Drones

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So my buddy bought a drone with his Trump check and has been flying it around town.  Camera is stable and produces news helicopter worthy footage.  Goes up to 450 feet and has sensors on it that keep it from crashing into anything.   Easy to navigate and land and folds up into a small bag.  Kind of freaks out one of the dogs who barks at it.

I have got to get one.  Any of you have drones?

No, but Vertibird was one of my favorite toys as a kid.

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Does he have a Mavic Air 2? I just got a hand me down from my dad of a Yunnec Q500 4K. It's like 5 years old and aready way outdated but the pics and video come out great

why, what do you want to do with it? get sunset pics?

Yeah, taking pictures and video.   The stability of the camera and the quality of the video is amazing - better than a TV news helicopter.

I could also use it for work, which often involves taking pictures of land.  Plus, it would be good for outdoor recreation, like recon for good camp sites or clam digging spots.   It would also come in handy for survival and disaster prep, although I hear you need wi-fi for live video streaming. 

We used one at work to film the day by day progress of building our new facility. Pretty cool time lapse movie clips were sent out to the company during the building process, and yes the quality was great

A few years back I bought a $100 beginner drone. No brand name that I can recall. It was fun to fly around and not very difficult to learn. I ended up giving it to my nephew who crashed it within a couple of flights.  I would love to get one that takes really nice photos and video. I have seen some where you fasten your phone to the controller and can see what the drone sees. Those are pretty cool and on my want list. The investment/crash factor has me sidelined for a while.  

 

>>>>the investment/crash factor has me sidelined for a while.

The beauty of the newfangled drones is that they have sensors to keep it from crashing into things and have advanced auto-pilot for landing and take off.   

 

Kinda neat, but the two I have had crashed and broke after first two flights, so I say meh. 
 

even if they have sensors now-a-days to try and keep them from crashing, unless you are a real estate agent, child, peeping Thom  or a cop.... they seem kind of boring. 

>>, although I hear you need wi-fi for live video streaming. 

You don't need wi-fi to capture the signal from the drone you could do that with RF/UHF video transmitters  some drones have those attached. But yeah if there is zero wi-fi then it isn't going to stream anywhere once you capture it. With shitty wi-fi you could stream with something like LiveU Solo.  

>>No, but Vertibird was one of my favorite toys as a kid.<<

Looks like a lot of fun for a toy in the 70's!

Anyone watch the Drone Racing on ESPN? Pretty cool stuff, they usually race around old malls that are all painted in day-glo to mark the track.

What did your buddy have to pay Ken?

I love the video images they can capture, and I can see the practical uses, but overall I find them kind of creepy.

I guess I'm just an old.

>>>Does he have a Mavic Air 2?

Yep.  That's it.   I wasn't there, but I guess he had it flying down a railroad track yesterday at about 5 feet taking video and almost hit a lady walking her dog down the tracks.  The crash sensor would prevent an actual accident, but I hear the lady wasn't pleased nevertheless.  Said it freaked out her dog.

^ you're not supposed to fly it that close to people.  Just got a dji mini 2, it's loads of fun just learning to fly! 

We have the house for sale and the house agent used a photographer that also uses drones to take overhead views of the home and also a shot showing how close to the lake our home is. Got to talking to the guy and he said they also now do surveying with them and he also does work for Publix filming the building of their stores, among other stuff too. The stuff he does involves a bunch of editing. The guy turned his hobby into a pretty lucrative business.