Must Have Drone Accessories

Hey guys, welcome back. Today we’re going to be taking a look at some of the must have drone accessories to help improve your flying experience. Drones are bloody awesome; I think we all agree on that. Sometimes though, with short battery times and difficulties popping up all over the place, drone piloting can be hard. Thankfully there are some accessories out there that can both improve your flying experience and the quality of footage that you can capture.

The first accessory I want to talk about today is a tablet. I know how hard it can be trying to find the best DJI Compatible tablet, but if you stick with an apple iPad Mini 4 you can’t go wrong. A couple of other good tablets are the iPad Pro and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3.

The next must have accessory that I would like to talk to you about today is a backpack or case. Depending on how much equipment you have and what sort of travelling you will be doing will determine which backpack or case that you need. Off the top of my head the Manfrotto D1 Backpack is a great case for the Phantom Models. Anbee also do a couple of good cases for the DJI Mavic Pro and the DJI Spark that are worth checking out. If you want a backpack recommended for a specific drone, drop me a message in the comment section below and I’ll see what I can do for you.

Another must have drone accessory is spare batteries. I cannot stress enough how helpful these are and how much they improve your drone piloting experience. When I got my first drone it took me a while to get a spare battery and I can honestly say that there is nothing more infuriating than having to stop filming because you ran out of battery. Or when you come across a new awesome location to realise that you ran out of battery 3 awesome locations ago. Anyway, I recommend buying 3 of these, that way you’ll get a decent amount of flight time and won’t be getting frustrated like I was.

One of the less common accessories, which I honestly think is really important, is a landing pad. I don’t know about you but the idea of landing my drone on sand, snow or mud doesn’t sound too appealing to me. Anything can go wrong and something were to get inside the drone and break I would be pretty gutted. Having a landing pad just provides you with a nice clean landing surface that won’t damage your drone too much if anything were to go wrong.

New Research Released by Sky Logic

Sky Logic have just released their annual market sector report, where they analysed researched gathered by over 2,600 participants across over 60 industries across the globe.

They have recently published the main 10 insights that they have gained of the currently drone industry and I am going to summaries a few of them for you below. If you would like to check out the full article written by Sky Logic, click here.

It is interesting to look at these types of market analysis as it allows us to gain an understanding of what it to come, by looking at how far we have come. It is projected that by 2025 the drone market will be worth over $100 Billion, which is just a crazy amount of money. It is in these market sector analysis that we get to see what is driving this ever growing industry and gain an understanding of the direction that it is heading in.

The report itself is over 88 pages long, so I am not going to be able to go into anywhere near as much details as these guys, so again I urge you to check it out by clicking here.

Sky Logic have very kindly provided us with the 3 most exciting insights from their research, which I will quickly round up for you below.

Insight 1: Most US Based Drone Service Provides Ever

This year has been a record breaking year for the amount of drone services being offers by drone pilots based in the US. However, it also states that the vast majority, 85% in fact do not earn a comfortable wage an only work approximately 1-5 gigs a month, which is not a lot really. Ideally, you want to be working 1-5 gigs a week in order to generate a successful income.

Insight 2: Consumer Drones Are Most Used For Commercial Purposes

It has been found out that the majority of commercial drone projects are carried out by drone pilots that have a consumer grade drone, such as the DJI Mavic Pro, which to be fair is considered at the top end of consumer grade quad copters. Sky Logic have stated their research determined that 68% of all drones over 250g purchased were for commercial purposes. That is an insane figure and supports the statistics from insight 1.

Insight 3: DJI is dominating. Duh?!

This is kind of an obvious one, their research determined that the Chinese drone manufacturer DJI dominates the market with a 71% share worldwide. Looks like DJI are bossing it as usual!

Thanks for stopping by to read this quick post on Sky Logics latest research, if you haven’t checked it out I would again recommend you doing so. Until next time!

ROVA Flying Selfie Drone Review — The Gadgeteer

 

When drones first started becoming popular, they were big bulky quad copters with large GoPro sized cameras and people mostly used them for cool landscape videos. People still use drones to shoot landscape shots, but a newer category of drones has been designed for taking a more personal type of photography – the selfie. Now […]

via ROVA Flying Selfie drone review — The Gadgeteer

Mini DJI Spark Review

dji sparkHey guys today we’re going to be doing a quick review of the DJI Spark. For those of you who don’t know, the Spark is DJI’s smallest drone and is aimed at people who haven’t really flown a drone before and are looking for an affordable and easy ways to tip their toes into the world of drones.

As such, the functionality of the DJI Spark is incredibly simple. So simple in fact that it can be flown solely by gesturing with your hand at the drones camera, however I wouldn’t actually recommend that if you’re ne

w to drone piloting.

Ok, so the DJI Spark is this easy to fly travel companion, but can such a small drone really be that good? The answer is yes, although it isn’t without its faults.

The Spark has a 1080p camera which is attached to the drones body via a 2-axis gimbal. This doesn’t provide the same steady shots as a 3-axis gimbal would, but it does do a pretty good chop at stabilising the camera. It is also able to shoot 10 megapixel photographs if you’re interested in shooting some aerial still images.

spark over hand

The drone is able to take off and land on its own, in fact you can take off directly from the palm of your hand. The Spark is also able to return to home at a push of a button which is a great future for in experienced pilots.

Aside from the basic features, the Spark comes packed with some high quality functionality that makes it one of the best micro drones around. Its intelligent flight modes, which consist of follow me, tap to fly, way points, orbit, point of interest and draw allow pilot to easily capture stunning aerial footage.

