FPV Live Drone

FPV Drones are changing live broadcast...

... and we're here for it!

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Over the last few years, you may have seen the rise in popularity of FPV drones. FPV stands for First Person View, essentially the drone is flown as if the pilot is sat inside it meaning you can fit through much tighter gaps and pilot the aircraft with much more dynamism than flying a conventional line of sight drone.

There's different options with FPV drones and here's the pro's and cons of each...

Standard Live FPV drone

Much like you might have seen on the ski racing, standard live FPV drones offer live broadcast quality footage with a fixed camera ontop of the drone, this is perfect for giving the audience that immersive and dynamic feeling. The camera rolls with the motion of the drone allowing the viewer to almost feel like a bird flying along.

The disadvantage to this style of drone is that you can only really do follow shots as the camera is mounted forward facing and the only way the pilot can point it in a different direction, is by changing the direction of the drone. This works well, but does have a limited range of achievable shots.

Hybrid FPV drone

Hybrid FPV drones are slightly different. Whilst a standard FPV drone is generally a one person crew with the pilot also the one responsible for operating the camera, a hybrid FPV drone is a two person operation. This means the pilot can focus on flying and putting the drone in the right place, and the camera operator can focus on framing the shot. This allows for a wider range of achievable shots as the drone can be travelling in a different direction to the camera direction allowing for side shots, follow and pull shots.

The only problem with this, is sometimes you can lack the 'FPV feel', the camera is typically stabilised on these drones so you lose the immersive feeling of a standard FPV which sometimes is key to the feel of the production. Flight time is typically a little shorter too as the payload, having to carry a gimbal, is typically heavier.

Overall, FPV drones add a new and interesting perspective to many productions and it's a technology we'd love to help you explore further.