Flying a drone, anyone here own one?

[Tony V.]

My workplace bought a drone and wanted me to learn how to use it and take some video of the building and property for promotional purposes. Anyhow long story short I must admit it's actually fun and interesting to see what you can do with a drone that has a decent camera on it. The one I'm using is capable of doing this below shot, really cool if you ask me.

 

[Sonnie Parker]

My brother has a buddy who uses a drone to take overhead pics... said he was going to survey our land. We had a got come in the pawn shop trying to sell us one for $9,000... which I thought was a LOT too much... and we only buy firearms.

 

[Tony V.]

$9k! Was it lined with gold? Even really good drones cost less than $2k new.

 

[Sonnie Parker]

Well that was about 2.5 years ago... and they were a bit more expensive then. Kind of the first 4K TV's I suppose. I had no idea they were that cheap... and I know I insulted him when I told him we wouldn't give him more than about 2K for it then.

 

[Tony V.]

Ya, they have become affordable that's for sure. The one work bought was just over $1100 and it shoots 4K at 24/30 fps and 1080 at 120 fps so more than enough. It's crazy as it can even track an object up to a speed of 35mph as it moves and has obstacle avoidance.

 

[Sonnie Parker]

I wouldn't mind having one just for fun, but that's probably not a good reason to spend $1100. I guess I could spy on some neighbors.

 

[Tony V.]

LOL, the DJI spark is a really nice drone although it cant really do 4K at any realistic framerate (20fps) and can be bought for $600

 

[Sonnie Parker]

That might be more like something affordable to play around with... or perhaps look for someone selling one used at an even lower price.

 

[GFOviedo]

A security company I used to work for 3 years ago uses drones to patrol areas during the night. They got night vision set up and motion sensors automatically turns the drone on, and we had to use an iPad and tell it to respond and record video.
You can program the trajectory differently every time it flys with Google earth. It was pretty awesome. They cost about $3000 per drone fully equipped.