Okay, this is a tech review, video and i'm gon na go for a run, ready watch the drone no control. Ah, this uh. This is the skydio2 drone. Now this is a super compelling drone for a lot of reasons, but i think maybe the number one reason is that it is not made by dji.

Dji completely dominates the drone averse. Basically, if you own a drone and it's worth a damn, it's made by dji the only drone that i use in this entire channel and every video all those. How do you get that shot, shots, rashad and dji? It's a great product, but just like tick tock. There are some geopolitical concerns with dji the chinese company, not my concerns the us government's concerns see what that says right there assembled in the usa and this well, this isn't a political video or anything like that.

The politics of drones in the united states is a very interesting part of the story and it's skydio the company that makes this blue plastic drone that has a big contract with the us military to make little flying military drones for them. I found all that fascinating, but let's talk about this device. Firstly, at 999, the price is wildly compelling, especially because it has a 4k 60 chip on it or whatever it can record at 4k 60.. The lens is actually very good.

The lens is threaded, so you can put nd filters on it and it feels like this time around skydio really put a lot of effort into making sure this could take a picture that at minimum could compete with with dji's offering, and i think it does, and While the arms on this thing don't fold the way, the arms fold on a dji, the the propellers they fold, so you can cram this in a backpack in the same way that you could break down your dji into a backpack. The case that i use for the skydio with an extra battery is about the same size as the case that i use for the controller and extra battery for the dji, and even though this thing is this cute blue color, i did wear a shirt to match. It on purpose um, it doesn't feel like a toy. This feels like a sort of like a robust kind of tool, the same way the dji does or any like camera does.

I must admit at first i was nervous about the way the skydio's battery attaches to the the camera, the drone itself, but it it works really well, and i'm confident now ready magnets now getting into like drone ideology or filmmaking ideology like how you think of a Device like this fitting into like your wheelhouse of cameras. For me, it goes like this. I don't think of a drone as a drone, as in like an artificially intelligent flying person that can take pictures of me. For me, it's a it's a flying camera.

So i'll fly it to location, i'll, put it there and i'll get my shot i'll fly it to a location, i'll sort of set marks and i'll control it manually to get the shot that i want just like any other camera in my arsenal, i'm in control And i'm trying to get a specific image. Yes, it's got technology to think for itself and to avoid objects and to keep it stable and to lock to gps, but all that stuff is invisible to me. I feel like i'm in control, i'm getting my picture and, quite frankly, that's what it feels like this thing was designed to do now. That's also where skydio it feels like is really differentiating itself well, this thing can sort of do that.

There's, like a controller. I have it for extra money. You can attach this kind of janky bulky, plastic, playstation controller. Looking thing, that's supposed to offer precision controls, but i didn't really like its precision or lack thereof.

This thing is a drone in the most terminator sense of the word drone. This is that terminator, like a.i, i was talking about no hands so so. Ah i hate like a cobweb during that little run around there. One area where you can see that skydio is very much so a young company is in, like the user interface on their app like the the controller for the actual drone.

Dji feels very mature. Like polished good, it's everything you want it to be, and skydios sort of feels like dji's did a couple years ago, like it it's a little rough around the edges, when skydio is doing what skydio does best, which is like be a flying terminator camera. It is the best, but when you want to use it like a camera, the way i use my other drone, that's where it's uh, that's where it's uh. It still has a lot of room to grow.

My rule with drone cinematography is that if it looks like it was captured by a drone, i don't use this shot. I want it to look like it was on a crane. I wanted to look like it was a helicopter. I wanted to look like i climbed above a building and stuck a 50-foot tripod out and that's how i got the shot.

I don't like cinematography that looks robotic or unnatural, and that, in essence, is what the super power or the killer app of the skydio 2 is, is that it is a robot that can capture for you and do it in a way that i don't think anything Else in the market can even compete with. So if something like action sports is your priority or you're new to drone cinematography and you lack confidence in your ability to operate a flying camera. I think this might be the perfect drone for you, but to anyone more advanced than that or anybody who's familiar with how to actually operate a drone in a like a manual capacity uh. It still feels like skydio, has a lot of catching up to do in that department.

Also, i'm like filming this in my backyard right now, um, because when i was shooting it in the woods, i dropped my camera and and broke it for the dji. This lens costs three thousand dollars. You.