Shutterbug57

I have a few small, high performance drones that require a fairly high degree of skill to fly. Once you have that skill, you can do some pretty amazing things with them, but I have not taken the time to be able to fly them through the house successfully. In looking at videos of photo drones, they seem to be pretty docile and some appear to have a degree of self-stabilizing ability. As the photo drones are much more expensive than my, basically toy drones, I have never flown a photo drone. For folks with experience with both photo drones and high-performance/aerobatic drones, how much easier are the photo drones to fly? I appreciate your input.

SpyderJan Loc: New Smyrna Beach. FL

I have a drone myself, but there is a special section here for drone photography. You would probably be able to get some relative advice there. https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/s-124-1.html

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

deleted... SpyderJan already posted the forum link as I was typing

lsupremo Loc: Palm Desert, CA

I understand that you get what you pay for, but It would also nice to know what you need to take just basic images.

olemikey Loc: 6 mile creek, Spacecoast Florida

Much easier - Several friends have the professional type DJI and several others (names escape me at the moment) and they are simply amazing compared to the ones you are talking about, great range, good power, excellent cameras and FPV capability, GPS location data, etc, etc. Easy to program and to fly, quite forgiving. The new Mavic series DJI is getting good reviews now (I think the newest one has a zoom lens)...….strong winds can still be an issue, so you have to know what the upper air windspeeds are, it can be amazingly different 200 to 400 feet up (My son lost a Walkera F210 to high winds/low cloud ceiling on a blustery day) - and we did not know how the failsafe was set-up until to late - mistake, piled on mistake, loss of signal, 3-5 second blast at full throttle (factory failsafe setting) and it now lives somewhere out in the St. Johns river basin!!!!!! The racing drones are so fast, you have to be on your toes, and a "spotter" is always a good idea!

I have many small to large, including 3 of the Dromida XL 370mm size that I modified to carry real FPV camera and transmitter packages (tossed the wifi stuff in a box), Two Walkera F210's and a Walkera 150 and yes they are fun!! I will say this, forget about 5.8ghz FPV, it is only good for line of sight, you will need the native gear that comes with the good ones, or put together your own package, nothing higher frequency wise than 2.4ghz, even lower is much better, down in the 1 ghz. range or lower. Put a couple of trees in the way of the 5.8 stuff, and the wi-fi stuff, and no picture, then, loss of control.

The Dromida 370's that I modified have the altitude hold feature and that makes it much easier to pay more attention to the FPV view. As for high speed axxkicking fun, the Walkera's are just silly fast and really handle, the 150 will do 45-50 MPH almost instantly, and the 210 is a monster, zero to 80 MPH straight up and out of sight in maybe 1-1.5 seconds, and they are stock, no mods other than additional lighting for better orientation at distance, esp. if that 5.8ghz lets you down. Hopefully some others will chime in - Have fun!!! Oh, there are drone forums out there that can help just like this forum.

dlmorris Loc: Loma Linda, Ca

The photo drones have image stabilization on their cameras, which helps a lot. They are also much easier to fly, as they have GPS hold (you fly to some altitude, and it will stay there by itself... in fact, you can "park" it in the sky, and it will stay there until you take control again. It stays where you put it. I own a DJI Spark, and sometimes, when I'm trying to figure out the controls or camera, I just let it sit in the sky in front of myself until I'm ready to fly again...) The photo drones are very stable in flight, though not as sensitive on the controls as some of the racing drones. I have an earlier cheaper drone, without GPS or atmospheric hold, and YOU must FLY it. If you let go of the controls, down it comes, but with the more expensive drones, it will stay where you put it. MUCH easier to fly. More docile than your racing drones.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

They are much easier to fly than toy drones. I have both. I still wouldn't fly either one in the house though. The, "Photo Drones" as you call them, need a gps signal to get that stability and flying in the house blocks the satellites. That said, if you want, you can still use a drone as a video camera and walk around the inside of a house and take stabilized video with it. I've never tried, but I've seen it done. The 3 axis gimbals give the camera great stability.

I don't know what to call the better camera drones, but camera drone doesn't really seem to be all that correct since I've seen toy drones with cameras. The difference seems to be that the better drones all have GPS and 3 axis gimbals and shoot 4k video. I usually refer to mine as a GPS drone.

stanperry Loc: Spring Hill, Florida

I use a drone for Real Estate photography. I tried to fly the little ones. I’d have to try them out a long time to fly one with any true level of skill. My Hubsan pro all but flies itself. Activate the geo stabilization and it sits wherever you put it. That gives you time to assess what needs to happen next. Time to decide everything. And with 25 minutes of flight time, you can relax, reorganize and execute a revised plan. It’s important to recognize the distinction between my drone use and yours. I’m not flying for enjoyment. It’s a platform for photography. It also requires a pilots license. I’m not sure how much “fun” flying one of these big copters is for someone whose used to the panic by the second flying typical of the non stabilized models.

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

I've owned and flown DJI Phantom's 2, 3 Pro and now the 4 Pro. All of them have been ease to fly. Take your hands off the controls and they just hover in a stationary position. The 4 Pro is totally self-contained with a built-in display screen which I find much easier to use than having to mount and use a smart phone or iPad as the display; take the unit out of the case, insert a battery, turn on the controller and drone, and you're flying!!

bwa

Shutterbug57

I have a regular private pilot's license. For the bigger drones, do I need to get another license or do I just need to brush up on the drone rules/regs?

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

You only need a drone license if you are going to use your drone for profit. If flying for pleasure, you only need to register the drone and brush up on the drone rules so that you don't put people in danger.

stanperry Loc: Spring Hill, Florida

All you have to do is take the exam for Part 107, and then only if you want to charge for flying it. I don't know how many others have run into the problems I have with just finding a place to fly. You can't operate within a 5 mile radius of ANY airport. When I look at my airspace nav charts, there are damned few places that don't fall into a restricted zone. Then you run into the myriad other regulations prohibiting operating over people, buildings, etc. it really is quite cumbersome, just finding a non covered prohibition. I believe that most, if not all, pilots are violating the rues, regulations, and laws just for recreation. The inherent danger in using your drone commercially is that your product can be easily found on Facebook, the MLS, etc., and there are lots of pilots who got caught that way and had to pay the $1000.00 fine, plus confiscation of your equipment (including your camera, folks). I use mine for Real Estate, but most of the time I can't without jeopardizing my expensive equipment.