Casey Neistat Tries Out GoPro's New Drone Karma

Yesterday GoPro announced their new drone Karma along with the Hero5 action camera, and the additional handheld gimbal. Casey Neistat was also able to get his hands on and test out the early prototype of the GoPro Karma in New York City.

From the looks of it everything in the video, the Karma looks very easy to set up, just slide in the battery and gimbal with the Hero5 and you are ready to go. The size of the drone is very ideal, as well as the legs and propeller arms just flip out and snaps into place.

In route to the test flight area, Casey attached the gimbal to his chest as he skated down the streets, the video looks very smooth. With the stabilization alone I was definitely impressed, even on the cobble stone roads. Without reading the manual or getting any assistantance from GoPro, Casey was able to successfully fly the new Karma around to show some test footage on his third attempt. I was hoping to see a few test flights of the different modes including orbit.

For a working prototype, everything looked great, I will be waiting for ore to see if I will be adding this to my shopping list. Looking for more info on the GoPro Karma release, make sure to out the GoPro Releases Karma article!

Alex Ventura's picture

Staff writer Alex Ventura is a professional photographer based out of the Houston area that specializes in automotive and glamour with the occasional adventures into other genres. He regularly covers automotive related events for Houston Streets & Spekture with some publications in the United States.

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13 Comments

I was a little underwhelmed with the footage. Was it because it was a cloudy day? That said, I still want one.

The go pro in my opinion is best when content is closer, further away it just does not look as good as a phantom. This is my opinion having used them both (obviously not the 5 yet).

It was also shot with the flat color profile and not graded.

It was shot in 1080p. The quality will be very similar to the Gopro 4 black. Regardless, it's still a sweet deal and there's no way I'm not getting one, specially at that price

Very sweet deal, I want one as well.

Does anyone know if the camera can point upwards while up on the drone? It seems like it should be possible, yet I haven't seen any confirmed footage from the karma with the camera pointing upwards? That would allow from some great shots.....

Good question. Doesn't seem to show much about that but the video from GoPro on their site and in our release article shows one scene where it applies that camera pans up and another where the camera view is pointing straight down.

I asked when I was at the Launch event flying the Karma and they said it won't point up- basically, it won't allow you to get the propellers in the shot.

does this have a "follow" function or you have to do it manually?

I am assuming since it was still the prototype Casey didn't show off the other features. I think the dronies function will be the follow function, guess we have to wait to see for sure.

I'd also like to add, I thought the stabilized footage from the chest mount looked great.

Really solid, I'm sold on that handheld gimbal!

I get it new drone and everyone starts comparing it to a phantom.

1.But how does the new gopro fair up against the phantom camera under low light ?
2. It doesn't even have sonars or sensor to detect obstacles. And current high end drones have that as well as auto follow/tracking features. So what market are they really targeting they when they say it is their best ever gopro yet.. ?