Smooth stabilized 1080p on an FPV micro drone with Insta360 Go – sample videos

What’s the smallest stabilized HD camera for a drone? It could be the Insta360 Go (reviewed here), a 20 gram stabilized 1080p camera, small and light enough to be mounted on a 100mm micro drone.  Here are sample videos from Insta360 Go on a micro drone.

WHAT ARE FPV DRONES?

Most people are familiar with drones from DJI and its competitors such as Parrot.  However, there are other drones with a minimalist and spartan design – often with circuit boards exposed on an open frame.  They are usually called FPV (first person view) drones because they’re often flown by the pilot while wearing goggles that show the drone’s perspective.  FPV drones are used for racing, freestyle aerial acrobatics, and cinematic videos.  They’re usually customized, with pilots choosing not just the motors and propellers, but the flight controller, receiver, video transmitter, and other parts, which they solder together themselves.  And whereas DJI and photography-oriented drones are stabilized by GPS and do their best to limit your maneuvers to avoid getting you into trouble, FPV drones are far more maneuverable, able to execute aerobatic moves such as flips, rolls, and spins.  On the other hand, because they do not have GPS stabilization, and most do not have altitude hold, they require far more skill to fly.

BTW, I’m learning how to fly FPV myself.  If you want to learn from my mistakes, check out Basic FPV!

THE DILEMMA

FPV drones have an on-board camera but they are primarily for allowing the pilot to see from the drone’s point of view, with zero latency, but with very low resolution and a lot of static.  Here’s a sample:

Needless to say, the quality is too low for non-pilots to appreciate. Instead, to provide decent quality video, FPV pilots usually mount a GoPro or other action camera. But for micro quads designed for indoor flying, GoPros are too large. It is for these drones that the Insta360 Go’s compact size becomes an invaluable feature.  At just 20 grams, the Insta360 Go is one of the few stabilized HD cameras that can be mounted on a small drone that measures as little as 100mm (about 4 inches) from motor to motor.

Check out these Insta360 Go videos shot from a microdrone by DevFPV.  Please note that in my experience with the Insta360 Go, YouTube’s compression reduces the video quality significantly compared to the original.

Here’s another one:

Here’s another sample from R3D Shifters:

What do you think of these Insta360 Go videos? Let me know in the comments!