The "Dronie" modes I have worked with are where the drone is out in front of you facing you and then it pulls back to show where you are. It is not a followme mode normally. It must have some kind of followme mode.
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I assume it will have that type of setting, everyone else does. I will be excited to hear some hands on reviews... this might be the UAV I have been waiting for to take with me on travels. A Phantom is such a large case to travel on commercial airlines with.
I'm assuming local US places like Best Buy or whatever place that sells drones will have this once released? I would love to get one! So excited for GoPro again!!
I just read the behind the scene from the link in the other post and I'm really surprised they did not include a follow-me mode. I hope they plan on adding it. This is an action camera drone after all and it should be able to follow you while you are being active.
There's a hardwired universal USB connector between the camera and the drone and between the camera and the handheld "Osmo" stick which carries the video feed, and on the drone, that feed is sent over Wifi to the remote controller.
So the Karna looks very cool. Looking forward to it. Having said that, I see 3 issues. I hesitate to even post this because i don't want to focus on the negative.
20 minute battery life.
History tells us this equals 12 to 15 minutes in the real world. However the specs also show these batteries are 75w so there is room for them to sell more powerful batteries. I bet GoPro erred on the side of safety with the batteries. Remember last year (while they were developing the Karma), the news was full of hover boards blowing up, catching fire and airlines outright banning them.
Max speed too slow for some action sports
For skiers, snow boarders, motor cross, mountain bikers, etc, 35mph max speed is not really fast enough. The Karma's portability and grip option will still make it the goto choice, but the speed will prevent them from getting high speed follow cam type shots. There are plenty of other shots they can get though. (It's not explicitly clear that follow me is even an option anyway)
If the max speed is 35, I wouldn't be surprised if that's capped at 20mph for following. I don't know that's the case, just speculating based on other drones. Anyway, 20mph would be even worse for action sports.
Fisheye lens
Come on GoPro. Who makes a drone with a fisheye lens? The software option is a poor solution. We can still fly our Hereo 4s with rectilinear replacement lenses. We don't know yet how hard it will be to modify the lens on the GoPro 5. Hopefully GoPro will release a linear lens model some day.
20 minute battery life.
History tells us this equals 12 to 15 minutes in the real world. However the specs also show these batteries are 75w so there is room for them to sell more powerful batteries. I bet GoPro erred on the side of safety with the batteries. Remember last year (while they were developing the Karma), the news was full of hover boards blowing up, catching fire and airlines outright banning them.
Max speed too slow for some action sports
For skiers, snow boarders, motor cross, mountain bikers, etc, 35mph max speed is not really fast enough. The Karma's portability and grip option will still make it the goto choice, but the speed will prevent them from getting high speed follow cam type shots. There are plenty of other shots they can get though. (It's not explicitly clear that follow me is even an option anyway)
If the max speed is 35, I wouldn't be surprised if that's capped at 20mph for following. I don't know that's the case, just speculating based on other drones. Anyway, 20mph would be even worse for action sports.
Fisheye lens
Come on GoPro. Who makes a drone with a fisheye lens? The software option is a poor solution. We can still fly our Hereo 4s with rectilinear replacement lenses. We don't know yet how hard it will be to modify the lens on the GoPro 5. Hopefully GoPro will release a linear lens model some day.
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