UAV Cameras an Eye In the Sky For Adventurous Filmmakers 63
First time accepted submitter NRI-Digital writes "Could the use of unmanned aerial vehicles open up a whole new world of filmmaking? UAV manufacturer Schiebel and media company Snaproll Media recently teamed up to test Schiebel's Camcopter on an aerial film shoot. Whether filming volcanic eruptions or zipping through forest tree-lines, UAVs have the potential to get shots that manned helicopters would struggle to manage. It's still a young, niche industry, but as costs come down, these little vehicles could become a common sight on the film shoots of the future."
Re:Helicopters (Score:4, Insightful)
A small consumer-grade HD camera won't do either, at least not for anyone wanting to make good quality film. With proper exposure, colour balance, and contrast (no overexposed backgrounds on pitch black foregrounds - OK that's exaggerating of course but you get the idea).
Those UAVs the US army is using nowadays can carry weapons and bombs. Those bombs could be replaced by movie cameras - the carrying capacity is not an issue. The air resistance of a camera mounted to the plane could be, though nothing a stronger engine can not overcome; the lower operational range will still be good enough for a movie shoot.
The main drawback of plane over helicopter type UAV is that a plane must maintain a minimum speed. And for many shots, like filming a walking/running person from above, that minimum speed is far too high, and one would need a helicopter for that.
And then again I don't see why we can't build unmanned helicopters like we can build unmanned planes. It's not that they are that different. Navigation is the same; flight control is different of course but I don't see why a computer wouldn't be able to handle that as it's pretty straight-forward.