Lights, drone... action

Camera-equipped electric drones have been getting cheaper and easier to use, in large part because of the proliferation of smartphones, which led to the development of inexpensive gyroscopes and accelerometers and made it possible to mass-produce very capable yet inexpensive autopilots. Indeed, the cost of camera-equipped multicopters is now well within the means of the countless people who want to take aerial videos for a variety of purposes: journalism, wildlife observation, search-and-rescue operations, real-estate photography-or perhaps just plain fun. But before rushing out and buying one of these systems, one must at least learn enough to know which features are important, and find out what is safe and legal to do. An expert guide to drone videography is presented in this paper.