I have 2 AR Drone 's and 2 Syma X5 's and am looking to build my first quad from parts and watc...

[G+_Steve Prior]

I have 2 AR Drone's and 2 Syma X5's and am looking to build my first quad from parts and watched the first set of quad KH episodes.  The AR Drones were my first and I got really spoiled by the "Absolute Mode" where the direction of movement isn't affected by which direction the AR Drone is facing and this is really great for shooting video.  I would assume that other flight controllers have a similar feature, but it is unclear what it's called on different controllers and what's needed to implement it.

 

Can anyone point to a list of these more advanced controller flight modes, what they are named, and which controllers have them?

[G+_Tony McPhee]

The APM 2.6 using Mission Planner can be set to Simple or super simple which set control to forward/reverse or toward you away from you

[G+_Mark Lutze]

Cleanflight on the Naze32/Flip32 has a mode called 'headfree' which might be what you are looking for. ( https://github.com/cleanflight/cleanflight/blob/master/docs/Modes.md). Never tried it my self so can't comment on how well it works. But you won't go broke with a $16 Flip32 and give it a try. 

[G+_Ron Nichols]

We should all collaborate on this through a Google doc. The only list I could find was full of holes. And called headless mode "worry free" mode!

[G+_Steve Prior]

I'm a bit surprised that there isn't a web page/wiki which lists and compares the different controllers out there, and such a comparison would include these special flight modes, but I couldn't find such a thing.

 

I might be asking the wrong question though, instead of implementing this the way AR Drone does where the drone can easily fly in a different direction than it's pointing, would a "real" photography drone use a camera mount so the camera can point in a different direction than the drone and get the shot that way?

[G+_Ron Nichols]

Steve Prior Yes. For example: http://www.dji.com/product/zenmuse-z15/feature

[G+_Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ]

Steve Prior I know what you're looking for, and "headless" or "absolute control" is a nice feature, but if you're just building, I would suggest STARTING with a "stupid" controller like the KK for one simple reason...

 

More advanced flight controllers will eventually (much more quickly than you might think) freak out and make the craft do something that you don't want it to do. -- YouTube is filled with examples of popular quadcopters heading off in random directions or suddenly veering off course because of miscalibrated magnetometers, poor GPS lock, or em interference.

 

When that happens, you need to know how to turn off the smart features and fly the quad manually. The Syma is a GREAT start to doing that, but get comfortable with the "dumb" controller in your first build, then replace it with a more advanced model once you feel absolutely certain that you can take over at any point and get your quad out of trouble.

 

Just my $0.02

 

Peace,

Padre