Of mini-drones and cameras - A question

DrZiplock

Greetings.

So, I'm in the process of some last minute Christmas shopping for my gf and she has mentioned on a few ocassions that it would be cool to have a little drone with a camera that she can fly to take photos, etc while we're hiking and out and about. She's a bit of a tech and electronics nut.

That said, I've seen a few out there that are $texas. And since this is the first time out I figure we can work our way up to $texas and maybe start with something more reasonable like $ohio.

Anyone have experience with mini drones and cameras that has a recommendation that I can look at?

Right now I'm seeing this http://www.amazon.com/Hubsan-61170-02-Channel-2-4GHz-Copter/dp/B00ILYHTHE/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1418314166&sr=8-3&keywords=mini+drone+hd+camera

Thoughts?

Thanks!

mts

you might want to find one that has a gopro mount. i know woot sometimes has them on there so it might be worth looking.

that one seems dubious since it seems quite fragile especially if you want to take it hiking

Madican

Be very cautious where you set it flying. Not because of aviation laws or anything, but because birds don't tend to tolerate intruders in the sky.

wrong_button

Not to just be the douche that sends you to review sites, but here's a review site. It's actually informative, I promise.
I ran across this earlier in the year because my girlfriend mentioned wanting the same thing, ultimately she decided the price of the things of any quality vs. what she wanted to do with it was a little too great. Quite a bit of good info here.

It's kinda long, but I'd specifically read the part about the models with a gimbal (or lack thereof) and how they work with GoPro's etc. A lot of that is how she ended up making her decision.

Prime

Looks very similar to mine, I get about 8 min flight per charge, 4-5 with heavy camera use. Battery charge takes around 45 min. Around 150m range of the control. See if you can pick up a couple of spare batteries. I enjoy it, its a fun little gadget but you wont be in dangering any planes with it due to its limited range.

djmitchella

I have exactly that hubsan done, and it's a bunch of fun, but also definitely a toy, and also definitely frustrating until you practise a lot, because flying something that's facing the wrong way is tricky. As a place to start, I think it's a great choice -- sure, I'd like a Phantom with a stabilised gopro mount and gps and stuff, but like you said, those are much _much_ more expensive.

If you're going to get one of the hubsan drones, then definitely definitely get the 'protection ring', so that the propellors aren't the outermost thing when you fly it into a fence/wall/etc, and definitely definitely get extra spare propellors, because when it crashes those things can pop off and are easy to get lost (especially outside). More batteries is probably a good idea, too. (ie, the 'people who buy this also buy that' stuff on amazon).

All that said, it's controllable enough that you can fly it indoors without too much trouble, video quality is perfectly acceptable, and I've crashed it a lot of times and it's still all in one piece. Outdoors is scarier because if you start flying off in the wrong direction you can get much further away/higher up before getting things back under control; indoors you can just hit a wall/ceiling/floor and start again, but that goes with the territory for any drone -- it's actually a win for the smaller ones when you're very first learning, because they're so small you _can_ fly it indoors to keep things safely contained while you learn.

Metalbourne

I've been researching this a lot and this quad has gotten better reviews: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DJZMPBK/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_vxWIub0XR8ZEQ

From what I've seen, the walkera performs a little bit better as it's more stable in flight, and it can be controlled via smartphone or the controller. The controller is a standard DEVO controller, so if she decides to upgrade she can put a DEVO flight controller in the new quad and she already has a controller. Likewise, she can buy a nicer controller and fly her existing quad with it.

Video for the walkera is routed to your smartphone and not part of the controller itself, which makes it easier in case something breaks.