Sign up for our weekly newsletter! You Might Also Like For the last few years there was a simple rule of thumb for drones. If you wanted the best picture and the most advanced features, you had to stick with a unit that was fairly large and expensive. If you wanted something easy to carry, you had to sacrifice on image quality, battery life, and range. A lot of drones on the market still feel this way. Sure you want to snag some epic aerial footage on your next vacation or weekend trip, but do you really want to lug around a case that seems designed for the nuclear codes? Luckily there is a new breed of drone available. These units deliver stable 4K footage and battery life of 20 minutes or better, but they are small enough to slip into a slim backpack. The very best of the bunch can fit inside a purse or large jacket pocket. Suddenly a drone becomes something you can bring along just in case, a piece of gear that doesn’t have to be an awkward burden when you’re hitting the ski slopes or hiking up a mountain.

A week and a half ago, there were two new drones that fit this description, the DJI Mavic Pro and the GoPro Karma. The Mavic was the more powerful drone, but the Karma offered a more flexible set of tools for capturing great footage of an adventure. Unfortunately GoPro’s drones have been falling out of the sky, and the company wisely issued a recall on the product. That leaves one clear option for the drone you should buy this year: the Mavic Pro, a unit so far ahead of the competition that it’s hard to see why you would choose anything else. The Mavic Pro is an amazing drone because it doesn’t force you to compromise. Its small size and clever form factor, with wings and rotors that fold up against the body, make it extremely portable and less intimidating to fly. But it still delivers great imagery, 27 minutes of battery life, and a whopping four miles of range. Beyond the basics, the Mavic Pro has a strong selection of advanced features. It has forward-facing optical sensors that can see obstacles, and it will dodge them autonomously or put on the brakes if a space is too tight to navigate.

It also has downward-facing optical sensors that help it safely land and allow it to hold its position indoors even when it doesn’t have a GPS signal. The Mavic’s computer vision capabilities allow you to intelligently track subjects. Tap on a person or vehicle you see in your video feed and the Mavic will then follow this target. A new Profile mode allows the Mavic to perform this kind of tracking while flying alongside a subject, opening up options for some very cool tracking shots. You can fly the Mavic with just the remote, just a mobile device, or a combination of the two. You don’t have to take the rotors on and off between flights, making it much simpler to set up and break down. And despite its relatively small stature, it can still keep up with action at 40 miles an hour. Being so small does have a few drawbacks, however. You don’t have a lot of clearance from the ground when you land. The Mavic also gets pushed around more easily by strong winds. It does an admirable job correcting for them, but all that work also eats up its battery.

If you’re a professional looking for the absolute best-quality footage, larger drones may be better suited to your needs. But for the average consumer the Mavic is the obvious choice, offering all the features of a high-end camera drone in portable form factor that puts everything else on the market to shame. The Typhoon H drone seemed promising when Intel showed it off at CES earlier this year. airsoft uav drone for saleBut it has been rapidly left behind. ar drone 2 carbon hullSure it can capture crisp, smooth footage, and it delivered on its promised battery life, but the imagery you can get with it isn’t noticeably better than units which are far cheaper and smaller. ar drone parts perthThis drone is too much, too late. If you’re planning to fly your drone in punishing conditions, the Typhoon H, with its six rotors, was much better than the Mavic at holding its position against strong winds.

And if you happen to lose one rotor in an accident, the unit can stay airborne and safely land itself. Like the Mavic it has forward-facing sensors that allow it to see and avoid obstacles, and downward-facing sensors that help it to stabilize and land. But for most people, most of the time, this drone doesn’t offer a meaningfully better experience than drones half its size. The unit requires a bulky backpack for traveling. And its remote is monstrous. The DJI Mavic drone is actually smaller than the Typhoon H remote, which kind of says it all. Photography by Amelia Krales. Video by Mark Linsangan and Max Jeffrey. (Affiliate links are automatically generated by our partner, Skimlinks. For more information, see our ethics policy.)The use of drones is increasing in popularity these days and they have many uses. The most common use though is for people to be able to capture beautiful aerial shots. After all, they offer a different perspective to the keen individual. Whether you’re thinking about experimenting with your photography or just want to try a different hobby, why not consider a drone?

