "RTF" bundles to get an idea of what a ready-to fly setup will cost you. But if you're unfamiliar with the genre, you're going to have to devote considerable time (maybe 100 hours or more) to training yourself in the operation of the system and the nuances of flying. Most of us use a combination of a PC simulator program (there are several) and a small, relatively indestructible quadcopter to build up our skills. And at the end of the day, I feel strongly that you're better off building your own copter from one of the kits out there, and that way you're more familiar with the workings. As for the actual cost, it's going to depend on a lot of factors, and it could be anywhere from $10,000-$15,000 for the copter and the associated support equipment. You can do it for less and you can do it for more.
Will you don't mention what you are planning to use it for. So Steve's estimate for a Freefly Cinestar is a good starting point. But if you want to carry a still or video camera then add another $15-20K plus depending on the gimbal. And that is for one system not including spares if you are planning to do this professionally. So there is a lot to learn if you are just starting out. Read Andy Johnson-Lairds suggestions on learning to operate this equipment, buy some simulation software, get a small quad like the Blade to get started and learn to fly before jumping into the larger equipment. Landscape is littered with folks that didn't take the time to learn how to fly one step at a time.
Okay thanks guys for the input. The reason I'm trying to get a list and possible total is because I am in the process of writing a business plan based around drone services. I am doing for one of my classes (Venture Creation) and I will be presenting my business to a board of entrepreneurs at the end of the semester. Pretty crazy stuff for an Undergrad but I'm accepting the challenge. Now I know this business could not be implemented until hopefully 2015 with new FAA regulations, but I'm writing now so it can be started in 2015. Anyways, I've joined this forum,have contacted a few local aerial photography companies (VA) , researched the AUVSI economic reports, but if there are any other resources you could point me to on the web or people I can contact, that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much
Gary said: "Will you don't mention what you are planning to use it for." I want to do aerial video and photography for home owners, property owners, resorts, country clubs, Estates, parks, etc. Stuff like that where people are looking to sell their home or property or promote their business through using my services. I chose the Cinestar 8 because of it's capabilities to hold small and large cameras. If you feel there's something better for me, feel free to point me in another direction.haha
Will: I applaud your courage to take on a challenge like this. Going along with the spirit of what you're trying to do (Venture Creation class), why will your target market retain you to do this kind of aerial imagery -- what will you be offering to your market that your competitors will not? Also, who will your competitors be? As Gary and Steve have indicated, there are significant barriers to entry into this field -- I say that not to discourage you -- far from it. In fact these barriers to entry may improve your business case as your competitors (or would-be competitors) will need to overcome these barriers. You may find it helpful to fix one important component and work around that. For aerial stills and video, and just as a working hypothetical, assume that you'll fly a Canon 5D Mark III. Let that be the "seed crystal" and work outwards from there. Rest assured it will not be first last camera you buy.... Are you going to work alone (in which case, you'll probably be better with a 2-Axis gimbal for the camera) or with a camera operator (higher operating costs, but they run the camera, so you can concentrate on the flying, aka "not crashing."). If you're going to work with a camera operator, then a 3-Axis gimbal presents more flexibility. The 2-Axis gimbal stabilizes the camera in the roll axis, but you can control the tilt of the camera. To pan the camera you need to yaw the entire aircraft and camera moves with it. For the 3-Axis gimbal, the gimbal is entirely independent of the flying part of the multi-rotor copter -- you can point the camera at something and yaw the aircraft, but the gimbal will keep the camera on target. Here are the line items for your budget -- and you can find out the answers by searching on this forum, Quadrocopter.com, bhphotovideo.com, and the web in general: 1. Cinestar 8. (The octocopter gives more redundancy than the hexacopter and can keep flying if you lose a single prop or motor). Will you buy a ready to fly, or buy a kit and build it, or go to Quadrocopter and have them supervise you building it. (Hint, the last option is best because (a) you'll know it's built and tested right, and, most importantly, (b) you'll know how to maintain it. 2. 2 or 3-Axis gimbal. (Will you invest in the MōVI MR?) 3. Canon 5D Mk III. 4. Suitable lens, e.g. 24mm f2.8 image stabilized (or perhaps the 24-105 mm zoom). 5. Radio transmitter for Cinestar. For example, the MX20. Will you buy a backup unit? 6. Radio transmitter for gimbal, e.g. Futaba 8FG (you'll need a separate one for your camera operator). Will you buy a backup of this? 7. Flight batteries : you'll probably need six to twelve of these. Typical cost, oh, $150 - $200 each. These are consumables, so plan on buy these every year or so. These might be four cell Lithium Polymer batteries with a capacity of say, 8,000 milliAmpHour to 10,000 milliAmpHours. Aka a 4S 8000 mAH LipO. Yeah. You're going to drop several thousand dollars on just batteries! 