Haye Kesteloo is the Editor in Chief and Main Writer at DroneDJ, where he covers all drone-related news and writes product reviews. He also contributes to the other sites in the 9to5Mac group such as; 9to5Mac, 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, and Electrek.
Haye can be reached at haye@dronedj.com or @hayekesteloo
![DJI Phantom 4 Pro drone captures moose fighting off a wolf in northern Ontario [video] (0)](https://dronedj.com/wp-content/themes/ninetofive/dist/images/default-dronedj-related-guide.png?w=1600)
Dan Nystedt from Sault Ste. Marie in Ontario, Canada was flying his drone to capture some beautiful fall scenics in 4K when his eye caught a moose standing in a lake. As Nystedt moved his Phantom 4 Pro in for a closer look at this majestic animal, a wolf comes charging out of the bushes and a battle for life and death ensues. Another example of how drones bring wildlife to life.
On Sunday the Federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau said that for the first time in Canada a drone had collided with a passenger airplane. The commercial Skyjet plane was struck as it was approaching Jean Lesage airport in Quebec City on Thursday. Garneau confirmed that the airplane only sustained minor damage and was able to land safely. He was extremely relieved that nobody got hurt. He continued to say:
“This should not have happened. That drone should not have been there. It could have been much more serious. If the drone had collided with the cockpit or the engine, the incident could have been catastrophic.”
BBC News just reported that an Airbus 319 narrowly missed a large drone while approaching Gatwick Airport. A UK Airprox Board report revealed that 130 lives were at risk when a large diameter drone passed directly over the wing, in between the wingtip and the fuselage. An “airprox” is when distances between aircraft are seen to compromise safety. The incident happened on July 9th when a drone was “flown into conflict” with the Airbus 319. According to the report, there had been a high chance of collision.
Late in August DJI launched their “Bug Bounty” program after hackers had been able to bypass DJI’s geo-fencing. Around the same time, the US army stopped using DJI’s products because of ‘cyber vulnerabilities’. Apparently, the program has been quite the success and DJI is now planning to make the first payouts, according to DroneLife. The combined payout is in excess of $30,000 to multiple researchers.
Even though most homes have completely burned to the ground and the homeowners have left, the mailman is still doing his rounds, as captured on video by drone pilot Douglas Thron. The almost eerie and apocalypse-like short film Thron uploaded to YouTube shows the extent of the devastation. Apart from the mailman doing his job, the streets show no sign of life. Houses are burned to the ground and skeletons of cars are still sitting in the driveways. Why would the USPS deliver mail to homes that no longer exist?
Ever since drones became popular, amazing photos and video footage of beautiful locations and events have been shared online. Just take a quick look at our Instagram account, if you’d like to see some of the beauty our planet has to offer and the unique perspective drones can provide. Since drones are unmanned and relatively affordable, they also allow us to go places where we’d otherwise wouldn’t dare to go, like to the edge of an erupting volcano for instance.
At an event in Brussels on October 12th, the Chinese drone manufacturing company DJI announced the release of the new product called AeroScope, that will enable local authorities to identify and track airborne drones. With the release of AeroScope, DJI is catering to safety and security concerns from government agencies, such as the FAA in the US, EASA in Europe and the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority as they are grappling with the “unmanned traffic management”, or UTM question, while protecting drone pilots.
During their Zenmuse X7 event in Hollywood, CA on October 11, 2017, DJI announced four new prime lenses clearly aimed at the professional photographer or filmmaker. The third lens is a normal DL 50mm F2.8 LS ASPH lens with a leaf shutter, (available in single shot mode) that supports shutter speeds up to 1/1000s and is meant to eliminate rolling shutter effects and banding when shooting in artificial light. Any filter with a diameter of 46 mm that weighs 10-12 grams and is no thicker than 4.4 mm can be used with Zenmuse X7 lenses, according to DJI. When taking stills, the focal length multiplier is 1.5m turning the 50mm lens into a 75mm lens.
During their Zenmuse X7 event in Hollywood, CA on October 11, 2017, DJI announced four new prime lenses clearly aimed at the professional photographer or filmmaker. The third lens is a normal DL 35mm F2.8 LS ASPH lens with a leaf shutter, (available in single shot mode) that supports shutter speeds up to 1/1000s and is meant to eliminate rolling shutter effects and banding when shooting in artificial light. Any filter with a diameter of 46 mm that weighs 10-12 grams and is no thicker than 4.4 mm can be used with Zenmuse X7 lenses, according to DJI. When taking stills, the focal length multiplier is 1.5m turning the 35mm lens into a 52mm lens.
During their Zenmuse X7 event in Hollywood, CA on October 11, 2017, DJI announced four new prime lenses clearly aimed at the professional photographer or filmmaker. The second wide-angle lens is a DL 24mm F2.8 LS ASPH lens with a leaf shutter, (available in single shot mode) that supports shutter speeds up to 1/1000s and is meant to eliminate rolling shutter effects and banding when shooting in artificial light. Any filter with a diameter of 46 mm that weighs 10-12 grams and is no thicker than 4.4 mm can be used with Zenmuse X7 lenses, according to DJI. When taking stills, the focal length multiplier is 1.5m turning the 24mm lens into a 36mm lens.
