Top 8 Best Camera Quadcopters of 2022 | Articles | Gadgets, gifts and accessories

Despite the dif­fi­cul­ties asso­ci­at­ed with reg­is­tra­tion and coor­di­na­tion of flights, the pop­u­lar­i­ty of quadro­copters does not sub­side. Start­ing from 2020, about 150,000 devices are sold annu­al­ly in Rus­sia. Such devices are bought for work (for exam­ple, to take beau­ti­ful pho­tos and videos) and enter­tain­ment.

We have col­lect­ed a rat­ing of the 8 best quad­copters with a cam­era, which, in our opin­ion, deserve atten­tion. All prices are valid at the time of writ­ing.

A quad­copter is a sim­ple gad­get with which you can see the world from a bird’s eye view. Pho­to: lodelmomento.com

Do I need to register a quadcopter and a permit for it

Yes, you need to reg­is­ter the device if it weighs more than 150 grams. How to do it? You can apply to the Fed­er­al Air Trans­port Agency or fill out an online form on the State Ser­vices por­tal. This must be done with­in 10 days after the pur­chase of the device. Reg­is­ter­ing a quad­copter with a cam­era will not take much time. After approval of the appli­ca­tion for the device, you need to apply the reg­is­tra­tion num­ber.

You also need a flight per­mit. Dif­fer­ent regions may have dif­fer­ent pro­ce­dures for issu­ing per­mits. In Moscow, per­mis­sion is issued by the Depart­ment of Region­al Secu­ri­ty and Anti-Cor­rup­tion of Moscow, in the bor­der areas — by the FSB, in the rest — by local gov­ern­ments.

When exact­ly do you need to get per­mis­sion? If the quad­copter weighs less than 150 grams, and the flight alti­tude is less than 150 meters (it is desir­able that the flight zone is not over the city).

In all oth­er cas­es, per­mis­sion is almost always required. It is impor­tant that fly­ing in the select­ed area is pos­si­ble. The rules may change dur­ing pub­lic events, hol­i­days, ral­lies. There­fore, it is bet­ter to clar­i­fy the infor­ma­tion in the Fed­er­al Air Trans­port Agency.

It is bet­ter to make sure in advance that it is pos­si­ble to launch an air­craft in the select­ed zone. Pho­to: dronemanya.com

What to look for when choosing a device

one. Cam­era res­o­lu­tion. An impor­tant char­ac­ter­is­tic if you buy a quadro­copter for pho­to and video shoot­ing. It is desir­able that the device can shoot video in 4K with 30 frames per sec­ond (min­i­mum). In this case, the pic­ture will be clear, bright.

2. Flight time. This is the peri­od dur­ing which the device can oper­ate on a sin­gle charge. The longer the bet­ter. But — the high­er this indi­ca­tor, the more capa­cious the bat­tery, the heav­ier it is. Con­sid­er this if weight is impor­tant. For exam­ple, if you need to fit in 150 grams, so as not to reg­is­ter the device.

3. Quad­copter flight range. Depends on the strength of the radio sig­nal, video sig­nal. This is the dis­tance at which the drone can be con­trolled.

four. Flight alti­tude. Con­sid­er what alti­tude is allowed in the places where you plan to shoot. For exam­ple, if the max­i­mum is up to 4,000 m above sea lev­el, then it makes no sense to over­pay for a mod­el that can rise up to 7,000 m above sea lev­el.

5. Size and weight. If you do not want to reg­is­ter the device, you buy a drone as a toy, it is bet­ter to choose mod­els up to 150 grams. But both the price and the shoot­ing qual­i­ty of such “toy” mod­els are usu­al­ly low. If you want to com­fort­ably shoot video in high qual­i­ty, it is bet­ter to choose a large quad­copter with a cam­era. He will weigh more.

6. Addi­tion­al fea­tures. These are option­al bonus­es. This includes the pres­ence of an autopi­lot, the abil­i­ty to return to the take­off point, max­i­mum speed, etc.

Impor­tant: the weight of mod­els from the rat­ing is above 150 grams. There­fore, any of them must be reg­is­tered.

Cheap quadcopters with a camera

Hubsan H117S Zino

The most bud­get mod­el from our top (price from 36,000 rubles). This is a large (304.6 x 252.4 x 90 mm) quad­copter that weighs 700 grams. It will be suit­able as the first air­craft. For exam­ple, for those who have min­i­mal or no pilot­ing skills.

Styl­ish mod­el for begin­ner pilots. Pho­to: helicomicro.com

The Hub­san H117S Zino quad­copter is easy to con­trol with a remote con­trol. The mod­el is com­pat­i­ble with Android and iOS smart­phones. The video is streamed to the phone. Cam­era res­o­lu­tion 4K — the pic­ture is bright, the col­ors are nat­ur­al. The cam­era is locat­ed on a 3‑axis gyro­scop­ic sus­pen­sion. Thanks to this, the pic­ture is smooth, with­out jerks.

This is a quad­copter for begin­ners that can auto­mat­i­cal­ly return to the start­ing point and fly in windy con­di­tions (thanks to the barom­e­ter, GPS mod­ule and 6‑axis gyro­scope). The fold­able mod­el is easy to assem­ble and trans­port. Of the minus­es — this drone does not know how to fly around obsta­cles.

FiMi X8 SE

Styl­ish snow-white mod­el from Xiao­mi. This small (204 × 106 × 73) inex­pen­sive (from 38,000 rubles) quad­copter with a cam­era can:

• return to the take-off point;
• fly around obsta­cles;
• shoot video in 4K for­mat;
• reach speeds of up to 64 km / h, while main­tain­ing high detail of the pic­ture.

