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This is the world’s first “Sea-Air Integrated Drone” that works both in the air and underwater

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For as long as aerial drones have been a thing, we’ve seen people try to use them around water. Typically, it’s either landing on water or taking off from water with “floating landing gear“. We’ve even seen drones that can both fly and sort of swim (more bobbing up and down, really) underwater, as well as drones that don’t fly but are dedicated to underwater use.

Well, now, a new drone developed as a collaboration between Japanese telecommunications company KDDI, commercial drone manufacturer PRODRONE and underwater robotics company QYSEA which takes the best of both worlds and marries them together. It’s called the “Sea-Air Integrated Drone” that can both fly in the air and unleash an underwater drone payload once it’s landed on a body of water.

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DJI Opens up the Mobile SDK to add new features to Air 2S, Mini 2 and Mini SE drones

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DJI has expanded its Mobile SDK for Android to support the DJI Air 2S, Mini 2 and Mini SE drones. Yes, that’s right, for now, it’s Android, although an iOS update is expected soon. Android first is a very odd move these days, especially from a company like DJI, but here we are. Interestingly, the recently announced DJI Mavic 3 hasn’t made it onto the compatibility list (yet).

The Mobile SDK allows app developers for mobile apps like Litchi, DroneLink and DroneDeploy unlock new features and tools allowing users to control their drones in ways the DJI app doesn’t allow. Like being able to set up waypoint missions or all manner of other things that the standard app for your drone won’t let you do.

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The Sony Airpeak S1 Professional drone is finally available to pre-order and it’s $9,000 (plus gimbal)

It feels like this thing has been teased and announced about a dozen times over the last couple of years but now the Sony Airpeak S1 Professional drone is now available to pre-order starting at $8,999.99. And that doesn’t include a gimbal. If you want to get the Gremsy Gimbal T3 kit to go along with it, that’s going to cost you an extra $2,200 bringing your total cost up to $11,199.98.

The Sony Airpeak S1 was first unveiled back in January and it’s taken almost an entire year, with a sort-of release six months ago, for it to actually open up for pre-orders. And beyond “coming soon”, there still doesn’t appear to be an actual shipping date yet, so actually getting one into your hands might still be a little way out.

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The Dronut is a weird cylindrical drone that looks like it should be firing lasers at Jedi in training

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Drones have become such commonplace things these days that almost all of us either own one or know somebody who does. Most of them have a fairly common form factor. Four or six arms with four or six motors, each with a propeller on top. This one, though, looks like something right out of a Jedi training camp.

This curious-looking drone from Boston-based Cleo Robotics is called the Dronut and it’s the worlds first bi-rotor ducted fan drone. They say it’s the smallest in its class, using their patented thrust vectoring technology. And with no exposed propellers, they say it can “safely fly where no other drone has flown before” (ok, now it’s sounding more like Star Trek than Star Wars).

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Watch as the DJI Mavic 3 goes through an extreme wind test and appears to win

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One of the big downfalls of many drones is their inability to handle strong winds. It’s something that now seems to have become a mission for drone manufacturers to overcome. We’ve seen Sony’s video showing off their Air Peak drone in the wind tunnel and a Saildrone survive a Category 4 hurricane and now it’s DJI’s turn with the newly announced DJI Mavic 3.

In this video, DC Rainmaker puts the DJI Mavic 3 through its paces with a real-world high-speed wind test. With winds reaching up to 60kph (37.3mph) it seems to handle it with relative ease, continuing to produce some pretty steady footage. According to the official DJI specs, the DJI Mavic 3 has a limit of 43km/h – or around 27mph. As you can see from the video above, though, it seems to be capable of handling much higher.

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DJI’s new Mavic 3 comes with dual cameras, 4/3″ sensor, 5.1K resolution and a $5K Cine version

DJI has now officially launched the new DJI Mavic 3 boasting better sensors, a dual-camera system, omnidirectional obstacle avoidance, smarter flight modes and longer flight times over the Mavic 2. DJI says that the Mavic 3 has been “redesigned from tip to tail” to take things up to the next level.

And it sure seems to have done that. It shoots 5.1K video at up to 50 frames per second with a large 4/3″ CMOS Hasselblad camera, 4K 120fps for high-quality slow-mo and features redesigned batteries that let you stay up in the air for a very impressive 46 minutes. Omnidirectional obstacle avoidance also sees potential issues from up to 200 metres away.

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Autel announces two new series of drones including a tiny one to take on the DJI Mini

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Autel Robotics has announced two new series of drones, the EVO Lite and the EVO Nano, the latter of which is a sub-250g drone aimed at taking a share of the license-free market from DJI (and the recently announced Hubsan Zino Mini SE). Unlike the DJI and Hubsan offerings, though, the Nano comes with obstacle avoidance – a feature notably lacking in the other two.

The EVO Lite series is a little larger (more like a DJI Mavic), weighing around 820g, with the world’s first 4-axis gimbal, resolutions up to 50-megapixels, sensor sizes up to 1″ and video capabilities up to 6K at 30fps.

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How high am I? A tip for seagoing drone pilots

This is a quick tip for drone pilots shooting boats. Rather than looking at the screen on your controller to see what altitude your drone is at, look at the horizon.

If you’re photographing boats with a drone it is very important to know how high you are above the wet stuff. Too low and you risk clipping a wave, not high enough and you could run into the boat you’re shooting.

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Three ways to shoot night time photography that aren’t astrophotography

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Heading out to shoot at night time in the middle of nowhere usually brings visions of astrophotography to mind. But that’s not the only kind of photography you can do at night, as this video from Adam Karnacz at First Man Photography illustrates. Adam heads out to England’s picturesque Lake District to show off three ways you can shoot nighttime photography and open up your creative freedom.

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The Hubsan Zino Mini SE has a flight time of 45 minutes. weighs 249g and costs $349

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It looks like DJI might have some competition in the license-free (in many countries) sub-250g market. Hubsan has just announced their new Zino Mini SE drone and it looks quite impressive. It’s a clear response from Hubsan to the recently launched DJI Mini SE, and while it does cost slightly more than DJI’s drone, it offers some nice improvements.

The Hubsan Zino Mini SE shoots 4K video at 30fps (2.7K at 60fps), has a very impressive flight time of 45 minutes, weighs 249g and costs only $349. It also flies at up to 6 metres per second (twice as fast as the DJI MIni SE) and supports up to 6km of range with 1080p 30fps video transmission and even YouTube live streaming support.

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