Drones
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About
Typically we associate Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), commonly known as a drones, with military applications. We think of the US Predator Drones used for surveillance and missile strikes in Afghanistan. My interest is more in the small **personal drones used for photography** and other other applications like land surveys, search and rescue and so on.... here I'll keep a record of any interesting companies I find.
Drones for Photography
Released
- DJI Drones - high end drones, my boss says the DJI Inspire 1 is very sought after - it's blades move up so the camera has more movement (~$3000), and the phantom 3 is has become pretty darn popular among hobbyists and now starts under a grand (starting ~$1000). They are also working on drones with some basic tree avoidance, starting with the M100.
- Aerobot - Australian company selling quadcopters and octocopters... ranging from $100 for a base model "Micro Quadrocopter" (no cameara)... up to $13,000 for a large octocopter with with a stabalized camera and used by the film industry. This company featured in an ABC feature on the "Drone Age" (talks about privacy issues). I think maybe videos like this "weekend in SF" use this system.
- Parrot Bebop Drone Skycontroller - video looks great, and costs $500 buy here.... reviews a little mixed - some people lost their drones.
- Blade® FPV Nano QX quadcopter - One of the many copters by Blade Heli.
- Chroma camera drone - Another drone with follow mode available with either a 4K or Stabilized 1080p Camera... about 4 different models from $600-~1200.
- 3DRobotics Solo - This drone is supposed to handle a lot of the flying for you ... allowing you to specify a map or orbit on the map, so you can then focus just on the camera. Price is ~$1000 and here's a great video showing off their controller.
Pre-Order
- Lily camera drone - An incredible camera drone, designed to follow and take footage of you - even when doing fancy things like snowboarding etc. Price point is pretty impressive to at ~$500... currently on pre-order, and I believe is expected to release around Feb 2016.
- CyPhy LVL 1 Drone - Their kickstarter campaign was successful, and looks like it could be quite stable to fly with an easy swipe phone app.
... this page is just getting started, so let me know if you know of other companies / product! :)
Videos
- Drone Crash compilation 2015 (and are many more like it).
- BBC doc on outdoor drone racing.
- Indoor drone racing.... exciting music.
- Drone wars are maker faire 2015.... and also the one from 2014... called "game of drones" (cute).
- QAV250-Mini-FPV-Quadcopter... good racing quadcopter - is a video on this page flying around a playground.
- Hawaii drone racing video - high speed drone racing around parts of hawaii... john says this guy is one of the best drone racers in the world.
See Also
- Panoramic cameras - something else I'm interested in.... and hoping one day soon they make available drones that can take 360 panoramas.
