Follow me mode
Also known as: follow mode, subject tracking flight
An automated flight mode in which the aircraft keeps a chosen subject in frame and travels with it, flying the camera without a pilot on the sticks.
Updated
What it means
The aircraft takes over the chasing. A subject is selected on screen, and the drone holds distance and framing while the person rides, runs or paddles away from the takeoff point. No stick input is needed once it has locked.
Two mechanisms exist. Vision-based tracking watches the subject through the lens, which is what Active track does, while signal-based following locks onto the controller or a phone instead.
The result is a shot a solo rider cannot otherwise get. A Tracking shot of yourself from above requires either a second pilot or software willing to pretend to be one.
How it works in practice
Terrain decides whether it works. Open ground, a beach or a wide trail suits it, and the aircraft holds a line that looks deliberate rather than reactive. Trees are where it stops being clever.
Altitude is the safety margin. Flying higher than the tallest obstacle on the route turns Obstacle avoidance into a backup rather than the thing keeping the aircraft alive. Thirty metres of clear air forgives a great deal.
Framing is set before the subject moves. Distance, angle and Gimbal pitch are chosen while hovering, because adjusting them mid-chase is how the lock is lost. One good pass beats three interrupted ones.
What to watch out for
Losing the lock is routine. A rider who passes behind a bush, changes colour in shadow or simply accelerates can be dropped, and the aircraft then follows nothing.
Vision tracking also latches onto the wrong thing. In a group it will happily switch riders, and the clip arrives following somebody the edit does not care about.
The automation is not a substitute for a spotter. Many jurisdictions require the pilot to keep Visual line of sight (VLOS), and an aircraft chasing a rider down a trail is exactly the case where that breaks.
How RawClip handles it
Follow clips are strong material because they hold one subject for a long run, which analysis reads as a continuous moment rather than a fragment. Passes where the lock was lost are trimmed back to the part where the subject is still in frame.