There are plenty of factors to consider though such as usability and the quality of picture. That’s why we’ve helped you out and listed 8 drones that are capable of capturing images and videos here in this article. From premium to entry level drones, they have a different array of features too. And if you happen to own one, let us know what cool things you’ve done with it in the comments section. Parrot Bebop Drone is the third generation of the Parrot AR.Drone, that was originally designed to take aerial shots using only its built-in camera. However, the lack of a gimbal made it hard to focus camera to get the perfect angle of a subject while shooting. Realizing this limitation, the Bebop Drone comes instead with a 180-degree 14 megapixels fisheye lens, plus a software that can help to stabilize the image simultaneously to allow you to take your best shot. The Parrot Bebop Drone also boasts compatibility with a VR headset like the Oculus Rift so that you could drive this drone in a first person view.

The embedded GPS enables this Bebop Drone to find its way back to its take-off point, and in case of emergency, the drone will land automatically. DJI Technology, a leader in the drone industry, Phantom 2 Vison drone that comes with high quality stills fish lens camera, a GPS, a camera tilt control, and a WiFi connection. Thanks to the WiFi connection the Phantom 2 Vision will be able to provide you with real-time flight data and live camera view in a maximum distance of 300m away from you. The GPS will allow this drone to position and stable itself midair, and you will also be able to tell it to hover in a place using the altitude lock feature. It even comes with an emergency landing feature that will help position it to its take-off point when the drone is running out of battery. With the camera tilt control, there’s no limit to what shots you can get while it is up in the air. Another DJI Technology product, Phantom FC40 is the low-budget version of the Phantom 2 Vision.

The major difference between these two are distance capability, the battery life and the video quality. It’s probably best to consider this the premium version of the entry level drone for aerial photography that’s available. It is stable, agile and even supports autopilot system as its failsafe feature. The built-in camera is capable of recording 720p/30fps HD video plus you can take off the built-in camera and replace it with other lightweight cameras easily and just like the Phantom 2 Vision, you can also control Phantom FC40 using your smartphone too. Walkera QR W100S is a first person view drone that works with WiFi, which means you can use the Android and iOS smartphone app to gain full control of the drone. You can choose between standard mode or gravity mode, where the latter allows you allows you to control the QR W100S by tilting your smartphone in the direction that you want it to fly. Since it is a FPV drone, you can watch the live feed from within the app too.

If you happen to get the DEVO Transmitter you can also use it to fly the QR W100S, and use the WiFi connection at the same time to watch the live stream of the drone camera feed on your smartphone too. It’s a good drone to have if you want one that provides you with a decent first person view while you’re recording video. Heli-Max 1SQ Vcam is an easy to fly and durable drone. It comes with a camera, where you can use the buttons on the controller to take pictures and record while flying it. The Heli-Max 1SQ Vcam includes a stabilization system to keep the drone centered and level while it’s in the air, but it might still be a bit of challenge for any first time to keep it hovering. It can take good pictures and clear 720p recordings as well. The controller has two modes that you can you switch between to fit your preference. One mode restrains the sensitivity, which makes it easier for you to learn how to control it while the other mode is more responsive, for a more aggressive flying experience.

If you’d like a more unique looking drone, you might be interested in getting this bug-looking-quadcopter. Although small, the V959 also comes with an onboard camera that you can use to take pictures and videos. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come with live feed to your controller. If you’re new to flying a quadcopter, this would be a good first drone as it’s fairly easy to fly, even for newbies. The V959 is fairly stable which gets you some nice video footage too, and the remote controller sensitivity can also be adjusted to your preference which is really useful. It’s one good way to leave your mark in the world of aerial videos. This is one of the cheaper and more affordable drone options around and it’s also one of the smallest first person view drone. It’s known as the Hubsan H107D X4. The built-in camera provides a live stream feed directly to the controller that comes with a 4.3-inch color LCD. From the controller, you can initiate recording using only a single button to start/stop recording.