I'm seeking some advice, please - preferably 'first hand experience' type - on buying, operating and maintaining what I will call a "camera drone". That's probably not a proper term so I'd better try to outline my reasons and requirements for the request. My wife and I walked the West Highland Way last year - rather, she (and Moss, the Border Collie) walked all of it and I walked parts of most sections in between driving the car between the 'sections'. We're now planning to walk the Great Glen Way later this year but, for this trip, we aim to leave the car somewhere part-way between the official start and end points ... in our case we're planning to walk from west to east (or south to north!) so Fort William to Inverness ... taking the train from the car park to the start, and from the finish back to the car park before the long motorway schlepp back to sunny Devon! The scenery on/from the WHW is, in many places, spectacularly beautiful but the 'walker's perspective' is, of course, realtively limited. So, for this GGW trip I'd REALLY like to add an extra viewpoint and an extra dimension to the trip - a 'third eye view', if you will - and I've seen a few video clips of amateur shot drone footage that has done exactly that in adding a bird's eye view of the people (subjects) in the wider landscape. So, that's the context to my search for experienced advice - now the parameters. This is probably going to be a one off purchase, though we do quite a bit of walking so, if it's successful and the results are worthwhile, I like to think I'll get quite a substantial amount of future use out of the device, and in more than one 'application' - I already have in mind some footage I've seen (from another forum I'm on) of a Street Triple rider/drone pilot, also in Scotland, being 'followed' by the drone and being shown in the much wider view of the landscape. The device needs to be light and small enough to go into a rucksack as it will be carried all day, each day for the 5 days of the walk. It should be simple to operate (because the operator is simple!) but have good functionality such as "follow me"; automatic return to start point; plotted flight path, etc., etc. It should have a decent flight time and be easy to charge/recharge the batteries. The batteries should be readily available and preferably not too expensive - I foresee the likely need to take 3 or 4 batteries; carry at least 2, maybe 3 on each day and charge all of them overnight .... we're in B&Bs (yea, WUSS! I'm way too old to camp!) Perhaps its most important function is to take footage of what I know will be some beautiful scenery so, it should have decent resolution lens(es) capable of capturing HD, and image storage should be substantial. I have NO idea of legal requirements so it should be compliant with any legislation concerning drone usage. Finally, of course, there's budget ......... As a likely one off purchase I'd like to limit the budget to between £150 - £200. I'm, aware that there' a mountain of information out there - and a huge number of drones available via ebay, etc., - but, in some senses, the very volume of available information is somewhat daunting. What I'm hoping to do is find someone out there that has already done some of the 'heavy lifting' through either an amateur interest or professional need, and can save me some time effort and, potentially, expense and can give some advice from real world, first hand experience. So, anybody out there using camera drones? Any advice, guidance, opinions links, leads or thoughts would be welcomed. Sorry if this has been droning on ............
DJI mavic mini sounds like the perfect solution but at over £400 if you go for the 'fly more' combo. 3 batteries at about 20mins flight time each. All in a compact case and weighs 249g which means you don't need to register.
Unfortunately the features you want won’t be had (yet) for that price. The image quality, gimbal and lenses/ccd will all make a difference and costs money. DJI are one of the market leaders, you won’t go wrong with getting on of their drones. You will need to spend £400 to £1k to get features, duration, quality and form factor you want. Get insurance too - someone lost a very expensive drone in Hastings last year. A flock of seagulls mobbed it and it crashed missing me and a very expensive Range Rover by inches. The owner was miles away and probably had no clue where to go for it.
I'm not a drone expert, my channel name was by coincidence not design! I did have a DJI Mavic Pro which was fantastic, but well out of your budget, and also too heavy so falls foul to the new regs I believe, the new smaller DJI drones I think are below the weight, so are probably your best option, but they are not cheap and your budget is too low to get anything you have said you want, unless you can find a secondhand drone going cheap... of which there are loads (not sure on prices) as lots of people like myself, buy a drone thinking they will use it lots, and then realise they are an utter PITA to use as there are so many restrictions on where you can and can't use them. Fortunately DJI have an app which shows where you can and can't fly, but you need mobile data to use that out in the wild, so need signal. My drone wouldn't allow me to fly it in geofenced areas which made things easier to know, but it often meant I carried it with me to find it wouldn't let me fly it. My DJI Mavic Pro cost me around £1200, I flew it for a total of 3 hours and sold it for £500, there are bargains to be had
Very many thanks for all that. That's all extremely useful, practical and helpful information and has brought me some clarity ..... and reality! I'll keep looking and will bear in mind all that has been said ..... particularly with regard to the budget. There are, clearly, compromises to be made but I'd still like to find something practical and useable, even if it IS a cheap Chinese knock-off!!
Make sure you check the legal stuff @Adie P . You may well need to get a licence (which I think involves exams) if you are doing anything like having it “follow” you, ie not in direct personal control of it. And maybe even if not.
eBay has a lot of DJI Mini 2 and the previous model the DJL Mini for sale. Looks like you might get one of the latter within your budget. Both are 249 g so are Cat A1
Yes, thanks @figwold . I'm learning little by little that life's simple, inexpensive pleasures are no longer simple and definitely NOT inexpensive. I gather that the new (2019?) rules and regulations depend on weight of the drone and require some kind of on-line 'course' to be undertaken, plus annual registration/certification of the drone. I'll certainly be looking more closely at the wider issues and balancing the costs and benefits against the likely rewards. Incidentally, this is the video that pretty much cemented the desire to get a drone for my next Scotland trip :- www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLGUEQClJow and, yes, I'm sure he has set his speedo to read in Km/h. Nudge, nudge; wink, wink!
Drone licensing is typical shit-for-brains thinking by the Campaign Against Aviation (CAA). “Naughty people are operating drones where they shouldn’t so we’ll make everyone register themselves and their drones and that will stop it.” It hasn’t changed anything other than make it more difficult and expensive for the law abiding drone and model aircraft flyer. A similar thing happened to firearms. Since they have been near enough outlawed, we have had an increase firearms offences. In 2019 there were nearly 10,000 offences. This is an increase of 40% since 2013/4, the majority of crimes involving handguns. These have been illegal since 1998. And now drones. I don’t think the criminal element will worry too much about the law on drones. Yet the numpties in they CAA have been fiddling with the pointless laws restricting drone usage ever since they brought them in.