Drones are nothing new, for years unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) have been used from military exercises to surveying land and buildings. It is though only in the recent few years that consumers have been getting involved with drones with reports that millions are now sold each year from small racing drones for fun to those used for commercial purposes such as for filming.
We have also seen them become less complicated in usage and being as simple as downloading an app on your mobile / tablet and controlling them as you would a child’s remote control toy, ie up down, left right etc. They come is varied sizes and varied capabilities though importantly, for this blog, they are able to record video footage and take photos which is a very handy tool for many business sectors.
In business, many will agree I am sure, it is all about marketing and quality of images for marketing so with the invention of drones and how easy they are to use, why should you not attempt using them in your company? Price is no longer an issue now, to get a decent drone that will capture quality video and photographs you will need to spend no more that £350 and these examples will be easy to assemble, safe to use (you will just have to note flying guidelines for drones) and what rules and regs you will need to abide by from the CAA and once you have everything you need in place to safely fly they will deliver amazing shots that years ago we would of have to spend mega money in order to get a light aircraft or helicopter flyover to do for us.
I decided to get one of the current leading drones in the UK, Breeze 4k from Yuneec, and test the ease of use and the quality of footage and report back to whether or not these are a good tool for businesses to use or something that is best left for enthusiasts to play with.
The Breeze 4k cost £350 from a few UK retailers to include Argos and Currys. What I liked about the Breeze 4k is it’s size, unlike some of the slightly more expensive models like the Phantom, it comes in a handy compact carry case (size of a standard child’s lunch box), very easy to set up and indeed offers an appealing sexy design.
You then have to download the App on to your mobile / tablet which is available free on Android and App Store. Once downloaded (I have it working on my Ipad 2 and also my Android Vodafone VFD 700 with Android version 6.0) you can then prepare the drone for connection (via wifi) to your device and set parameters such as max height and distance it can travel away from you (best distance I have had it was around 320 feet away).
Then it is simple to use and can be launched from a safe spot, ie middle of a large garden without obstacles such as over hanging trees, wires and neighbour property. You can control the Breeze 4k to perform really neat filming pathways such as follow you where the device will indeed follow you around and film you, journey where it travels away from a spot and back again to pre programmed distances and also the orbit where it will circle around a point at a set distance which could be a property, landmark, person etc for example. Here is a neat example on Youtube of someone filming a boat in the orbit mode:
Once you have the hang of things control wise (note flying time is approx 10 minutes before a recharge of approx 30 minutes is needed) you can then go on to capture great photos and video footage to take back to the office with you. It really does open up a new world of marketing and in my mind certainly worth the investment – You of course can go to a freelance agency to do drone work for you and you then you will not have to worry re all of the above licences and rules, but I still think owning a drone is a wise move.
“Once again for all drone companies and many who did not read the blog post in full and sent angry and somewhat threatening emails – We do mention in this blog piece taht you need to find out the proper rules and regs for the UK usage of drone flying, especially for commercial use, by consulting the CAA website – Please investigate the CAA officially by searching Google. We are not saying that you can take a drone and fly it tomorrow in a built up area for commercial usage without doing the necessary research on licences and guidelines, but we are saying that drones are there to be used commercially just like you do as a drone filming company so sorry if this offends you. Any on going problems with this blog and if you feel that us stating positives about drones and highlighting that you need to abide by guidelines via CAA primarily is not enough then do email [email protected] and we will copy and paste your emails applicable to this blog.” Marketme Admin