Black Lines from Prop - any tricks to remove?

JasonK

Participation Award Recipient
I tried mounting a FPV camera on the nose of my plane. In my house it works fine (with the prop spinning, plane held in hand), but when outside at the airfield, I get huge black bars from the prop.

I believe 'outside' is bright enough that the exposure time is getting short enough that the prop becomes viable on the lines. There is the obvious, switch to a different plane (pusher or twin), so the prop isn't in the way or mount the camera out on the wing. But I was curious if there is any tricks to deal with the prop without designing a new plane.

Here is about how I tried it.

VtailFPVCamera.jpg
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
Other then having a variable shutter time to automatically match the throttle changes there is no way to get rid of it. The best you can do if figure out one closest to your cruising speed .
 

JasonK

Participation Award Recipient
nope, it is a tiny all in one thing. it is multiple black bars (so I supect it is doing a rolling shudder). I don't have a DVR on my headset and it doesn't record on it, so I don't have a way to make a video of it happening. (I guess I could try aiming a camera into the headset, but that couldn't be until tomorrow at the earliest).
 

Ketchup

4s mini mustang
I know that you were looking for an option to remove the bars without moving the camera, but you could try mounting the camera on a little foam board post. It will be in the center of the fuselage, unlike a wing mounted camera, but it will be higher up, so you might not be able to tell altitude easily. Yeah, that's it. I just wanted to leave another option here just in case.
 

JasonK

Participation Award Recipient
yup seen it, which is why I said I suspected it was a rolling shudder.

that is an idea Ketchup. I will definately see how it "looks" a quick measure points to needing ~2.5" of height to get above the prop.
 

JasonK

Participation Award Recipient
2.5" up and while the camera is above the prop... the field of view still gets prop covering ~1/3 the image. it was a good idea. but at some point the camera is going to get so high that it is just asking to get snapped off somehow.
 

Grifflyer

WWII fanatic
It's not much of a solution but I just learned to deal with it, it took a while but eventually it no longer bothered me.
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
I wonder if you go tri blade with lower pitch and change colors. I know that certain color props when in my FPV view for the quads disappear into the background easily. Since you will be looking at sky more in a fixed wing the "Ice blue" or the "crystal green" props may solve the issue for you.