Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles, were originally developed in 1935. They were further developed for military applications in World War II and Vietnam.
Drones come in many sizes, shapes, price points and are built for different applications. They have recently picked up momentum in the film and photography industries, making it easier for both amateurs and professionals to get the shots they wouldn’t be otherwise able to.
Michael Stemm, a Fredericton-based film maker with Down to Earth Productions Inc., said he has been creating films since elementary school.
“There was an after-school program that I worked at where we made videos for the government of New Brunswick,” said Stemm.
Continuing with his love of video production, he started using drones in 2015 when consumer-based models became available on the market.
“It gave me an advantage in a way because I got into it a bit early before other people started buying them.”
Stemm currently has three drones he uses at his production company. They are small and he doesn’t plan to upgrade for a while because bigger drones, capable of carry bigger cameras, require insurance to operate them.
Drones under two kilograms can be used by anyone, but anything over that requires insurance.
“This is just in case it falls out of the sky and hits someone’s car, house, or even a person. With something that big falling a hundred feet out of the air is definitely a hazard,” said Stemm.
He emphasized the importance of practicing with the drones, and said people need to know the laws applicable to piloting.
Pat Richard, videography professor at St. Thomas University, has been a camera person for 38 years and has worked with various news agencies.
He said even though drones are great tools, because of regulations and restrictions, they won’t be replacing helicopters for filming the news.
“There are less restrictions on helicopters, you can get higher over fires with a helicopter. You can’t fly very high with a drone, but whereas with a helicopter you have to stay a little higher, so you can get a better shot,” said Richard.
Among other issues, drones require line of sight to fly accurately and in high density metropolitan areas this becomes an issue. Drones cannot provide the immediate action film crews need during breaking news.
“Here in Canada, news organizations can’t pay for drone footage unless it’s from a provincial operator. We can accept footage for free if people offer us footage, as long as they haven’t broken the law getting it,” said Richard.
While drones are used a lot for professional work, they can also be used for recreation.
Faris Mahboob is the co-president of the University of New Brunswick UAV group which teaches its members how to design, build and fly drones.
“It’s open to anyone, they don’t have to be students to be part of the club. Anyone can come in and learn how to build their own UAV for any application,” said Mahboob
The club builds UAVs for all purposes but has a large focus on building UAV’s for racing. They use the inflatable dome that covers the BMO field on the UNB campus to fly and race the drones along a course.
Mahboob said it’s not hard for people to build race drones, but they can gain knowledge about electrical engineering by building them.
“There are a lot of people in the quad racing community that have no experience in electrical, they do some YouTubing, and they learn all this fairly quickly, you don’t really need to know anything about electrical to build them, it’s pretty straight forward.”
Cameras can be mounted on the UAVs which send a signal back to goggles with monitors built-in. This gives the pilot of the drone a first-person view of what is happening at the front of the drone.
“The advantage of [first-person view] flight that a lot of people like is you don’t have to worry about orientation, where as if you’re just looking at it and you turn the quad around then all your controls are backwards; some people prefer first-person view for that reason,” said Mahboob.
The average price of a racing UAV is roughly $300, but the more popular models, that come pre-assembled and include everything you need to fly them, go for between $700 – $900. While not required, first-person view goggles can range anywhere from lower quality $50 sets, to higher end $400 sets.