The DJI Spark has a battery life of around 16-minutes, which isn’t massively long, but for a drone that size is still respectable. You are able to fly the DJI Spark in gesture mode, which means with your hands, with your smartphone or with a transmitter connected to a smartphone.

If you are flying in gesture mode, the drones’ maximum distance will be around 5 metres. If you’re piloting the drone directly via a smart phone, its maximum range will be around 100m as it connects to the drone via a wifi connection. Finally, if you pilot your spark with a transmitter, you will be able to reach a maximum distance of 1km, which is pretty incredible for such a tiny thing.

Overall, the DJI Spark is a compact, well designed and fun to fly drone that’s perfect for beginner and experienced drone pilots alike. For any more information on the DJI Spark, click here.

Awesome Drone Video Captures the new Apple HQ During Sunset

A new video has recently emerged showing off the new Apple head quarters released by drone pilot Mathew Roberts.

The drone captures the different areas of the mega complex, including the new Steve Jobs theatre, which demonstrates the sheer scale of their head quarters.

Filmed spectacularly, this short piece makes for an excellent watch for your daily drone inspiration.

How Drones are affecting the tourism industry

Drones have opened up a whole new perspective for the tourism industry lately as it allows people to uniquely capture beautiful landscapes from the air. Not so long ago, to be able to record this kind of aerial imagery would have cost a small fortune, due to the fact a helicopter would be needed. Now a fairly affordable investment of $1500 can provide you with aerial imagery for years to come.

With drones becoming more accessible and more in demand by the day, creators have generated a boom in the use of drones in the tourism industry,

Sites such as YouTube provide the perfect platform for these creators to share their fantastic footage to millions across the world, with these then becoming ‘viral’ and shared to more people. Now people are making a living by creating travel videos and implementing drones to help capture their adventures. It is the increase in demand for such videos that has seen the travel industry catch on to the trend.

The price of drones has also been dropping dramatically, with consumers able to purchase a high quality quad copter for as little as $450. An example of this can be the DJI Phantom 3 Standard, which offers users a 2.7k camera, 25 minutes of flight times and a maximum range of 1km. These are phenomenal specifications for the price you are paying and it is thanks to drones like these that industries such as tourism have been able to profit off their popularity.

blue-2469300_1920.jpg

What does this mean for drone pilots? Well in a new study recently released it was discovered that over 60% of all consumer grade quad copters over 250g were purchased to use commercially. This could be due to the fact that drone pilots are becoming more in demand due to the increasing need of drone footage across a variety of industries, tourism being one of them.

So, what other industries are drones being implemented in? A lot. It seems every other day someone is coming up with a new way to use their drones. For example the agriculture industry has welcomed drone technology with open arms. Farmers for example, have begun using drones to monitor their crops. Due to the fact that such cheap drones are able to reach long distances and record in high definition, it makes crop inspection extremely quick. A lot quicker than riding around the entire farm in a tractor and inspecting them manually. Inferred technology can also be attached to drones in order to see how well the crops are fairing.

Another industry where drones are becoming more commonplace is in the aerial mapping industry. Drone manufacturer 3DR have recently released a drone specifically for shooting 2D and 3D maps as well as releasing software to allow pilots to construct the map.

Its an exciting time to be a drone enthusiast, we’ll have to wait and see what other industries adopt drone technology.

Parrot Announce Their Bebop 2 Power: Can it compete with DJI?

parrot-bebop-2-power-2

So recently Parrot have announce their latest release, the Parrot Bebop 2 Power. At first, it seems strange that they would release the same model again and not seek to improve their design to be able to compete with the likes of DJI.

However, once you start to look a little bit closer at what the Parrot Bebop Power 2 has to offer, it becomes clear this is not just another remake of the Parrot.

It seemed as though DJI were dominating with no one else able to touch them, it appears that Parrot want to make a stand and announce that they are here, and they’re here to stay.

So what is new about the Parrot Bebop 2 Power?

The frame of the Parrot is now made from a more durable and lightweight material, reducing the overall weight of the drone to just over half a kilo. If you combine this light weight with its small design, it becomes clear that the Bebop 2 Power is a fantastic option for pilots who are on the move with their drone.

At a glance the Parrot Bebop 2 has:

  • More advanced camera and photography capabilities
  • Additional modes that consist of video and sport
  • New palm take off feature, similar to that of the DJI Spark
  • A whopping increase of flight time to 30-minutes, which is an incredible effort by parrot. Nice to see another drone company hitting that half an hour mark
  • New FPV glasses, designed for both practicality and comfort
  • A sexy looking matte black finish
  • A new an improved transmitter that is able to pilot the drone up to 2km away.

It is safe to say that these are some pretty impressive improvements from their previous models. With their most noteworthy improvement coming in the half an hour flight time that paired with the 2km range provides pilots with a serious amount of freedom in the air.

What makes the Parrot able to compete with the DJI?

Now with the release of the Parrot Bebop Power, Parrot are able to seriously compete in the aerial videography market.

Parrot have introduced what they call Power Visual Tracking, which is an advanced piece of artificial intelligence that is able to accurately track a moving target. You sleep highlight the object in which you wish to track, you then click the object so that it is in focus and your drone will autonomously track your subject.

It also comes with a few other autonomous flight modes such as follow me and way point modes, which are nice additions however pretty common place at this level of quad copter.

Overall it is an exciting new release from Parrot, they have clearly worked hard developing the Power drone and only time will tell if it will take off or not. The Parrot 2 is available from the parrot website.