Drone Journalism is coming
blogs.scientificamerican.com
blogs.scientificamerican.com
These were great for use in a large stadium, where could get a bird's eye view of the sandbagging operation (though, we could also get the perspective on the catwalks), but for footage of the flooding river? The wind was a factor. Rarely could we keep them off the ground without risking losing them, so we ended up renting planes for most of our aerial footage anyway.
The real issue we've found is their use is extremely limited. Most of the time, news doesn't lend itself to a bird's perspective. When it does, such as during a marathon, a borrowed/rented cherry picker gives you a similar angle without the risk of dropping a $1000 piece of equipment on someone's head.
I bought a Phantom myself and in combination with a GoPro camera it's a perfect way to shoot aerial footage (photo or HD video). A quick picture I shot last week: http://imgur.com/aMnRzuA
Unmanned aerial systems have plenty of applications from sports coverage, post-disaster assessment, spot news, environmental reporting. I think the real power of these systems will be become apparent when they can provide geospatial data. That data can help resolve questions that hearsay can't.
- Matthew Schroyer, DroneJournalism.org
Good luck flying a drone in hurricane-strength winds.