DRONING ON: THINGS TO KNOW

WHAT IS THE SUB-250G CATEGORY?

The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority has many laws that forbid the use of most drones without official permission, usually in the form of a Flyer ID and a Pilot ID. In the process, the CAA also created a sub250g weight category for smaller camera-carrying drones as they don’t pose a threat to people below. This means you can fly any sub-250g drone over people, cities, towns, tourist attractions, beaches and parks.

CAMERA QUALITY IS EVERYTHING

Aside from basic flight performance, the most important element of any drone used for shooting video and stills is the quality of the camera and gimbal. We can’t stress enough how important it is to choose a drone with a decent camera and ideally a mechanical 3-axis gimbal because without these two stalwarts the quality of your footage and stills may turn out to be very disappointing.

GET SMART

Many modern camera drones now feature a tranche of ‘smart shots’, ie automatically generated flight paths and camera angles that are difficult to achieve when flying manually. Chief among these is the ubiquitous ‘orbit’ mode, which commands the drone to fly nose-in in a perfect circle around your chosen subject. Some models like the Autel Evo Nano+ also include an ‘Active Track’ function which follows slow moving subjects really well.

ADJUST INFLIGHT CHARACTERISTICS

All three of these drones we’ve covered here allow you to customise certain flight parameters but the DJI and Autel models provide a much wider selection. This includes joystick sensitivity, yaw speed, gimbal tilt speed, plus a variety of handy camera settings. It’s therefore worth going for a model that allows for these levels of customisation if only to enhance your enjoyment and make you a more composed flyer.