7a. Gimbal batteries: you'll probably need four or five of these. Typically three cell Lithium polymer, 1,200 milliAmpHour capacity. Aka as a 3S 1200 LiPo. 8. How will you charge the LiPo's? How many LiPo's do you want to be able to charge simultaneously? Give consideration to the Hyperion Super Duo 720i, using an eFuel 1200 watt DC supply (or a PRC-500 DC supply). 9. Spare avionics, tools, supplies (double sided tape, cable ties, etc. etc. etc.) 10. Ground station, LCD monitor for camera. 11. Will you equip the aircraft for "first person view" (FPV) "pilot's view point" video. Answer: give it serious thought. Do some research on the merits of FPV (search this forum and others). If so, then you'll need an FPV camera, video downlink transmitter, receiver, and separate LCD monitor. 12. How will you transport all of the above to your video shoot? Pelican cases? In what vehicle? 13. You'll probably need low end PC Netbook to run the configurator applications for the copter avionics, gimbal electronics, and to get to web so you can check the Earth's weather and the solar weather (which affects the copter's GPS system). 14. How will you train yourself to fly? (Answer: get a copy of the AerosimRC flight simulator, it now has a Cinestar model in it. Learn to fly that. Get a Blade mQX. If you can fly that well, you can fly a Cinestar.) How many flight hours would you need on simulator and Blade before it makes sense to put the Cinestar, gimbal and camera at risk? Meh.....I'd say, 30 - 50 hours of training....others may disagree and think that's too high, but that's the whole point of estimating... Once you figure out the total costs, I'd add 30% on the top just as a contingency factor. You might not spend it, but there's a good chance you will. Did I mention the barriers to entry? <evil grin> Hope this helps. Andy.
Also check out the for sale section on this forum. There are some great deals to be had with a few systems fully ready to go.
Excellent responses so far. Let me add my own experriences. Like yourself I'm a bit new I started doing this last year. I soon realized that to do this correctly you need a lot of equipment if you want to charge a client money. I had originally thought I would be spending $10K and I easily spent over double that. This was after I originally did my business plan. I wish I knew about this forum while I was doing it as my plan could have been a lot more accurate. I originally assumed that I would be able to do this myself and purchase a one person setup. It really takes 2 people, one to fly, one to operate the camera and possibly even a third person as a safety coordinator. The first thing I did before I decided to purchase anything was purchase Andy's A rather good Guide to building the Cinestar. After seeing that I realized with confidence I could do this. I highly recommend this video as it will show you the building process, setup process, and a lot of technical things you need to able to do to fly. Even if you purchase a RTF kit, you will need to know the ins and outs of every nut and bolt on the copter. Also make sure you understand that these things crash. It's inevitable to not have a crash or two especially when you are learning to fly. Hope this helps.
I would say Andy hit the nail on the head. As you can see there is a lot more to this than taking a flying object up in the air and strapping a camera to it. The cost can very a lot. what Andy mentioned is the base equipment that is adequate for moderate professional work if you are doing video production. Once you start asking questions like can I fly RED Epics and C500's and have the absolute smoothness in the video quality that would be good for a feature film? Add another 10 to 15,000 to it, minimum. If you are looking to do aerial photos and video for real estate and small productions like TV commercials for instance, you would not necessarily need cinestar8. You could buy a DJI S800 with the Zenmuse brushless gimbal, designed to carry a Sony NX7 micro 4/3's camera. I don't own one but my friend in Colorado does, and he gets some fabulous videos requiring very little to no post stabilization. I don't own one myself, since I have two Cinestars now. But I also believe buying what gets the job done. If you want to carry large body cameras DSLR's Sony FS100's then you will need a Cinestar 8 as minimum or a Cinestar8 Heavylifter to carry RED's and C500's. So it really does depend on what you want to do. We have only talked the cost of the field equipment. Now you need to consider the cost of your post production stuff like a real good computer that can handle Adobe CS6. I7 quad cores with at least 32 Gigs of ram and a Nvida graphics card. If you plan on doing feature work, plan on Highres color corrected monitors and the cost begin to sore faster than the copter will climb! Big picture the theme is: HUGE LEARNING CURVE!!! You have a lot to learn to make this work and be safe. Safety and Reliability is key to this. As soon you do one thing unsafe you just now built yourself a reputation you wont want. Understanding acceptable practices versus what is negligent is huge, can't stress it enough. What will be considered safe versus unsafe based off of your flying abilities and the limitations of the system. Whether you are flying a Boeing 747 or one of these there is one thing a good pilot always considers the outcome of a failure. If I fly my copter and it spontaneously has a failure, will crash on someone or their property? Those are the things I always analyse before any flight. When I got into this I was a novice in small flying objects that I had to control by starring at them versus a sitting in a cockpit. There are a lot things to know that even experienced RC hobbyist have to learn, such as we have a new element. Our aircraft are flown strictly by a flyby wire system, we never are in 100% complete control of the aircraft. The Flight Controller is the real pilot on board, we just tell it what to do, however it may not always listen. Knowing how to deal