Quick Drone Questions???

[Max Field]

Have been wanting to look into camera drones to throw into my arsenal for a year or two now but I can't tell what's prosumer and what actually produces an image quality cuttable with something like Blackmagic or similar dynamic ranged cameras.

Are most people just buying drone rigs to put their pocket cameras in? Or is the usual practice buying a drone with the camera just built into it?

What are some common models that are most popular for professional productions? Will they deliver impressive enough dynamic range for freedom in the grade?

Lastly, how big of a learning curve is there to get a proper panning or zoom out shot from a drone?

Thanks for any input, I'd look it up on Youtube but I trust the opinions of you guys more.

[Aapo Lettinen]

18 hours ago, Max Field said:

What are some common models that are most popular for professional productions? Will they deliver impressive enough dynamic range for freedom in the grade?

one extremely popular drone in recent years has been Inspire2 with the X7 camera. Here it replaced pretty much all of the larger drones which flew Red cameras mainly because the Inspire is so much easier and faster and cheaper to use and can even be used by a one man crew if needed. cheaper, longer flight times, much easier logistics. On very big productions one might still fly a drone carrying a separate camera but as said most drone guys here switched to the Inspires immediately when they came out and they have been dominated the drone shoots for the past 4 years or so.

On small productions one might have used the Mavic2 style of drone if the low bitrate high compression codec is manageable. Stuff like small corporate, tv stuff or quick extra drone shots if high quality is not absolutely needed.

when the strickter EU regulations came effective the manufacturers have developed drones which are very lightweight and small but still capable of delivering very high quality images. For example the Mavic3Cine which is designed to be just a gram under the weight limit so that one can manage with the cheaper easier to get drone license with easier permits... specifically designed for stuff like corporate, tv-shows, reality, indie films, extra drone shots on bigger shows or when shooting in restricted areas, etc.