The owner is a first year airline pilot (retired Air Force) who had to find meaningful work and income during the Covid shutdown. Started with an inexpensive drone, a photography hobby and a lot of gumption.
I got the bug about 6 months ago. My wife bought me a $45.00 drone from Costco. I flew it once or twice and then read that that particular model would often “fly off” from its user.
I returned it and bought a $100. drone that had RTH (Return to home) and GPS. It takes OK (not great) pictures.
The most fun I’ve had was with a $30.00 drone from Amazon. (no camera; no RTH; no GPS). I can fly it in my small backyard or even my living room (carefully). I keep the drone close and have enjoyed learning how to maneuver it.
I don’t see any great expansion of my uses. A few photos here and there and a different perspective to enjoy the outdoors is OK for me.
Too much wind, and she stays at home. There are tons of places that you CANNOT fly them, which is very limiting.
It would be fun for a while, but I’m afraid I would just get in trouble with my neighbors by flying it beyond my own property. Wilderness areas of the Adirondacks do not allow motorized vehicles of any kind and a drone counts as a motorized vehicle, the same as a 4-wheel ATV, so taking it to fly in the mountains is forbidden
My advice is to be careful when you use it. Do not invade other peoples’ privacy. Do not become a nuisance.
I know nothing about drones except the footage has been excellent. The PRNL wall collapse for example. The photos superlative as castoff demonstrates with his experience.
Can you set up a drone to track on your movements? example stay 50 ft back 50 ft up and focused on the target (kayak) ? Hands free, set it forget it and it only moves if the target moves same velocity. Might suk to try it snowboarding but kayak is a fairly humble speed.
Peace J
i know you can remain fixed on and actively follow and track a vehicle or a person in motion, surely actively tracking a boat is no challenge. I have seen it done with the operator of the video of the above demo reel. Check out the auto function tracking locked on the red Chevy Corvette in the video.
I don’t want an operator beyond the bio integrated propulsion navigate system. I want it
to follow me around like a dog and I get to leash it in.
Yes, they can be set to track and follow. The technology for drones is very impressive. You can set up a flight plan of waypoints that it can fly on its own. The higher end drones have collision avoidance sensors. Here is a video from the US company Skydio. You pick the target and position of the drone then it follows the target and avoids obstacles that might get in the way on its own.
(1) Top Skydio Obstacle Avoidance Moments (4k Drone Highlights) - YouTube
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I have a few videos I have done the editing on, and lots of video I haven’t edited. I also take a lot of stills as there is less editing involved. The drone I have does 4K video and can shoot both Raw and JPG stills at the same time. It doesn’t have collision avoidance sensors, except for on the bottom so it can sense the distance to the ground for landing.
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I have seen drone videos with obstacle avoidance sensors designed for interior building inspections or real estate sales that route through complicated interior rooms through doors in and out of each room while avoiding furniture, ceiling lights and all other obstacles within.
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Long term waste of $$. Expensive if gps, easy to lose, get stuck in tree branches while learning, if wifi driven then lots of interference making drone not work so well. Short battery life and long recharge time. Wish I hadn’t bought one.
C.Guy
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WiFi spottiness and geological or tree interference would be problems here. Thanks for the reminder.
Any suggestions for drone repellent?
Perfect. 
That’ll do it . . . Anybody thinking about Escape from New York?
Evidently, thats’ a first go-to-option for some in recent events.
sing
Evidently.
Yup. I saw yet another cocky fool drive up towards the mud pits from hell, correctly guessed this one would try to back down, and watched as he did an incredibly bad job of backing. These chumps with their 4WD trucks and SUVs apparently don’t know how to engage the low range transfer case and creep back down in a slow, controlled manner.
As he veered too far to one side, I waved my arms urgently to indicate STEER IT THE OTHER WAY, and he instead backed even farther the wrong way, in the process going off the dropoff and driving right over a metal culvert. It had already been crushed by another moron, and this one made it worse.
When he finally stopped, I told him what he’d done and asked why did they choose to pass by the one maintained road that would have connected to their destination. They had expected the county to have put a detour sign at that intersection (had not happened in 5 weeks, and locals know the road and bridge dept is, shall we say, lackadaisical, to put it nicely).
The passenger’s words after I gave them the directions was, “Thanks for not shooting us!”
Geez.