Want to Ride the Hype? Get a bit of Info First!
I still remember when I got my first cell phone with a camera on it, I was blown away with all the possibilities! (A camera in your pocket!). I remember how it felt when the quality started getting better and better, which made it the convenient accessory to depend on most of the daily photos and videos, and now you have cameras on drones that you can remote control to anywhere you want – the possibilities are endless!
Then action cameras such as GoPro became a mainstream, attached to places that went beyond the mind, and made the content developers able to get extreme shots without risking heavy expensive equipment, and from there, a revolution in the action photography and videography started. Put a camera on everything, put a camera on a boat, a car bumper, a bicycle, a dog, and Remotely controlled aircraft!
Remote control pilots started attaching action cameras on their planes and helicopters to get aerials shots of their flights, in addition, they attached video transmitters to these cameras to be able to get video feed on the ground to get the best composition. Meanwhile, a new type of aircraft started to appear, which is a modified version of the helicopter called a Multi-rotor.
Multi-rotors are vertical take-off aircraft that have more than two rotors which enable them to handle heavy payloads, and take off and land vertically to eliminate the need of a runway. This platform was perfect to handle a camera and to fly all directions, and have the ability to hover in one place to get still videos!
Multi-rotors are vertical take-off aircraft that have more than two rotors which enable them to handle heavy payloads, and take off and land vertically to eliminate the need of a runway. This platform was perfect to handle a camera and to fly all directions, and have the ability to hover in one place to get still videos!
But Why Is It Still Called Multi-Rotors And Not A Drone Yet?
Let us first define the word drone: Did you watch the heavy falcon lunch done by SpaceX to send a Tesla rooster to space? What was the name of the ship in mid-sea? It was called a drone ship! So a drone is a vehicle (submarine, ship, car, and aircraft) that can operate autonomously. As a result, when the Multi-rotor got the ability to operate autonomously by adding all the needed equipment from GPS, Altimeter, obstacle Avoidance Sensors, Landing Sensors, and many other sensors, the Multi-rotor became a drone. And currently, the word drone is associated with Multi-rotors only.
You want to buy a Drone?
A camera in the sky, the same as the camera on a mobile, and it opened many opportunities and many dimensions, literally a new dimension, the sky. Currently, there are multiple drones companies that produce consumer-grade, commercial-grade, and industrial-grade drones, but as bitcoin in the cryptocurrency world, DJI is the big name in the Drones world. So now, you want to buy a drone, the question is: Which is the best drone?
It Depends On What You Need
Before you buy a drone, break down your needs into the following:
There are two main categories for the drones, consumer and commercial. The consumer drone is a drone that is sold at toys store, photography store and hobby stores, like the point shoot and crop sensor DSLR cameras. The commercial drones are the drones that are professional, expensive, and most of them have heavy-duty gimbals (battery-powered camera stabilizer) and DSLRs.
Having a deeper look at the consumer-grade drones, your need defines what you should own. If you care about high-quality pictures (4K, Raw capabilities, higher resolution camera) and you don’t mind the size of the drone, Then own the latest version of the DJI Phantom-currently it is the phantom 4 pro-, it is big, so the transportation of it is not optimum, and traveling with it is a bit hard, but the final product you can get is top-notch. It has its own camera with 20 MP and 25 minutes of flying time.
If you require a drone that can carry easily, but you need a good quality camera, then you will find the DJI Mavic Pro or Mavic Air. Both have folded arms, and when folded, they are the same size as a DSLR kit! Equipped with 15 MP camera, and 3 axes gimbal for stabilization, both are the best solution for mobility and traveling with them. The Mavic Pro can fly for 23 minutes and the Mavic Air for 18 minutes. If you are not fussed about quality or flight time, you only want a drone to take selfies and very basic clips, then you want the drone that has the same size as an iPhone, which is the DJI Spark, to be honest, it is a phone in the sky, used for quick captures at low profile, looks like a toy and can be considered a toy.
The commercial grade drones are also dominated by the Chinese company DJI
Commercial Drones
To talk about commercial drones, first, we need to define the term “Commercial Drones”. Commercial Drones are the drones that are able to adapt to multiple conditions. The way of adaptation will be analyzed in future articles.
As the consumer-grade drones, the commercial-grade drones are dominated by the Chinese company DJI who provide two main products in this segment which is the Inspire line and the Metric line. Knowing what they have and the trend they create will make us understand the market, and the following is a comparison table of the most popular drones DJI made:
| SPARK | MAVIC AIR | PHANTOM 4 PRO | INSPIRE 2** | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Size | Small | Small | Medium | Big |
| Portability | Unfoldable | Foldable | Not portable | Not portable |
| Flight Duration | 16 min | 25 min | 30 min | 27 min |
| Video Resolution | 1080p | 4K | 4K | 4K - 6K |
| Pic resolution | 12 MP | 12 MP | 1 inch 20 MP | 20 to 24 MP |
| Max FPS | 30 | 120 | 120 | 60 to 120 |
| Distance | 500 M | 2 KM | 3.5 KM | 3.5 KM |
| Weight | 300g | 430g | 1368g | 3440g |
| Gimbal | 2 axes | 3 axes | 3 axes | 3 axes |
| Obstacle Avoidance sensors | Front | Front & Back | All sides | Front & Up |
Above are some details about the most popular DJI drones, noting that DJI Inspire 2 doesn’t have a built-in camera, but it has the facility to change cameras. This gives the advantage to the drone to be able to use many types of lenses and types of cameras according to the needs of the user. There are multiple camera’s that are available, and DJI always releases new camera’s to attach to the Inspire 2 drones to be used in the film industry and commercial. Future articles will talk in-depth about commercial drones, and technical terms and specifications. Fly safe and fly legally.
