Aerial photography has been developing rapidly in the past 3 years. If you have followed this trend and purchased a camera drone, you are about to have a lot of fun. But after a spending a while with the drone you’ll realise they do not look like the AMAZING photos you have seen on Instagram. Don’t be surprised, because many of those photos were probably shot using some extra accessories. All photographers depend on additional accessories to make their life easier and to take their photography and video footage one step further. Rest assured, you can do it as well. Listed below are among the most useful drone accessories I’ve had the chance to use and test. These accessories can assist you with enhancing your overall drone experience, improving video quality, flight adventure and safety.
1) Additional Propellers and Propeller Guards: Propellers (also known as fans or blades) are the most fragile part of a drone. You should always have extra propellers with you when you are going out to fly your drone. If you crash your drone propellers are the first parts that will get torn apart. I’ve got enough drone experience, and I’ve had over 20 different drones. But even I crashed initially when I first received my DJI Phantom 2. Prop guards are yet another story. They are not necessary, but they come in handy if you fly indoors or hovering in limited spaces. During the past six months, I have used propeller guards only once or twice, but a majority of people use them day-to-day. If you’re crashing your drone often and breaking your propellers a lot, then you should definitely get prop guards.
2) Additional Battery: Drone technology have come a long way in the past few years. The latest DJI Phantom 4 Pro offers 30 minutes flight time according to their website. For the majority of non-commercial drone pilots, this will never be enough. Considering the time spent on flying up and landing, you will have 20 minutes for recording footage. So make sure to purchase an additional battery pack or even more to get a reliable backup anytime you need. If you own the Phantom 4 Pro, you may want to want to upgrade to the quick battery charger instead of the one that comes with the package. It’s going to charge the P4 Pro battery in 40 minutes instead of 65 minutes on the regular charger.
3) Additional Battery Charger: Additional battery power makes much more flight time possible, nonetheless they also need to be charged. Once you have 2 or even more batteries and each and every battery requires sixty minutes to charge, the waiting time period can rapidly increase to hours with extra batteries sitting down idle. So it’s best to purchase additional battery charger or better yet, you might want to get the multi-charger, that allows you to charge your batteries simultaneously.
4) Vehicle Battery Charger: When you’re away from on a road trip and also the only electrical power source you have may be the auto’s battery, That’s why it is important to get a car battery charger for your drone. So if you have 1, 2 or maybe 3 electric batteries, even then when you’re out on trips, you’re most likely to use up all your power juice at some point, so what you certainly require is the ability to charge your batteries when you’re not anywhere in close proximity to a mains power point.
5) Tablet Or iPad: Controlling a drone whilst handling it along with the online video feed from the smartphone, it gets uncomfortable, to say the least. The display is too small to get a distinct look at what is happening up there. So you better buy a trusted tablet PC which has a display large enough to provide a reliable video clip feed. Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tablet or some other equivalent tablets with enough processor speed are generally great possibilities based on your financial budget.
6) ND Filter: To manage the amount of light that goes into your camera lens, and manage tiny shakes, while increasing motion blur, getting an ND Filter is a smart choice. ND filters really are a must, in my opinion, they make the video on Phantom series drones look more cinematic and are they great because they increase no considerable weight to your drone’s gimbal. The new gimbal on the P4 Pro is extremely light and fragile, I also would wait to include any weight to the front of that camera lens.
7) GPS Tracking device: When flying your drone in remote areas, like mountains, or on the sea, it’s going to be very hard to find your drone if you ever crash it. A drone GPS tracker attached to the legs of your drone might come in handy when you go on a mission to rescue your drone. Using the GPS tracking app on your smartphone, you will be able to locate your drone on your smartphone’s maps, with an accuracy of up to 2 meters.
8) Storage Space: Additional electric batteries will not be any practical when you lack sufficient space to store the footage you record. The default 16 gigabytes micro SD card that is included with DJI Phantom 4 pro could only store about 50 minutes of video footage. Consider buying 64 Gb micro SD card if you do not wish to transfer the video clips to your PC after each 2 flights.
9) Backpack or Travel Case: If you are planning on taking your drone along your journeys, camping, bicycling or road trip you will realise the default packaging that comes with drones will not last for very long and not comfortable to carry along, to say the least. To get a more comfortable and safe solution, get a specifically created drone backpack or travel case; you will find loads of available options. In my opinion, hard-shell backpacks are the most functional and steady backpacks for the value.
Photography and videography tools have always depended on accessories and so do drones. You should consider spending on accessories if you are trying to shoot amazing drone videos.