Having looked at the kickstarter pocket drone with interest, I’m wondering if theres anything similar that doesn’t take a genius to put together that will:
Fly by remote and/or
fly premapperd course and/or
fly to follow a gps beacon
carry a gopro
be able to follow a rider and track them (camera pan as well as drone position) using a gimbal or something

not cost a small fortune 😉

the pocket drone looks great, but i think its missing the gimbal trick as its fixed camera, so I dont see how you can get that creative with shots.
Or am i missing something with how you can follow subjects with varying distance and relative position?

Speak to fellow pro film makers, or the pro riders your working with I’m sure they will know

Don’t see why not, but GPS (without spending lots) isn’t going to be accurate enough. Maybe something optical, coded IR on the rider and sensor on the drone.
You’d need some clever maths to work out what happens (and where to move) when you loose the rider. And I guess the distance to the rider would be controlled manually.

Not sure if it will be as good as a skilled flyer/camera-person.

Main issues is battery life really, most quadcopters can only fly for less than 30mins and auto landing may be a bit tricky.

I’m sure I saw a vid ages ago of a drone following some people on a bmx track. I think they had some kind of gadget in their pocket that it followed

To borrow someone else’s question from the article, how does it cope with avoiding trees?

My guess would be that trees would be a problem, you’d either have to have it above trees and see nothing or below the treeline and hit them I’d think.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNPJMk2fgJU[/video]

Having looked at the kickstarter pocket drone with interest, I’m wondering if theres anything similar that doesn’t take a genius to put together that will:
Fly by remote and/or
fly premapperd course and/or
fly to follow a gps beacon
carry a gopro
be able to follow a rider and track them (camera pan as well as drone position) using a gimbal or something

& this

not cost a small fortune

Aren’t compatible 😀

I’m just dipping my toe into Quadrotor flying & a complete beginner. I bought a Blade 350. It comes with a GoPro mount & in its basic flight mode anyone can fly it. I get about ten minutes flight with the GoPro mounted before the battery is goosed. There is no gimbal mount included but it can carry one & the GoPro.

Have a look online for the spec. You get a lot of tech packed into what’s basically a toy.

GPS return to home.
Gyro stabilisation
Compass. IE the thing knows which way it’s flying
Barometric altimeter.

The return to home feature has to be seen in operation 8) Either hit the “get home” switch or turn the radio off & it will return to exactly where you started the rotors turning.

Lots more on Youtube.

Yep, pie in the sky for a ‘toy’ really I guess. The rtf pocket drone is a pretty attractive idea at $500, but when you get into dji phantom with gimbal and addons and towards $2000 then thats well into commercial operations territory.
Something more simple (less expensive) and well practiced flying will have to be the way. Thanks all.