iPads and sun do not mix

[rlphoto69]

I still have a heck of a time seeing the screen of my iPad while flying, I've purchased a hood and I have had some success. But I still find it difficult to see which way I am pointing, if I want to capture some video, and I fly my route, then stop to turn to either come back or get another view' it's really hard to see. Also after getting out anywhere from 200-300 feet, for me it's hard to see the red lights on a sunny day. Just wondering if others have this issue , and any good ways to deal with this.
ps. I'm nearly 60 and wear glasses, maybe it's time to retire! [emoji15]

Cheap fix for me was that I bought an iPad case (Walmart) with a hard plastic back and cut the cover off. Next I bought a cheap camera bag (Walmart) and cut the bottom of the bag out and punched a hole in right side for cable. Put IPad on controller first, secure it and then slide the camera bag over it. I have shading on all 4 sides. Looks a little redneck, but works great.

 

[Melvoid]

I still have a heck of a time seeing the screen of my iPad while flying, I've purchased a hood and I have had some success. But I still find it difficult to see which way I am pointing, if I want to capture some video, and I fly my route, then stop to turn to either come back or get another view' it's really hard to see. Also after getting out anywhere from 200-300 feet, for me it's hard to see the red lights on a sunny day. Just wondering if others have this issue , and any good ways to deal with this.
ps. I'm nearly 60 and wear glasses, maybe it's time to retire! [emoji15]

My best results involve a shade/hood thingy I bought AND wearing a dark shirt or jacket. My iPad has a shiny surface, so it reflects. I often forget about the shirt part and then have to see the bright reflection of whatever I'm wearing. Also, if possible, standing in the shade while flying is better. Also, I inherited the iPad from my wife and it took me a bit to figure out that there's a brightness setting. Be sure that's set to "11."

 

[Melvoid]

I use prop guards to help identify the front from the back.
Only down side is sometimes they get int the frame of what I am shooting

The arrow on the screen (lower right corner on mine) also shows you which way you're pointed.

That is... if you can SEE the screen

 

[Jorovi]

So stop flying if you find using your iPad a such a problem. Or fly at night, places like BangGood have strips of LEDs you can dress your quadcopter in.Or buy some goggles. They've already been mentioned twice in this thread, why not try them instead of complaining about Nature and the Sun. We all use Samsungs, iPads Nexus and some DJI very expensive monitor, but very few seem to be complaining about them. Yes, they can be hard to see when in direct sunlight. So stand in the shade or take a large umbrella to stand under, or fly from your bedroom window, remove the culprit, the Sun. The same one which has been there well before quadcopters were thought of. (I think) There are options, wear a dark shirt, a large brimmed hat, find a friendly tree or train someone to follow you around with a large sheet of timber. Hey here's an idea, only fly on overcast days. Move to the UK, they're always complaining about the weather. They only know it's summer because the rain gets warmer. It's OK, don't get upset about a racist remark, I'm an ex Pom.

Honestly it's a hobby, and hobbies are a matter of choice, you chose to get into it and sadly the sun is part and parcel of the outdoors. Have you tried goggles? the one I just purchased gives a first class picture, it's like watching everything on a massive TV. If you suffer from bad eyesight you can fit an old pair of glasses inside and everything is suddenly pin sharp. There's a video on YouTube which shows how it's done, a very simply 10 or 15 minute job. Give them a try they aren't expensive, I paid just $9.99 for mine, you can even buy cardboard kits you can put your iPhone in. Technology is great, if you're willing to experiment. Rather than just complaining about the light, I'm positive you can find a better way.
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I think the gentleman was expressing a problem he has and was looking for suggestions from the many experts online. We have to assume he enjoys the hobby but is having a difficult time seeing. I am 65 and also have a difficult time sometimes seeing my ipad screen. It does not prevent me from flying. I adjust my hood or location away from direct sunlight. Just learned from these postings about wearing a dark shirt. which prevents reflection with the screen. Hope mikehhfx finds a suitable solution and can continue to enjoy his flying !

 

[D0CT0R]

Put a couple of these on your bird, and you can see them in daylight from quite a distance: https://www.amazon.com/Firehouse-Te...Arc"+II+White+Four+Strobe+Light+System+2+pack

 

[Russ43Phantom]

The real issue with seeking shade, with or without hoods, is often you turn seeking shade in such a way as to minimize the effectiveness of your antenna. Then, unintentionally, your control signal gets weak. To avoid this problem for more critical work, and to assure maximum contrast, saturation and clarity, I use my Epson BT-300 glasses with a brimmed hat. For less critical work and when using DJI's Intelligent Flight Modes, I use my iPhone.

 

[GeneM]

The real issue with seeking shade, with or without hoods, is often you turn seeking shade in such a way as to minimize the effectiveness of your antenna. Then, unintentionally, your control signal gets weak. To avoid this problem for more critical work, and to assure maximum contrast, saturation and clarity, I use my Epson BT-300 glasses with a brimmed hat. For less critical work and when using DJI's Intelligent Flight Modes, I use my iPhone.

