Draganfly SAVS R/C helicopter does aerial photography "on the cheap"

The main problem with amateur film making is that no one is handing out million dollar checks to fund your latest art house masterpiece, meaning that your choice of shots is basically limited to what you can accomplish with a Handycam and a homemade fig rig. Aerial photography can be especially tricky, as renting a plane, helicopter, or crane to shoot those dramatic establishing shots is prohibitively expensive on a shoe-string budget -- so Draganfly Innovations has come to the rescue with an R/C helicopter for the everyman cinematographer. At $2,500, the company's Stabilized Aerial Video System (SAVS) is still no bargain, but it does give you everything you need for overhead filming in one pre-assembled package: gyroscopically-stabilized copter, anti-vibration video camera, and wireless video receiver from Diversity. Most appealing about this solution is the so-called Thermal Intelligence self-leveling feature, wherein on-board infrared sensors use temperature differences to distinguish the sky from the ground and allow the helicopter to automatically hover without any input from the controller. The 19-ounce Draganfly SAVS is portable enough for almost any application, but the trade-off here is battery life: the relatively tiny lithium-polymer batteries only allow a maximum 15-minute flight.

[West Hubbard @ Nov 13th 2006 7:28PM]

This is totally for creeps.

[Thomas Jan @ Nov 13th 2006 8:29PM]

Isn't this eerily similar to the floating camera described in All Tomorrow's Parties by Gibson?

[matt @ Nov 13th 2006 8:35PM]

coulda sworn i saw the exact same thing in toys r us

[Henry @ Nov 13th 2006 9:36PM]

Draganfly's had that kind of thing for years. They also have this awesome RC plane, a replica of the Predator UAV, that can navigate with GPS and take photos and video.

[Sugemax @ Nov 13th 2006 10:00PM]

"...replica of the Predator UAV..."
lol this gives predator a whole new meaning

[strider_mt2k @ Nov 14th 2006 7:29AM]

(Minds out of the gutter you lot!)

As a builder of wheeled ROVs, I look forward to the challenge of flying this bad boy via camera.

Keep the micro-RC helicopters and fixed wing craft coming!
I plead insanity. I'm just crazy about this stuff!

[Christian Martin @ Nov 14th 2006 9:37AM]

It's an aerial Zune logo!

Is that how we get tunes back and forth?

[Jeff @ Nov 14th 2006 7:17PM]

I should point out that for the price of this thing you can get ten hours of (piloted) helicopter time in an R22, or a bit less in larger helicopters. If you only need a few aerial shots for a short film it would be significantly more economical to actually rent a helicopter.

[Roger Bondy @ Dec 1st 2006 2:38PM]

http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/13/draganfly-savs-r-c-helicopter-does-aerial-photography-on-the-ch/

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