Cruise Control is a handy functionality that offers smooth and accurate control for complex drone operations. However, many users aren’t fully aware of its capabilities
It has been introduced in the Mavic 3 and is available on most recent DJI models, including (the links below are affiliate, so I receive a small commission in case of purchase):
- The Mini 4 Pro
- The Air 3
- The Air 3s
- The Flip
- The Mavic 4 Pro
In this article, I will show you how to make the most of it
Other related articles you may find interesting:
How to Enable Cruise Control
To use Cruise Control, we must assign it to one of the buttons of the remote control. I will show how to do it on the RC2 controller: we access the Settings of DJI Fly app via the three dots icon on the top right
In the Control tab, we find Button Customization where we can assign specific functions to the two buttons on the back of the controller. C1 Button is set to Recenter/tilt down gimbal, and I keep it this way, as it is a useful option
I then assign Cruise Control to the C2 button. Other controllers like the RC N1 of the Mini 3 Pro have only a single button, but it is still possible to assign it to Cruise Control
When flying, we can start a move, let’s say, simply advancing at a low speed. If we press the C2 button, Cruise Control will be activated, as indicated by a message on the left side of the screen, and the aircraft will continue flying in the same direction at the same speed
Notice how the horizontal and vertical speed indicators at the lower left have turned from white to yellow with lock icons to indicate that the speed is now constant
To exit Cruise Control, we can tap the C2 button again, press the red cross at the left side of the screen, or tap the left button on the front of the remote controller
How to Use Cruise Control
The simplest way to use Cruise Control is to advance at a constant speed towards a target. In this case, the target is Mount Etna. Let’s imagine there is an eruption going on, and we want to catch a big smoke explosion coming out of the crater
We can repeat the same move several times until we catch the perfect moment, making sure that the movement will be flawless. Once we get too far in the same direction, we can have the drone move backwards at the same speed and activate Cruise Control again. We can then alternate the two moves until we get our desired shot
We can do something similar by moving laterally. A simple move from left to right shows this village in the foothills of Mount Etna. We activate Cruise Control to make sure the move is smooth and consistent
Or we can move diagonally from left to right while advancing towards the village. After activating Cruise Control, our hands are free and we can concentrate on moving the left stick of the remote controller to maintain the center of the village in the middle of the frame
We can make a more complex move by adding an elevation change to the same move. The aircraft will move diagonally from left to right while slightly ascending, and we can concentrate on rotating the camera and tilting the gimbal.
It is also possible to nest different moves by applying Cruise Control several times
We start again with a diagonal move towards the center of the village and activate Cruise Control, then we move the right stick of the remote controller slightly forward to ascend. We can press the C2 button to apply Cruise Control again and compound the two moves
Then we move the left stick to the left to maintain the center of the village in the center of the frame, and we hit C2 again. We have achieved a quite complex automated diagonal move, ascending and rotating the camera. We can focus on the wheel of the controller to tilt the gimbal to maintain the center of the village in the center of the frame
All the moves performed with the two sticks of the controller can be reproduced by Cruise Control, not the ones made with the dials, like tilting the gimbal and zooming
The obstacle avoiding sensors are active during Cruise Control, unless in Sport mode, some extra attention is needed when adding a descending move to Cruise Control, as the aircraft might end up hitting the ground
A Few Examples
Let’s see several ways to use Cruise Control for different renditions of the same scene. We can depict this village on the East coast of Sicily by simply advancing towards it at a constant speed, activating Cruise Control. We can also add manual changes of elevation and gimbal rotation. It can be useful as an establishing shot, but on other occasions, we might prefer a more dynamic approach
We can make things more interesting by modifying the angle of view. We are still advancing at a constant speed using Cruise Control, but this time we are including two other villages with some nice bays and a couple of small volcanic islands. Now we know more about the surroundings
Then we can introduce some extra moves, starting with a view of the same village. The aircraft will move diagonally to the right and slightly forward, and the camera will rotate slowly to the left to maintain the Norman castle in the middle of the frame. We activate Cruise Control for progressively revealing the other bays and villages, thus adding an element of surprise
Now I make a similar diagonal move, but this time at a higher speed, and I slowly lower the altitude while the camera rotates to maintain the Normal castle as a target. I activate Cruise Control to combine all these moves. Notice the interesting parallax effect with the elements on different layers in the background rotating at different speeds
To make the move even more dynamic, it is possible to use the left wheel of the remote controller to apply some digital zoom. Let’s do the same Cruise Control move as before, but this time starting with a deep zoom on the Norman castle, during the move we use the wheel to zoom out back to 100% progressively. The zooming out makes the movement even more dynamic
We can also do the opposite, this time starting without zoom and progressively zooming in to 200%. The parallax effect is more dramatic as the villages in different layers look compressed and closer to each other
It would be very hard to perform smoothly all these moves manually; however, by using Cruise Control, we can focus only on the wheel of the zoom for flawless results