Greetings fellow X6an!

[kamarul]

Greetings everyone!

Boy am I glad I stumbled into this forum. Certainly am looking forward to be able to share some experiences and learn a thing or two here as well!

Im from Malaysia (perhaps the only unit I know off in this region) and I took delivery of my helicopter in Mid August 2009 and to date I have logged 92 flights with 21:33:17 flight time. I just came back from Turkey and Russia and took the X6 with me on a "Tour of Duty" lasting 5 weeks! Its been fun fun fun not to mention some scary moment including being chased by some suspected Chechen terrorist who probably was thinking the X6 could serve them better rather than staying with me just taking photos!

Needless to say, the X6 survived, except for broken suspension on the camera mounting due to rough handling at the airport (Russian baggage handler!). The X6 was safely secured inside hard 6" tube and the Tx and Camera inside a backpack. A quick visit to an RC shop in Rostov on Don (Northern Caucus), the next day and I got it fixed by using suspension arm from an offroad buggy from Thunder Tiger! Not too bad at all! All in all, I flew only about 20 flights in Russia - mainly due to the very windy condition of the Caucasian Steppes. I was chasing a ship (shooting a documentary) as it was travelling through the Russian River System from the Sea of Azov into River Don, the Volga-don canal, River Volga and in the end into the Caspian Sea.

I'll share some photos later and especially on how the X6 performs.

[pulsey]

Hi Kamarul.

Bit more exciting than your average AP photoshoot, then.

Glad to hear that you are pleased with the X6. Mine is on order, but I was getting a bit tense as it comes in for a lot of knocking on 'other' fora and I was beginning to wonder if I've made the right decision.

Can you share your thoughts on it - positive and negative.

What sort of speeds can you fly in and what's the quality of the stills / video when it's choppy?

Andy

[pulsey]

Oh, and have you bought it for business or pleasure?

If business, how many of your assignments were business and are you happy that it's making money for you?

just being nosey

[kamarul]

Nov 11, 2009 17:09:37 GMT -5 pulsey said:

Oh, and have you bought it for business or pleasure?

If business, how many of your assignments were business and are you happy that it's making money for you?

just being nosey

I bought it to extend the range of services I can provide to my clients. We use Robinson R44 helicopter and shoot videos using cameras such as Sony Ex3, Canon XLH1 and Canon 5D Mark 2 for videos and Nikon D3 for stills - but its not always practical or cost effective to use the full size helicopter.

With the X6, it allows us to go where we couldnt before and shoot lower and even indoors. I have not been terribly impressed with X6 videos I have seen so far. They are not broadcast quality and not smooth enough as well. So I bought for stills. I have tried taking videos using the LX3 and I do not like the micro vibration at all - especially in Forward Motion. When its stationary, its not so bad. Maybe I should order the video option and see how it fares. But I know the quality of those consumer videocameras and thats why I did not order it in the first place.

For stills using the LX3 it is very good indeed for a point and shoot. But coming from a photographer so used to D3 and 5D Mark 2, it is still a few notches lower in terms of quality especially in low light situation. Under good light condition the quality can be very good but certainly not DSLR quality in terms of resolving details and dynamic range.

My 2 cents.

ps - probably about 40% of my flights so far are on assignment and the rest are training, familiarization and test flights. out of the 40%, around 70% of it are recon flights and only 30% taking photos.