During their Zenmuse X7 event in Hollywood, CA on October 11, 2017, DJI announced four new prime lenses clearly aimed at the professional photographer or filmmaker. The widest angle lens is a DL-S 16mm F2.8 ND ASPH lens with a built-in 4 stop ND filter, to allow for wide-open shooting during daylight to achieve cinematic shallow depth-of-field footage. The 16mm lens is the only one of the four prime lenses, that does not have a leaf shutter. Any filter with a diameter of 46 mm that weighs 10-12 grams and is no thicker than 4.4 mm can be used with Zenmuse X7 lenses, according to DJI. When taking stills, the focal length multiplier is 1.5m turning the 16mm lens into a 24mm lens.
At the end of last night’s Zenmuse X7 event, DJI gave us a sneak preview of what’s to come. It is special DJI software and it is called DJI’s Project Vertex. Where the Zenmuse X7 with the new prime lenses and CineCore 2.1 is supposed to make post-production easier in filmmaking, Project Vertex will make the pre-production process a lot easier by allowing you to model and pre-program your drone flightpath.
Ever since the DJI released the teaser video, rumors have been going around as to what exactly DJI might be releasing at their event tonight. Especially within the various Facebook groups, there was a lot of speculation. Some people thought it would be a GoPro Karma-killer, with a new camera, drone and gimbal all built into one. Others thought it would be just a camera perhaps. Earlier this week, we received some photos and a leaked video clip in which an Inspire Drone was shown with that new camera attached. The video clip ends with “Zenmuse X7“. Today, somebody emailed us with what seemed to be official specs and photos of the new Zenmuse X7 camera and gimbal. And of course, we shared them with you, our readers.
Abdessattar Abdelkefi, an aerospace engineer, and his team at New Mexico State University stumbled upon the explanation as to why the wings of an albatross (and other large soaring birds) are black on top and white underneath. In the past, the color difference was explained as camouflage, a way for the bird to disappear in its surrounding when nesting on a rock for instance. Thanks to Abdelkefi, we now know better.
During the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, late September, the FBI director, Christopher Wray warned that terrorist drone attacks are coming to the U.S. “imminently”, in response to a question by Senator John Verhoeven from North Dakota.
“Terrorist organizations have an interest in using drones. We have seen that overseas already, with some growing frequency and I think the expectation is, it is coming here imminently,” Wray said, “I think they are relatively easy to acquire, relatively easy to operate and quite difficult to disrupt and monitor.”
Chinese power companies have found a more effective, but not necessarily a cleaner way, to remove trash hanging from power lines. The simply use flame-throwing drones to burn the trash off. According to Mashable, people have reported seeing these drones burning off items such as balloons and kites tangled up in the wires, out of reach of the maintenance crews.
Now a few weeks after Hurricane Harvey hit the Houston area, the cleaning operation is in full swing. Take for instance flooded cars. There is an estimated 30,000 of them, all of which need to be processed by insurance agents. Now, 30,000 sounds like a lot of cars but actually seeing a drone video of all these damaged cars parked at the Texas World Speedway south of College Station, gives you an idea of the magnitude. As far as your eye can see there are cars parked that sustained water damage during Hurricane Harvey.
A few days ago we took a good look at the latest teaser video from DJI and tried to distill what kind of product DJI is about to launch on 10/11/2017. It was obvious that it had to do with a high-quality, low-light lens. The question that remained open was whether it would be just a lens/camera or whether it would include a handheld gimbal or even a completely new kind of drone a la the GoPro Karma, where the handheld gimbal is integrated into the design. Well, it seems that the answer has been leaked in a video on the website Kanzhaji.com.
Drone footage just surfaced on Twitter showing the wildfires in Northern California that already have claimed one person’s life, injured many others and destroyed 1500 homes and businesses in what is called one of the worst firestorms in Northern California’s history. An estimated 20,000 people were forced to evacuate as roughly 14 wind-driven wildfires started on Monday. Collectively the fires cover an estimated 57,000 acres in the Napa, Sonoma and Yuba counties.
Drones are making inroads in all different aspects of our lives. Most people fly them for fun and tend to see drones as a hobby or a toy. Meanwhile, however, these unmanned aerial vehicles are quietly transforming many professional operations and for instance, they are increasingly being used by real estate agents, insurance inspectors, maintenance crews, farmers and emergency responders.
Wildlife biologists often work under harsh conditions in unforgivable environments to observe dangerous animals, but if you think that this would pose the biggest risk to a biologists life, you’d be wrong. The number one cause of death for wildlife biologists are light-aircraft crashes. According to a 2003 study in the Wildlife Society Bulletin, between 1937 and 2000, 91 biologists and other scientists have died in the field and 60 of them were killed in helicopter or plane crashes. Mostly while flying at low altitudes to track wildlife.
Drone registrations up are up in North Dakota in general, but since the federal government released the first list a year ago, drone registrations for commercial use are up fourfold, reports the Bismarck Tribune.
The drone market is growing very fast, no doubt, but experts believe it suggests that the drone industry could become part of our everyday lives.
Have you checked out our Instagram account yet? No? Well, maybe go over there and take a look. There are some really amazing photos there from some very talented drone photographers.
Pretty badly, actually. But it depends on many different factors such as; the mass of the drone, the speed of the drone at the moment of impact, the type of accident (fall-out-of-the-sky vs. fly-into) and the design of the drone. Recently the researchers at the Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), one of the Federal Aviation Administration’s UAS (unmanned aircraft systems) test sites, completed a study about the kind of injuries a person might sustain from a drone collision.