RunCam Owl2

[Bad Raven]

Quite a while back now I pressed the button on one of these RunCam Owl2's on super special offer.  My thinking was that it would help on those dull flat days when I find using FPV unexcitingly dull (or frighteningly scary!  ). Not that I had a quad to put it on at that time!

Well, it sat in its box untouched and ageing until the other days flying proved that the good old "hack" Nighthawk 280 camera (the original CMOS tat) was just not cutting it when compared to my other better equipped quads. (It hadn't been used much for a while anyway stuck on Baseflight till I managed to get the latest Betaflight successfully into the ancient Skyline32 on its all-in-one board.

So, I decided if the thing had the name "Nighthawk", it might as well try and live up to it, and in the last hour have fitted the Owl2.

JEEEEEZ does it cut through the gloom!!     VERY impressive! 

I have heard that the Owl wasn't that great in full light, but that the Owl2 is better balanced.  I don't care that much about performance in good light, as I won't be using it when the weather is good (if it ever improves   ).

If anyone is interested I'll come back with a few reports in differing conditions.

[ched]

It's always interesting to see real life use of kit.
A good cam for low light sounds fun.

[Bad Raven]

Sunny with a few fluffy whites today while at indoor/outdoor location. (12-15mph but who cares)

Outdoor first, and unsurprisingly had to dial the headset brilliance and contrast back significantly as it was bright though not washed out (When fitted on Sun afternoon it had only been tested indoors in unlit home hall and dusk garden, neither actually flown).

In the none too well lit sports hall (flourescents and tiny north facing windows) it worked pretty well without further adjustment, so good I actually flew a few banked turn circuits in a lull when the others in my group were exercising their jaws rather than flying (which is largely the norm for them really, I do a lot of indoor solo flying in a group!!!!!) 

[Bad Raven]

Managed an hour and a half yesterday to test it in brilliant sunshine at the club flying field. Near zero wind, and only me and a flying buddy there.................not that I'm complaining! 

It worked well and I did no further adjustment.

So, so far have not experimented in adjusting the Camera at all, and only carried out minimal adjustment to the Headset for its first daylight try out as above.

I think sharpness can possibly be improved a little with a lens tweak (which I have found quite usual!),  but the contrast and general quality of the image is quite impressive given the wide range of light level it works over.

Certainly not the "this is only good for very low light work" that the Owl (Mk1) got labelled with.

Incidentally, these comments are relevant to the IR Blocked NTSC Owl2 version I have. 

Next update I plan on that old high hours run quad is to update the cheap and now two year old EMax VTX. 

I'm leaving the std EMax motors, etc, as it's my "fast cruiser/mild aero" machine, no pretensions of "race" performance, but on cheap 2200mAh 3S it is managing 8 minutes plus with the screamer balance port alarm set to 3.6v per cell. After my other much more potent quads, its quite a nice feeling to have that length of flight time in pocket.