A marriage between James Bond and Inspire 2 has taken place. It's not your usual vacation drone. It's an industrial machine that, in terms of artistry, may only work for badass artists.
The DJI M200 Series drone is designed to be a heavy-duty workhorse. Weather and water resistance as well as fighting electromagnetic interference and self-heating batteries are just few of the features of the machine. The drone is mainly aimed towards professionals who need surveillance in industrial areas such as mapping, crops, power inspection, rescuing teams, and exploration. It fights bad weather and seems like a military-grade flying machine that, in the meantime, can record video footage and take aerial photographs.
Some of its features are:
- Ability to mount two cameras side by side on separate gimbals
- Option to mount the camera on top of the drone so that one can turn the camera upwards
- 20 internal sensors (including two Inertia Measurement Unit (IMU) sensors)
- Self-heating batteries
- Resistance to magnetic interference
- IP43 rating for weather and water resistance
- Has built-in ADS-B receiver (DJI AirSense) which is working with ADS-B transmitters in order to avoid collision with nearby manned aircraft
- 32 minutes of flight time
- Intelligent flight modes such as
- Spotlight - Locking the camera on a subject
- Point of interest - Circling around a subject
- Tripod - Ensuring safe navigation in narrow environments
- ActiveTrack - Following a person or object keeping it in the camera frame
- DJI Pilot App - Web-based application for sharing real-time data with other parties (compatible with DJI FlightHub)
OK, ranger, what about the camera? I'm a photographer/videographer who's reading that. As I mentioned, this drone is for those who need to fly a camera in extreme places and weather conditions. You can purchase it with the following cameras of choice:
- Zenmuse Z30 - Features 30x optical zoom and records 1080p video
- Zenmuse X4S - Has a 1-inch sensor, can record 4K at 60 fps at ISO up to 12,800, and has 11 stops of dynamic range
- Zenmuse X5S - Micro 4/3 sensor recording 5.2K at 30 fps and 4K at 60 fps
- Zenmuse XT - Not ideal for portraits but perfect for capturing temperature images of objects and places
We don't know the exact pricing yet, but comparing to the Inspire 2 you can expect it will cost much more than $3,000.
What do you think? What part of our art industry is going to use such a heavy-duty machine with a camera?
[via SLR Lounge]
