A camera that follows you from behind, side, front or all around you!

[amirm]

Pretty neat specialized video/imaging UAV:

Is slated to ship next year.

 

[GaryProtein]

I saw that a few days ago, it's freakin' awesome!

You don't need a cameraman to follow you anymore, and this does it better than a cameraman ever could!

 

[ack]

What a great invention!

 

[Steve Williams]

It really looks like fun


This does 1080p60fps whereas the GoPro does 1080p240fps

 

[wilson1]

preorder at $499 but $999 at release. Non removable battery. 20 minutes of flight time, 2 hrs charging time. Too bad no swappable battery packs.

 

[Orb]

Oh nooooooooooooooo,
this will be the new selfie trend

Cheers
Orb

 

[amirm]

I suspect there will be others offering the same capability so there will be other options.

As for Gopro, this is what the company should have developed now that they have gone public. That having a single point of view of the camera stuck on your head or whatever was a limitation to be removed. They should buy these guys.

As for battery being fixed, I suspect that has to do with the waterproof aspect of it to some extent. At $499, if it is small enough, one can just buy two of them .

 

[Orb]

I think this is going to cause a headache for a few over enthusiastic owners who are not careful of the legalities of drone filming.
Here in the UK we have already had several cases where they have been caught out by the law on drone use.
Latest was just last week in court and now being considered more seriously as this has involved the CPS and police investigation: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-32626718
The key point for them IMO is this part of the case:

The charges also claim he breached regulations by failing to maintain direct visual contact with the drone as he flew it near landmarks including Buckingham Palace and the Palace of Westminster.
The majority of the offences are said to have happened in September last year.
Prosecutor Edward Aydin said: "These were extremely busy areas.
"The fear of the police and the Civil Aviation Authority is that it [the drone] is going to fall out of the sky and hit someone."
The Civil Aviation Authority successfully brought two similar cases to court in 2013 and 2014.

Will be interesting to see how governments move forward in future as the trend for such products increase.

Cheers
Orb

 

[Steve Williams]

Hard to call it a drone if all it is doing is tracking above the person carrying the tracker. These don't seem to go as high as the conventional drones. I do agree about legality issues though

 

[amirm]

I think this is going to cause a headache for a few over enthusiastic owners who are not careful of the legalities of drone filming.
Here in the UK we have already had several cases where they have been caught out by the law on drone use.
Latest was just last week in court and now being considered more seriously as this has involved the CPS and police investigation: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-32626718
The key point for them IMO is this part of the case:


Will be interesting to see how governments move forward in future as the trend for such products increase.

Cheers
Orb

While I am against much regulation in this area as to allow innovation, I think this part of the UK law is reasonable:

"Drones cannot be flown within 50m (164ft) of a building or structure and must not be flown within 150m (492ft) of a large gathering of people."

What do others think?

 

[amirm]

Hard to call it a drone if all it is doing is tracking above the person carrying the tracker. These don't seem to go as high as the conventional drones. I do agree about legality issues though

I wonder about the ramifications of this on a ski slope. How dangerous is it to others around the skier and what if there are a few flying around?

 

[Orb]

Hard to call it a drone if all it is doing is tracking above the person carrying the tracker. These don't seem to go as high as the conventional drones. I do agree about legality issues though

I see a different problem here in that the user is not technically even in control while still a drone (appreciate it is not same as early ideas of the remote drone), so what happens it suffers a fault when in an area with a group of people/animals/certain environments.
This is an area I would say safety and governments will consider.
What may help though is how much Google can push their drone delivery system as that may be the technology that sets the precedent.

 

[Bobvin]

Argh! Cameras, cameras, everywhere. If you fly your drone over my property, can I shoot it out of the sky?

If they can get the flight time up a little, would be nice to have this follow me around while cycling, to record the moment some knucklehead runs me down or pulls in front of me. Plus it might be motivational to review a ride and spot the areas I'm dogging it. Tie the video in with my heart rate monitor or power meter, so I can jump to the footage where I had good/bad stats and review the terrain for future improvement.

But imagine the swarm if each cyclist in the peloton was followed by his personal drone!

 

[amirm]

Argh! Cameras, cameras, everywhere. If you fly your drone over my property, can I shoot it out of the sky?

In US I believe the law is that you own all the space above your land so you should be able to do that to the same extent you can trim a tree that is falling over your land.

But imagine the swarm if each cyclist in the peloton was followed by his personal drone!

Wonder how long it will be before the TV networks send out dozens of these to follow cyclists, marathoners, etc. to shoot from around them rather than the chase car/motorcycle they use today.