The only way to minimize reflections on any tablet is to block the light from every angle. That seems obvious but is harder to achieve practically. Clothes don’t matter as much since even black clothes will reflect. Shade or a dark background will help. Goggles solve this issue completely, but as a commercial pilot, I cannot use them without violating line-of-site requirements. The same reason I can’t throw fabric over my head like a 19th century photographer; plus living in Texas, my head would bake like a potato.

That leaves the sunshade. The longer the sunshade the better. The small pop up or three sided sunshades are worthless in my opinion. The Meijunter shade has been mentioned and is almost identical to the PGY shade that I use. I can also recommend the Hoodman shade. (The shade straps are also good for holding reusable ice packs to keep tablets cool in extremely hot weather- what we call daytime in Texas) Now the only light that can reflect on the tablet is from directly behind you. When you put your face into the shade, like a periscope, 80% of the reflections are blocked. The trick I use to block some of the remaining 20% is to attach dark fabric to the back of my cap or hard hat from ear to ear. This will drape over your neck and shoulder and will block the light that slips in behind your head. Of course you will look like a skate boarder from the 1990’s, but that’s the price I’ve found for low reflection viewing.

The Crystal Sky monitors are close to a solution but still have too many negatives for my workflow.

Hope that helps. Love to hear and other tricks people have.

 

[Russ43Phantom]

The only way to minimize reflections on any tablet is to block the light from every angle. That seems obvious but is harder to achieve practically. Clothes don’t matter as much since even black clothes will reflect. Shade or a dark background will help. Goggles solve this issue completely, but as a commercial pilot, I cannot use them without violating line-of-site requirements. The same reason I can’t throw fabric over my head like a 19th century photographer; plus living in Texas, my head would bake like a potato.

That leaves the sunshade. The longer the sunshade the better. The small pop up or three sided sunshades are worthless in my opinion. The Meijunter shade has been mentioned and is almost identical to the PGY shade that I use. I can also recommend the Hoodman shade. (The shade straps are also good for holding reusable ice packs to keep tablets cool in extremely hot weather- what we call daytime in Texas) Now the only light that can reflect on the tablet is from directly behind you. When you put your face into the shade, like a periscope, 80% of the reflections are blocked. The trick I use to block some of the remaining 20% is to attach dark fabric to the back of my cap or hard hat from ear to ear. This will drape over your neck and shoulder and will block the light that slips in behind your head. Of course you will look like a skate boarder from the 1990’s, but that’s the price I’ve found for low reflection viewing.

The Crystal Sky monitors are close to a solution but still have too many negatives for my workflow.

Hope that helps. Love to hear and other tricks people have.

If you don't like goggles, then you really need to try the BT-300's. The goggles you refer to are VR (virtual reality) devices which require a spotter to meet the VLOS REQUIREMENT since you are completely shielded from the real world. Epson BT-300's are AR (augmented reality) and let you see through them as well as the information reflected on them showing the DJI Go 4 app info. The BT-300's are also very narrow so that you can see around them to watch your drone and always maintain VLOS. Long sun shades tend to make you look away from the drone and then have great difficulty finding them again as soon as they get beyond 500-1000'. The nice thing with BT-300's is you get 0% reflection on the BT-300's when you wear a brimmed baseball hat.

 

[D0CT0R]

If you don't like goggles, then you really need to try the BT-300's. The goggles you refer to are VR (virtual reality) devices which require a spotter to meet the VLOS REQUIREMENT since you are completely shielded from the real world. Epson BT-300's are AR (augmented reality) and let you see through them as well as the information reflected on them showing the DJI Go 4 app info. The BT-300's are also very narrow so that you can see around them to watch your drone and always maintain VLOS. Long sun shades tend to make you look away from the drone and then have great difficulty finding them again as soon as them get beyond 500-1000'. The nice thing with BT-300's is you get 0% reflection on the BT-300's when you wear a brimmed baseball hat.

^^^^^^^^^^ What he said, I have them too.

 

[GeneM]

^^^^^^^^^^ What he said, I have them too.

I forgot about the BT-300s. I know several pilots that rave about them. Never tried them myself- being a middle-aged man that wears glasses. Progressive bifocals at that.

Any experience using them with glasses? Haven’t had good luck with glasses over glasses with other products.

 

[alexborghi]

I still have a heck of a time seeing the screen of my iPad while flying, I've purchased a hood and I have had some success. But I still find it difficult to see which way I am pointing, if I want to capture some video, and I fly my route, then stop to turn to either come back or get another view' it's really hard to see. Also after getting out anywhere from 200-300 feet, for me it's hard to see the red lights on a sunny day. Just wondering if others have this issue , and any good ways to deal with this.
ps. I'm nearly 60 and wear glasses, maybe it's time to retire! [emoji15]

Hi i did this cardboard and velcro cover over my ipad hood it works very good

 

[Matchlock]

Well I'm 72 and I also wear glasses. I also can't walk very far, maybe twenty yards or so and then I have to rest. Here's what I do to fly my Quads.