FiMi X8 SE is a beau­ti­ful and com­pact device made of white plas­tic. Pho­to: ildronista.it

The Xiao­mi FiMi x8 SE 2022 quad­copter is smart, like most Xiao­mi equip­ment. How is it shown? In smart modes avail­able to the user:

• flight plan­ning shoot­ing — you can cre­ate a trav­el plan by high­light­ing the main points that need to be filmed;
• smart track­ing — the drone flies after the spec­i­fied object and takes pic­tures of it;
• panora­mas — hor­i­zon­tal and ver­ti­cal panora­ma;
• hyper­lapse — shoot­ing accel­er­at­ed videos;
• cine shot — offline shoot­ing with real cin­e­mat­ic effects. For exam­ple: a drone flies around an object, moves away from it in a spi­ral, ris­es at an angle, while main­tain­ing focus on the object.

Parrot Anafi

This is the last cheap quad­copter in our 2022 rank­ing. It is easy to fly, so it is also suit­able as a first drone for adults and teenagers. This is the light­est mod­el from the top (400 g), which can work on a sin­gle charge for 25 min­utes and devel­ops a speed of up to 13 m / s. You can com­pare all the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the Par­rot Anafi quadro­copter with oth­er mod­els from this list in the table at the end of the arti­cle.

The main fea­ture of the mod­el is that the cam­era itself (shoots in 4K) can rise. This means that you can take pho­tos and videos of objects locat­ed above the drone.

The Par­rot Anafi is a com­pact, qui­et drone that is easy to fly. Pho­to: ephotozine.com

Com­par­i­son of cheap quad­copters with a cam­era from our top.

Expensive quadcopters

PowerVision PowerEgg X

A cool mod­el from our rank­ing of the best quad­copters with a cam­era in 2022. The main fea­ture of the mod­el is that it shoots where oth­ers can­not — in the water. There is a remov­able water­proof shell, the drone can land on the sur­face of the water and take off from it.

The Pow­erVi­sion Pow­erEgg X quadro­copter has an unusu­al shape — an elon­gat­ed egg. It is a ver­sa­tile device that can be a drone, a hand­held AI cam­era, and a cam­era with 3‑axis gim­bal. The drone can rec­og­nize faces, syn­chro­nize video and sound, can track an object and under­stands ges­tures (you can con­trol the drone with ges­tures).

Pow­erVi­sion Pow­erEgg X is a unique drone that can shoot in strong winds and is not afraid of water. Pho­to: mikeshouts.com

DJI Air 2S

The only mod­el from our top with a flight range of up to 18,500 meters. This is the best indi­ca­tor. Devel­ops high speed (19 m/s), can fly up to 31 min­utes on a sin­gle charge.

With the DJI Air 2s quad­copter, you can shoot video in 5.4K (30 fps) and 4K (60 fps). The Dlog‑M pro­file cap­tures up to 1 bil­lion shades. Thanks to this, the image will be even more juicy and bright.

DJI Air 2S is a quad­copter that can shoot even in the dark. All thanks to a clear col­or repro­duc­tion, a large dynam­ic range. Pho­to: okeguys.com

The drone can shoot panora­mas, accel­er­at­ed videos, track the select­ed object, rec­og­nize obsta­cles, take close-ups. There­fore, it is suit­able for cre­at­ing real video mas­ter­pieces.

DJI FPV

Mas­sive (795g), large black drone that is suit­able for begin­ners and expe­ri­enced pilots. Easy to man­age, maneu­ver­able, able to fly around obsta­cles and return to the take-off point. Devel­ops high speed (20 m/s). But on one charge it can fly no more than 20 min­utes.

The DJI FPV Com­bo Quad­copter is a spe­cial mod­el. The kit includes next gen­er­a­tion FPV gog­gles and a new motion con­troller. This is a unique sys­tem with which a per­son can feel like a real pilot. Glass­es allow you to ful­ly immerse your­self in the con­trol process with the effect of pres­ence. There are sev­er­al con­trol modes (mixed, auto­mat­ic, man­u­al). The advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages of the DJI FPV drone were dis­cussed in detail in a sep­a­rate arti­cle.

DJI FPV is a drone for shoot­ing beau­ti­ful videos, per­form­ing stunts and ful­ly immers­ing your­self in the flight process. Pho­to: digitaltrends.com

Autel EVO 2

The mod­el from our top with the coolest cam­era is 48 MP with the abil­i­ty to shoot video in 8K. The drone has sev­er­al intel­li­gent flight and shoot­ing modes, can rec­og­nize and track objects.

The Autel EVO 2 quad­copter can shoot first-per­son video, return to the take-off point, noti­fy about restrict­ed areas, and rec­og­nize ges­tures. Equipped with many sen­sors: ultra­son­ic, accelerom­e­ter, gyro­scope, mag­ne­tome­ter, barom­e­ter. They allow him to bet­ter nav­i­gate in space and be maneu­ver­able.

Beau­ti­ful and fast drone with a good cam­era. Pho­to: newsshooter.com

DJI Mavic 3

The fastest pro­fes­sion­al quad­copter with a cam­era and remote con­trol from our top. Move­ment speed — up to 21 m / s. The drone’s cam­era came from Swedish cam­era man­u­fac­tur­er Has­sel­blad. It meets all strin­gent pro­fes­sion­al equip­ment stan­dards.

The DJI Mav­ic 3 quad­copter can oper­ate in the “recon­nais­sance” mode. This is the mode that acti­vates the sec­ond cam­era, with a tele­pho­to lens. For what? For exam­ple, if the object you need is far away. With a tele­pho­to lens, you can see it in detail even from a dis­tance.

The Mav­ic 3 is a smart drone that does­n’t just auto­mat­i­cal­ly return to base. He can deter­mine the best route and choos­es it. Pho­to: viztarinternational.com

We chose the key fea­tures of expen­sive devices, brought them togeth­er in one table.