with that is important. These autopilots different tiers of automation, such as maintaining a fixed position or altitude using sensors such as GPS and a baromter. Some can fly programmed flight paths. They all have some form of failsafe with lots different options of what the copter will do if you lose link with your handheld controller. Some have ability of returning home by themselves as long as there is reliable GPS signal. They have other modes like Carefree that normalize the copter to a compass heading or your your home position but are only good with a GPS or properly calibrated compass. Even without these modes the flight control system is what is keeping this aircraft flying. It is constantly changing motor speeds to keep the platform stable to what you are commanding it to do. All these systems have limitations to them. You can put them out of control real fast. As Andy mentioned small copters like the Blade are good starters because they are so under powered that they give you an appreciation of the aerodynamics of these things. The Cinestar is way more stable than a Blade. However the way the blade come down out of altitude is very similar to what Cinestar will do if you try to bring out of a high altitude too fast. In fact flying the blade was when I first realized some the limitations and behaviors to expect. When I first flew my Cinestar 8 I had the hand skills figured out from the blade and the sim. However, that first time I spooled up those motors to takeoff thrust, there was little intimation factor staring at a machine that had 8 rotating 14 inch "bucher knives" spinning. It was not so much a scare factor but moreso an appreciation for the magnitude of what this machine is capible of good and bad as it is climbing out and how much practice will be needed to fly it properly learn now to be precise and safe at the same time. Its opened ended question, because it could cost you as little as a $1000 with a small copter and a Gopro and go upwards to about $50,000 or higher depending on what you want to accomplish and what your expectations are. So thats my $2 to this conversation Shaun
Lots of good advice and direction on this thread Will. If your near VA let me know. I'd be happy to help you transition into the craft.
Wow guys, Thank you so much for the responses. For some reason I did not get any further notifications from my email stating that others had responded. So my apologies for not getting back and thanking you sooner. This is really helpful. Like virtual gold.haha So diving in to this, I kind of figured out that I can't figure out all the technology by the end of this semester. But the reason why I want to try to understand as much as possible is to figure the costs of offering different services. Right now for my hypothetical but realistic business plan, I plan to start by offering real estate and promotional services, then expand into filmmaking after I've gained some or enough initial success. So I have a bit of an understanding, but what are some of the competitive advantages for the fields I'm going into over aircraft/helicopter aerial production? Because what I've heard from a few sources is that it sure isn't the cost.
Here's a top-of-mind matrix. Traditional copters and aircraft: Positives long range commercially legal all weather large payloads Negatives expensive labor intensive at least two outdoor only restricted altitude very loud RC Multirotors Positives relatively inexpensive lower training requirements indoor/outdoor operation close proximity operation less disruptive and environmentally safer Negatives short range lower reliability smaller payloads fair weather only
Cool this helps. Have any of you guys had experience or know the differences in price between aircraft/helicopter footage and UAV footage? I've talked to a few sources and they've said that right now it's about the same price and even more than standard aircraft/helicopter. Now obviously if you have a go pro and a small copter, it'll definitely be cheaper, but with larger and more high quality projects is where the price runs up. I'd love to hear your input and experiences with project rates you've seen thrown around for different projects
Will whoever told you that a full size AC or Heli would be the same price is wrong. Heli like a JetRanger will be $800+ per hour. AC, depending on what it is will be $250+, up to thousands $$$+++ if you are using a Lear or B-25 from Clay Lacy.
Okay thank you for that information. It seems that the costs are high for AC and Heli in terms of fuel and pilots, however what I've heard is that where it equals out is the amount of labor. AC and Heli might be more expensive in costs, but it'll take less time to complete the project, where as with UAV, there's high labor costs that include setup, switching batteries between flights, maintenance, etc that take more time to complete. My point is I agree the technology is less expensive than AC and Heli, but it's more expensive because the client is paying for your time, not just the costs.
Operator time and equipment costs would be the same. Also very likely that that the film crews that do Heli and AC are charging a much higher pay rate than a typical UAV pilot. And both have advantages and disadvantages. UAV can fly down a closed set between buildings but can't chase a car at 100mph. And vice versa. So the project requirements will dictate the appropriate equipment. Not much overlap where either one can do the same thing. If there is overlap then the UAV will likely win on the cost side.
Will here's a typical operator over in Utah. Bell 206 $1075/flight hour plus fuel (approx $142.80). Standby time $250/hr, first hour per day free. http://egliair.com/DEAH Acft Info.html
Your comparing two different tools entirely. Apple and Oranges. Your right, they are both fruit. The only thing in common is that they lift cameras off the ground.