Hey all! I'm finally getting all my drone stuff together and the last big thing I need to buy is a drone. I'm mainly going to be using it for video, as I'm a filmmaker and I've heard the a cinewhoop is the best choice.

Originally I was planning on getting the cinewhoop pre built from Rotor Riot here: https://rotorriot.com/products/rotor-rio...5141274698 

But just today I've learned about the iFlight bumblebee which is a little bit less expensive and supposedly more durable. 

I'm curious to know everyone's opinion between the two. I'll be running a go pro hero 9 on it with the DJI FPV system.

what do you plan to film mainly?

(08-Feb-2021, 09:34 PM)hugnosed_bat Wrote: what do you plan to film mainly?

Buildings, inside and out, possibly hills. Just looking to get some nice cinematic footage

I started with a Bumblee v2 and while it is a very well designed and built quad if I had to do it over again I would've passed on a ducted cinewhoop as my first quad. I had this idea in my head that the ducts would provide a lot of good protection making it very durable for the inevitable crashes a new pilot has. The problem I ran into is that it is quite heavy and as such needed quite a bit of throttle command to take off and fly. To me it just flew "heavy".

I struggled with it for a few weeks having difficulty even hovering semi-smoothly. Then I got an iFlight DC5 and boy what a difference. The DC5 is lighter and has much stronger motors than the 1408's on the Bumblebee. As a result I immediately had this much more manueverable quad that took very little throttle command to make it go where I wanted it to go. My flying improved in about 3 days on the DC5 as it had in about 3 weeks with the Bumblebee. Night and day difference in how much faster I learned...and am still learning. Sure I bent and broke more props but instead of trying to simply stay in the air I was able to get a few mistakes high and start learning how to control the thing.

I think similar cinewhoops are quite good at what they are designed for when in the hand of an experienced pilot, but overall I don't think they are great to learn on. Waaayyy back when I was young and flying old school fixed wing balsa R/C's we would say there were two kinds of pilots. Those that built their airplanes to fly (light) and those that built their planes to crash (heavy), even today I'm an advocate for having a craft made to fly, in spite of what it may cost me in repairs.

to get professional footage for indoors or other tight spaces a lowweight cinewhoop with a deceased gopro is the best: a heavy 3inch bumblebee or squirt, loaded with heavy battery and heavy gopro does perform very bad, isnt durable at all and dangerous. its just a trendy thing, not usable in anyway :-) sadly the heavy ones are just a marketing brainfurt :-)
https://oscarliang.com/umma95-build/

an article about cinewhoops in general, not my idea of it but a lot of usfull informations https://oscarliang.com/cinewhoop/

to do nice footage of a hill, big things; propguards or ducts doesnt make sense, a "freestyle quad", a normal 5inch quad with a gopro is the best as a cinematic platform.

compare a nice a footage and the quad used for it, there are different ones needed for different footage, you will get the right direction thisway ;-)

if you truly looking into a trendy heavy-whoop, prebuilt; the iflight protek might be the one with the lowest downsides because of the bigger prop diameter of 3,5inch. 5inch would be better but i dont know any prebuilded one ;-) i guess they will start to sell this after the 3inch cinewhoop hype is gone ;-)

Thank you everyone for your reply! So my only concern with getting a 5 inch is a little less control and the controls are more touchy and less potentially "cinematic". Is this correct? Or am I off on that assumption?

I changed my rates in liftoff to make the drone smoother to fly and I'd would like to have something similar to that if possible.

I changed my rates in liftoff to their recommended rates on this site: https://filmfpv.com/5-tips-for-practicin...g-liftoff/

Also, if I do go with a 5 inch, what does everyone think of the Xhover blastr? https://xhover.com/collections/rtf-bnf-d...d-bnf-4-6s

this is my 2,8" cinewhoop, i only do footage of tight spaces mostly indoor. its under 200g with battery and a hero6, there is a very low risk to damage anything.

if i would do other footage, i would mount a gopro on one of my -analog lightweight- 5inch quads, use it on a lipo with less cells than for performance flights (or do a throttlelimit of 50%, if i need stickrange about "touchy") and do some other software adjustements, as example still mentioned rates. there will be more controll than on a heavy 3inch -more smoothness-.


personal i use only the small lightweight one.... but i would use an additional 4inch with a deceased gopro or 5inch with a full gopro if i would like to film wide nature.

(09-Feb-2021, 05:56 PM)hugnosed_bat Wrote:
this is my 2,8" cinewhoop, i only do footage of tight spaces mostly indoor. its under 200g with battery and a hero6, there is a very low risk to damage anything.

if i would do other footage, i would mount a gopro on one of my -analog lightweight- 5inch quads, use it on a lipo with less cells than for performance flights (or do a throttlelimit of 50%, if i need stickrange about "touchy") and do some other software adjustements, as example still mentioned rates. there will be more controll than on a heavy 3inch -more smoothness-.


personal i use only the small lightweight one.... but i would use an additional 4inch with a deceased gopro or 5inch with a full gopro if i would like to film wide nature.

I actually am going to take your guys' advice and go for for a 5". I posted my shopping list here: https://intofpv.com/t-shopping-list?pid=...#pid129522

I'd love to get your guys' feedback and see if there's anything missing or stuff I should add before I actually make the purchase

If you are into cinematic commercial fpv , you should follow Fincky on YT/Instagram with some creative shoot with FPV drone.
He uses Squirt and also 5" with Stanfpv Ducts for his shoot.


If you are going for 5", consider the latest injection moulded Stanfpv ducts with 4" props or even 6" ducts with 5" props. You can lower your rate , increase your expo/ throttle curve and lower camera angle for the smooth cinematic and remove the ducts /different rate +pids settings for go fast chase footage. More flexibility.



https://www.instagram.com/p/B-rqOQWo7bX/...v9p3lmov7h