Drone Fever check this out an absolutely amazing piece of tech

Rob Keeble

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So some of you may know of DJI the makers of the phantom drone with a camera gimbel beneath it. Their latest phantom is unreal but they recently released and even better unit of course more $$ but targeted at the pro movie makers and costing about $2900 but worth every penny if you get to understand exactly what is in it and what it can do. The easiest way to see this is take a look at this video where Adam Savage of Mythbusters and one of his associates in the TESTED group do a test using dual controls which this new drone is capable of. So one person controls the camera on its gimble and what is shot and the other flies the drone.

Footage is nothing short of a.m.a.z.i.n.g seriously... I am in total awe of the engineering involved. Of course people like my kids will say "so" :bang:

See for yourself what you think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT5U9T9Uyok

Just imagine what it would have cost to get footage of this kind and quality 5 years ago.
 
I think these things are cool, however, I think I should have the right to blast it out of the sky if it is over my property hovering. That being said, I'd love to have one to hover over a drug house on our road, and video the dealings. Our Sheriff Department certainly is not interested in doing anything about it. I'd give them probable cause. They certainly have their good and their bad purposes.
 
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I agree. I can think of all kind of uses for that thing.....most of them legal too. At close to 400 feet in altitude, I wonder if you would even know it's there?
 
Cool video, Rob. :thumb:

I think these things are cool, however, I think I should have the right to blast it out of the sky if it is over my property hovering. That being said, I'd love to have one to hover over a drug house on our road, and video the dealings. Our Sheriff Department certainly is not interested in doing anything about it. I'd give them probable cause. They certainly have their good and their bad purposes.

Just playing Devil's advocate here, but isn't that a bit of a double standard? What if someone was hovering one over your house thinking they were giving the Sheriff's Department probable cause?

I foresee some interesting, yet tricky laws happening eventually as the result of these machines.
 
You are 100 percent correct, Vaughn and I meant it to be a kind of tongue in cheek double standard. I know there are good uses for them, however it gets very complicated because they are new and very powerful. I want the bad guys caught but don't interfere with my freedom.... don't listen to my phone, don't follow my internet dealings, etc., but do it to others so you catch the bad guys..... It is a complicated world we live in now..
 
Yeah its complicated but we need not see every new tech in a negative sense, my specific thought here was this specific unit is targeted at the movie maker.

What i am excited about is what we will get to see in all sorts of movies once the camera guys get the hang of the mix between flying this unit and directing the camera.

Just think of this from a access point of view for wild life documentaries.

Even angles that can be filmed in say a car chase.

Keep in mind in a movie budget this unit is pocket change so if a few get smashed completely in the taking of a shot, its no biggie.

It may not be evident but this is one of the first units with a dedicated up and down video link not on wifi and the downlink feed can be fed directly to a large monitor screen.

in my view its a real challenge to the creative ability of the movie industry, unless you totally satisfied with only avatar type movies digitally created.

The other aspect i believe this will enable in the movie industry is for highly creative cinematographers to make great movies with lower budgets.

No need to hire a helicopter.
Easy ability to film high rise building scenes or follow a vehicle for in vehicle chase scenes and these are "elementary" scenes that i as a total non creative can think of off the cuff.

Just like use of cell phone to text in vehicle while driving we going to need stiffer laws to deter the negative use of these things.

But nothing can take away the fact that its a incredible piece of engineering. That's a 4K camera on a gimbal with 360 view and flat wide angle lens with live HD ground view. The sheer number of technologies merging together to create this device is nothing short of mind blowing for the price point.



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You are 100 percent correct, Vaughn and I meant it to be a kind of tongue in cheek double standard. I know there are good uses for them, however it gets very complicated because they are new and very powerful. I want the bad guys caught but don't interfere with my freedom.... don't listen to my phone, don't follow my internet dealings, etc., but do it to others so you catch the bad guys..... It is a complicated world we live in now..
First: These are super cool. I want one. Second: Being new their use obviously raises new questions about their use. They are defined as aircraft therefore it is illegal to shoot one down if it is over your property. But, what about privacy? I would shoot one down if I believed it was invading my privacy or causing other harm. Such as scaring livestock. New laws are going to start popping up all over the place.
 
Randal i think its already possible.

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Definitely possible - a co-worker has a small drone like uav that can be programmed for an autonomous patrol pattern (it has a go-pro on the bottom of it). If I recall correctly it has around a 1/2 mile or so range and an auto-return-to-base feature when the power gets low. Apparently the automated link back up with the charging system is pretty so-so at the moment but that's not insolvable. I think he was somewhere around ~$800 in (including the camera which is a big chunk of the cost).
 
We actually have a couple of research projects underway this summer/fall using this technology. As cool as the hardware is, it's the software capabilities that get the imagination going. The ability to map data from as variable a landscape as a wild blueberry field in the wilderness and use it to direct precision agriculture practices is just mind boggling. Where will this take us in ten years?

Meanwhile, let's buy a $79 drone at Costco and fly it around the airport! What could go wrong?:doh:
 
Rob, Hollywood has been using drones for camera work for years. It's just that now the price is dropping to the point where small independent productions (or Joe Hobbyist) can get in the game now, too.

Peter, the proliferation of drones is a big concern in the airport business. I've gotten quite an earful from my brother-in-law, who is the Director of Aviation for the city of Albuquerque. He runs both the commercial airport (The Albuquerque International Sunport) and the smaller private airport (Double Eagle Airport) and we've had several discussions about drones and airports. The US Department of Homeland Security is also very concerned about the ways the bad guys could use drones to harm people.

On the other side of the coin, I have a bandmate who has a couple of higher-end drones equipped for aerial photography and HD video. He's made a few bucks shooting footage for local TV commercials and real estate agents. He's very conscientious about following the rules (what few there are) when flying it, but he's aware of the fact that in time, the rules and regulations will probably become too onerous for his little drone business to be profitable.
 
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