Litchi and Magic Leash NOT working following motorcycle at about 40 Km/h (24mph)

General Discussion
1

Hi there, I tried yesterday to get some nice shots from above while riding my motorcycle, but I ended up loosing my drone, and I got home with nothing useful!

SETUP 1
DJI Mini 2
Redmi 5 Plus connected via cable to the Mini RC
Mini RC on a bench, with my girlfriend
iPhone XR connected via magic leash, on my pocket (using its own network)
Height set to 25m

  • heading course, 0°
  • distance: 0m
    Maximum motorcycle speed 40kmh (24mph)

PROBLEMS

  • The drones movements were way to step to call the footage “cinematic”. It would approach a very smooth curve by connecting short lines, and making a small rotation at the end of them, to update its direction
  • the lag was unsuitable for anything but the motorcycle being still, waiting to move. As soon as I moved, I got out of frame, the drone started following me, but it ALWAYS kept being behind me
  • the drone stopped following me after a few seconds, stayed still until I got back, left my motorcycle, restarted the WHOLE follow me procedure (new leash, new pairing code, etc)

Unaware of the lag cause, I did a 2nd attempt

SETUP 2 (only changes)

  • RC on my motorcycle bag…
  • heading course, 180°
  • distance: 10m

So my attempt was to have it before me, like 10m, in order for my motorcycle to be in the center of the image

PROBLEM

  • while wearing gloves, helmet, etc, the Mini 2 went adrift, lost like 10m of altitude and ended its course on a tree (very lucky me, it practically landed on it)
    WEIRD THINGS
  • I understand my iPhone maybe sent a small movement information so the Mini 2 tried to position itself some 10m away from it, so the drift, but why in the world would it lower its altitude???

So I tried to use the drone as a camera mounted on a sky-tripod
SETUP 3
Horizontal Movements: disabled

PROBLEMS
The drone stayed still, the camera followed me while passing by, by the lag was more than 1 second, so basically, it worked (again) when I was still, waiting to move. A passing by of my motorcycle at about 30kmh (18mph) resulted in a perfectly still image, with a pan movement, AFTER I passed by

CONCLUSION
Litchi Magic Leash is incredible and fun, but unsuitable for any professional work with real world movements in a (very slow) car or motorcycle

Do you agree? Has anyone had a positive experience, given the same setup?
thanks, everybody! bye from Italy!

1 Like
2

Of course, this is only suitable for a walk or a slow bike ride.

9

This is almost exactly what I was expecting to get from the follow me function on Litchi.
May I ask how fast were you cruising?
It seems it struggles a little bit with changes in speed, but I think it’s unavoidable, considering the lag with GPS data. What is it? Maven or Litchi?

11

According to the specifications of the mini 2 it’s maximum speed in normal mode is 10m/s (36km/h).

2 Likes