When I get to the place that I want to fly over, I set everything up and then set the Quad down out in the open with the battery in and turned on. Then I go find a nice spot with plenty of shade, take my portable chair out of the back of my SUV and park my butt in the chair, in the shade.

I do all my usual flight checks and take off. I fly around til it's time to swap out the battery and off I go again, all the while, in the shade. Sure, it's a bit of a drawback sometimes as there are times when you might not be able to see the Quad, but for the most part it works pretty well.

If I find that I can't see where my Quad is, I may have to step out of the shade and look around to see where my bird is and what my options are. Then, if really necessary, I just hit the "Return to Home" button, and back it comes right to where I took off from without any trouble at all.

I hope that helps a little.

Bud

I still have a heck of a time seeing the screen of my iPad while flying, I've purchased a hood and I have had some success. But I still find it difficult to see which way I am pointing, if I want to capture some video, and I fly my route, then stop to turn to either come back or get another view' it's really hard to see. Also after getting out anywhere from 200-300 feet, for me it's hard to see the red lights on a sunny day. Just wondering if others have this issue , and any good ways to deal with this.
ps. I'm nearly 60 and wear glasses, maybe it's time to retire! [emoji15]

 

[Russ43Phantom]

I forgot about the BT-300s. I know several pilots that rave about them. Never tried them myself- being a middle-aged man that wears glasses. Progressive bifocals at that.

Any experience using them with glasses? Haven’t had good luck with glasses over glasses with other products.

Initially, I used them over glasses. It worked fine. On the other hand, I took the blank glasses frame that clips onto the BT-300's and had a lenses made for them. That was even better and it did not cost very much.

 

[presman30]

Cheap fix for me was that I bought an iPad case (Walmart) with a hard plastic back and cut the cover off. Next I bought a cheap camera bag (Walmart) and cut the bottom of the bag out and punched a hole in right side for cable. Put IPad on controller first, secure it and then slide the camera bag over it. I have shading on all 4 sides. Looks a little redneck, but works great.

There are a lot of opinions out there. Sunshades, goggles, and probably many more cheap fixes. But depending on your budjet let's not forget probably the best option of all. The DJI crystalsky. Extremely bright tablet. For people flying commercially I think it is probably the best. And for a hobby if you have the money I would reccomend it for that too. Just a thought.

 

[mdurbanek]

Lots of good advice here. The Firehouse Technology works well for me. They sell a pack of three strobes, red, green, and white. I attached them with Velcro to the lower side of the P4A’s body in standard aviation configuration: red/port, green/starboard, white/aft.

My eyesight isn’t great (as good as it can be with contact lenses) but I can pick these up easily in daylight close to 1000’ out. I like to keep the drone with the aft strobe facing me because it’s simpler to navigate the sticks. When in a turn, if I see red or green, I know what’s happening.

 

[umanbean]

Homemade sunshade, before it was finished:

Cardboard, clear packing tape, blue painter's tape, and self stick Velcro

Shallow 3-sided sunshades don't cut it.

 

[Russ43Phantom]

There are a lot of opinions out there. Sunshades, goggles, and probably many more cheap fixes. But depending on your budjet let's not forget probably the best option of all. The DJI crystalsky. Extremely bright tablet. For people flying commercially I think it is probably the best. And for a hobby if you have the money I would reccomend it for that too. Just a thought.

Even Crystalsky has glare issues in bright sun. If you can spend the money, I strongly recommend Epson's BT-300 AR Glasses. For still photography, I would find the glare you get on the Crystalsky acceptable. For video, I would get the much better alternative ... Epson BT-300.

 

[russbarger]

Using your drone is important when spending this much. We have tried a number of solutions, but came down on the expensive Crystal Sky 7.8" and the T 71 Tablet we sell. This industrial grade tablet is rugged and has an anti-reflective screen design. It's what utility companies use. You can see both of these in direct sunlight. The ag people who deal with us don't care for a hood. Check the tablets out on this post:

Drones and Phones: Any Phone Works to Fly With. Right? - Barger Drone

 

[mrandy7]

I still have a heck of a time seeing the screen of my iPad while flying, I've purchased a hood and I have had some success. But I still find it difficult to see which way I am pointing, if I want to capture some video, and I fly my route, then stop to turn to either come back or get another view' it's really hard to see. Also after getting out anywhere from 200-300 feet, for me it's hard to see the red lights on a sunny day. Just wondering if others have this issue , and any good ways to deal with this.
ps. I'm nearly 60 and wear glasses, maybe it's time to retire! [emoji15]

Have you tried non polarized sunglasses? They are also supposed to be good for a computer screen while viewing in the sun. I bought mine with readers for the screen from Amazon.

 

[BikingDawg]

I use mine on the boat. Everything is white. I’m flying 200 alt max. 500-1000 feet out. I use a dark blue beach towel over my head and screen. (But not antenna). At least 3 miles off shore no chance I’ll hit a tree. So line of site is not an issue. If you have eyes on the bird and you feel comfortable under a towel?