Universal FPV Gimbal + Quark Stabilizer

The dual axis head tracking FPV gimbal is very difficult to use effectively, I am still practicing with it occasionally but for now I believe a single axis is more practical. However, someone (PKNEXUS) brought up the idea on discord to have “a single axis gimbal on the roll for the gopro only, with pitch for both fpv camera and gopro” which got me thinking.. I have the Quark Stabilizer and the universal gimbal is well.. universal.

I have only a single flight with it at the moment, will do some more flying with it soon. Initial thoughts from looking at the raw footage are that it looks like a Mavic aside from the wide angle GoPro lens, which may be compelling to producers. Weight and weight distribution are an issue especially when looking down, even the mighty Terraplane was struggling when the gimbal was tilted downwards and any quick movement of the gimbal was actually moving the drone itself since there was so much mass hanging off the gimbal. I talked to someone else (Kevin Shaffer) about some possible weight reduction, maybe removing the battery for both the Quark and the GoPro and running power off the drone, would just need to be careful not to let the cables wrap around the Quark.

It should be mentioned that horizon lock is available for most action cameras we use and with the extra weight of the Quark I currently cant say if it is worth it or not, but the raw footage looking like traditional drone footage may be what justifies flying with this, especially since a major benefit of using the FPV gimbal in the first place is the ability to get ‘traditional’ drone shots with a FPV drone.. I will update as I do more flying and testing and will include some example flight footage.