Are drones spying on you? No they’re not, and here’s five reasons why
Jul 12, 2017
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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Privacy is a big deal these days. Whether it’s online or in the real world. And one of the biggest things people seem to be shouting about in the real world lately is drones. Many people are just absolutely paranoid about them. To the point where they’re shooting them out of the sky.
But here’s commercial drone pilot, Brad Simon of Diamond Aerial with a reality check for you. Drones, for the most part, are definitely not spying on you. And he gives five solid reasons explaining why.
Battery Life
The battery life is far too short for any kind of serious spying. With most commercial drones, you’re going to be looking at 20-30 minutes, of flight time at the very maximum. DJI say the Phantom 4 Pro has a maximum flight time of 30 minutes. With the DJI Mavic Pro, it’s 27 minutes. And these are under ideal conditions. Ideal conditions that rarely happen in the real world.
You’re increasing engine use every time you move the drone, draining the battery sooner. If it takes you five minutes to get from where you are to the subject you’re “spying” on, that means it takes another five minutes to bring it back to you. So there’s a third or more of your battery gone already. And nobody’s going to fly it for the full duration of the battery, because they don’t want risk it hitting zero before landing safely.
Sure, they could have a spare battery or two, but at a ridiculous $139 each for Phantom 4 batteries, the majority aren’t going to make that investment.
It’s not the right type of camera
In order to do the kind of spying most people assume, you need a long telephoto lens. Sure, with a tiny sensor comes a smaller lens to get the same field of view, but most commercial drones just don’t have them. People buy these drones to create wide angle views of the environment. Not close up detail shots.
The Phantom 4 has the best consumer drone camera in the market right now. And he demonstrates exactly what it can see at different distances that many would deem to be rather close. At 100ft, you’re going to hear a drone buzzing around. But as far as the drone seeing you, you’re barely more than a handful of pixels.
Even at 50ft away, with such a wide angle lens, it’s not exactly picking up a whole lot of personal detail.
Even at 25ft away, a person is only filling a tiny portion of the shot, and at this distance, the drone is noticeably loud.
Are there drones which have telephoto lenses? Absolutely. But these cost thousands of dollars. The people buying these kinds of drones have much better things to do. Nobody’s going to spend that kind of money on a drone to spy on somebody. Those kinds of drones aren’t exactly small, either, so they’d probably be spotted, even at a distance.
They’re too noisy
As seen in the previous example, they’re just too loud. At 25ft, you can even hear the microphone picking it up in the video. And that’s a directional shotgun microphone, designed to cut noise not coming from directly in front of it. Not exactly subtle for spying, and you’re certainly not going to be able to sneak up on anybody. In person, you’d be able to hear it even at 100ft. I know I can hear mine 100ft away.
We have better things to do
Brad is a licensed commercial pilot. He has much better things to do than to be spying on you. Commercial drone pilots are too busy working on their skills, testing technique, or shooting for clients. And if you’re not paying them, they’re certainly not going to waste their time filming you.
The same goes for hobbyists, as well. People aren’t going out to spend $1,000+ on a Phantom for the fun of it to just go spy on people.
You’re just not that interesting
This goes hand in hand with the previous one. You’re just not interesting enough to film. Sure, there’s the occasional interesting event caught on drone, but those are down to random luck. You and your daily life just isn’t that interesting. Certainly not enough that somebody’s going to follow you around with a drone all day.
We all like to believe we’re the special little snowflakes are mothers always told us we were when we were five. But in the real world, we’re just not.
If you want to check out Brad’s other drone tip videos, be sure to head over to his YouTube channel.
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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7 responses to “Are drones spying on you? No they’re not, and here’s five reasons why”
Unfortunately, this assumes that spying has to be unnoticed: problematic instances have not been. Shooting down a drone hovering outside your house – as has happened – is a) close, b) noisy and c) completely noticeable. However, when a drone owner thinks that they’re entitled to fly where-ever there is no physical barrier stopping them, unpleasantness follows.
So no: the argument presented is both biased and false.
I always say to people 1) No one is paying me to take video/photos of you so I’m not and 2) I don’t care what you’re doing as I’m not interested so no, I’m not spying.
Some people are just paranoid because they don’t know or understand. Look at the Middle Ages. Need I say more?
if that’s the best your Phantom 4 camera can do it’s time for an upgrade :)
five of the most unconvincing reasons i heard in a long time.
Excellent ..
Good points. People who are worried someone is watching them, are probably doing something illegal that would get them in trouble with the law. Those who worry about it have no clue as to the points you clearly made. As to some who decide to shoot someone’s private aircraft out of Federal Airspace, there are huge fines and prison time that a judge can use to help them understand that you can’t just shoot something you don’t like or understand. People walk around with cell phones with video camera’s everywhere, yet are paranoid when an aerial videography device is in use so far above them the camera can’t even tell if they are a human. Most drone pilots are flying to experience the feeling of flight, the great scenic views they can see or record, like the one you used as an example. As to the “what if my wife is nude in the yard” claims. The internet is full of beautiful people who love to pose nude in front of professional telephoto lens camera’s under perfect light. Why in the world would someone think a person would want to view an average nude person from a height that you can’t tell it’s a human under less than perfect lighting conditions.