Afternoon STWers

We are off to Italy early July and I have been considering taking a small drone, just to take video (and stills) from around the Villa.

Looking at the prices (which have an enormous range BTW) new DJi ones are in the order of £500 !! and are even £300 on ebay 2nd hand. Gulp !!

this arrived as an ad whilst surfing today, it’s called the DroneX Pro and they are doing them for £79 delivered.

What do you think? Firstly do they look Kosher? and if they do what do you think the quality/spec is like?

Can’t find many (i.e. any) reviews on them which concerns me a bit.

Alleged review here

https://www.dronexpro.pro/dronexpro-shop-united-kingdom/

and purchase them here

https://hyperstech.com/intl/order.php?prod=dronexpro&net=3745&sid=&cid=wS1J9AH4MUUO1D7N15RSFSPK&lang=en

ta in advance

Dave

Sorry no knowledge of that one. I do have a spark though. I can’t say I’d consider it poor value. I suspect some of the cheap ones are the equivalent of a BSO in the bike world – a DSO.

For me at the bottom of the market are little drones where the pleasure is the flying of it. Next up is a drone where the pleasure is in capturing footage or stills you would want to bother editing and keeping. For me the spark is in the latter camp but any less that that and its just a toy and back in the former. It just makes it over the line.

Contemplating in selling my spark to buy a Mavic 2 pro. Photography (not film) is more important than it was to me and the Mavic 2 pro is a big (big) step up from the Spark (but with quite a price and size penalty).

edit – If you wanted to stay with a tried and tested brand and user interface you might want to consider the DJI Tello @ £99 which is unashamedly a toy but has a good rep.

I was going to suggest a tello, we got my son one for Xmas, it’s surprisingly good for the money. Amazingly easy to fly, very stable, and can cope with low wind speeds quite well. The downside is the camera is fixed,and the range of control is only about 30/40m. but it’d work well enough for holiday snaps.

Yep, another vote for DJI Tello. I got some good shots of my little nieces on their bikes and on climbing frames using it.

Easy to fly. Decent enough pictures for social media bit don’t expect to get a huge wall-hanging canvas shot out of it!

cheers guys I’ll look into the Tello

covert if you do think of selling the spark can you let me know please?

ta

https://www.uavsystemsinternational.com/drone-laws-by-country/italy-drone-laws/

From that link by Eddiebaby I’d say you might be lucky to get away with flying a drone in Italy!

Rules look similar to the UK?

have a look here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H78D9HI_k-k

The tello is very good but it’s no Spark or Air. Personally I wouldn’t bother with a cheap drone – they’re generally just not very good.

An alternative suggestion would be to by a Spark, or even better the Air – use it then sell it. You’ll not take a massive hit and you may just end up keeping it 🙂

If you do buy a spark you’ll want the optional controller. Which as it happens I have one kicking about after I returned the drone itself. Used 3 times total if anyone is after one!

Cheers for the heads up davey-g, but guess what I’m on iOS and that is only available for Android 🙁

You have all got me contemplating the spark now, more dosh, but as pointed out it may be better in the long run. I suppose it depends on how much I use it ?????

I had a Spark, it’s a great little drone and super portable. It takes well worth it over a ‘toy’ or even the Tello if you want usable footage from it. I’ve upgraded to and Air which packs down a little smaller and has a 3 axis gimbal for another footage still. I just view it as a flying camera, and think of the outlay as such. The footage you can get from the air really adds to a home movie and aerial photographs add something else too.

Didn’t Matt out and about have one he was trying to shift on /fence might be worth a try?

Have you thought about a power kite?

They can be tremendous fun, or so I’ve been told.

Cheers for the heads up jag61, i’ll PM matt_outandabout and see if he has

Have you thought about a power kite?

– not really no

Well took the plunge, John Lewis had the Spark fly combo on offer @ £400 with a 2 year warranty, and so I went for it.

Just setting it all up now and probably taking it out for it’s maiden flight on Wed night (wind permitting)

Then its off to Italy with it. 🙂

cheers for the advice gents.

Id suggest a bit of practice before you fly out. A few shots of the airport terminal and runways would be ideal 👌👌

I’ll get straight onto it 😉

Maybe the Italy bit may be a bit too soon :-0

Not that it’s relevant anymore but that dronexpro.pro site has only been registered 34 days, wouldn’t touch them with a bargepole.

Also not really relevant any more, but Xiaomi / Fimi have a couple of new folding drones out. The A3 looks ok, but the X8 looks like it’s somewhere between the Spark and Mavic in terms of quality, and quite a bit cheaper (if you don’t mind buying from China).

I had the older Xiaomi 4k drone which was actually pretty good until it fell in the sea (which could have been operator error or could have been a fault, I’ll never know…) and if I wouldn’t get murdered by MrsMonkey for buying a new drone I’d be very tempted by one.

Well first flight tonight in beginners mode and I must say it is very easy to fly and the photos/vids are great.

I can’t seem to find a way of hosting Flickr vids on here, can anybody help?

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2gqwtgX]DJI_0020[/url] by eastham_david, on Flickr

[video]https://live.staticflickr.com/31337/48191690767_ce9b87a0cf_h.jpg[/video]DJI_0016 by eastham_david, on Flickr

I do like the Spark the automatic stuff it can do is very nice for quick hol vids.

AN interesting accessory you may like is a Smatree DJI Spark Battery Quick-Charge Portable Charging Station SP90 which would allow you to charge your batteries in the field and give you a lot more flight time 🙂

An interesting accessory you may like is a Smatree DJI Spark Battery Quick-Charge Portable Charging Station SP90 which would allow you to charge your batteries in the field and give you a lot more flight time

cheers for that I’ll have a look at one 🙂