Perhaps you’re looking for a method to fly the Sony Alpha full body cameras. Maybe you want an ultra-reliable drone for enterprise operations that has impediment avoidance and holds up in excessive winds. Otherwise you’re you’re looking for a drone that’s particularly not made in China (or simply that doesn’t include DJI). The Sony Airpeak drone checks all these packing containers. So with that, right here’s my Sony Airpeak overview of the Airpeak S1 drone:
A short historical past of the Sony Airpeak
The Sony Airpeak S1 was first teased at CES 2021 because the world‘s smallest drone that may carry a full body Alpha collection mirrorless digicam. It initially focused severe photographers given its functionality to hold the corporate’s beloved line of Alpha mirrorless cameras. Sony is likely one of the largest digicam makers on the earth, and its line of Alpha collection is essentially thought-about probably the greatest.
However till 2021, there was a void: no nice drones might maintain the Sony Alpha digicam and maintain the combination in controls throughout the pilot’s fingertips. There have been different heavy-lift drones on the market that would carry cinema-quality cameras just like the RED Digital Cinemas, however most had a comparatively excessive diploma of DIY-droning concerned — cobbling collectively elements from completely different producers and hoping they labored collectively (in the event that they have been even obtainable).
Then there have been workhorse drones just like the Encourage 2, which is an unbelievable high-quality, highly effective quadcopter that’s nonetheless pretty straightforward to fly — and in addition not fairly as massive as many rivals. However the Encourage 2 solely helps DJI in-house cameras, reminiscent of the Zenmuse X4S, Zenmuse X5S and Zenmuse X7. For folk looking for to fly one thing completely different, that wouldn’t work.
The flexibility to carry the Alpha in an built-in mid-size, heavy-lift package deal promised to be a game-changer. So is it truly a game-changer?
I flew it for myself for the primary time in March 2023. I spent a weekend with it, utilizing it for take a look at flights consultant of all kinds of purposes. I took it out over the water to movie some jet ski athletes, and I used it to make a LiDAR map. I flew it in solar and in gentle drizzle. So with that, right here’s my full Sony Airpeak overview:
Sony Airpeak overview: the S1 drone itself
The Airpeak is a quadcopter drone weighing practically 7 lbs (and that’s earlier than you strap on gimbals, batteries or the digicam). It’s designed to hold the Sony Alpha collection of full body cameras, and might fly payloads as much as 5 lbs and 9 ounces.
Some people discover the quadcopter type of this heavy-lifting drone to be a turnoff. That’s versus one thing like a hex or octcopter, which offer for redundancies if one of many rotors dies off. Whereas I discovered the drone itself to be sturdy and highly effective, that’s actually a danger, contemplating that the drone is often price nearer to $20,000 as soon as the gimbal and digicam get wrapped in (and also you possible don’t wish to crash your Sony Alpha collection digicam).
Price
$17,000? On the floor, the Airpeak drone itself prices $9,000, however that’s hardly what you’ll pay for it. You’ll want your personal digicam and lenses. Do you have to want a gimbal, that’s additionally not included.
I’ll define extra later what kinds of cameras this drone is suitable with, however anticipate to pay an extra $2,000+ for the gimbal, between $1,800 and $6,500 for the digicam physique, and we’ll say no less than $1,000 for the lens.
This isn’t the drone for an informal photographer looking for another digicam drone to DJI. That’s, until you’re ultra-rich and cash will not be an object in any respect.
Given the value level alone, this drone is clearly for severe photographers taking cinema-quality footage (maybe for movies, TV commercials or billboard-type commercials. On the enterprise finish, it’s for high-budget companies, particularly these searching for the highest-quality drone in any respect prices (and notably a non-Chinese language made drone).
The way it flies
For folk who’ve by no means flown a heavy-lift drone earlier than, the Sony Airpeak S1 would possibly look intimidating. With a 25.5 inch diagonal wheelbase (and that’s with out propellers) it’s actually an enormous drone. The propellers themselves are 17 inches, which is nearly twice as huge because the propellers on the DJI Mavic 3 collection (the propellers don’t fold both).
However when you get your fingers on the sticks, you’ll notice it’s truly one of many best drones to fly — in a way feeling like a small, manageable drone. This drone is actually confidence-inspiring for hesitant pilots. Takeoff and touchdown really feel principally computerized. The drone has touchdown gear that raises and lowers robotically. As soon as in flight, the maneuvers are the identical as another drone, and there are toggles to even fly it FPV type.
It stays steady in enclosed areas or when out of vary of World Navigation Satellite tv for pc System (GNSS).
The drone flies via a controller, which has customizable buttons. The controller works with the “Airpeak Flight” app to manage the drone (and see what it’s seeing) in flight. There’s additionally an “Airpeak Base” net app for built-in administration of flight plans, flight logs, and gear.
Highly effective in heavy winds
I flew in San Diego in February throughout California’s unexpectedly turbulent storms, and the drone held up with no issues. It has a maximal wind resistance of 44.7 mph (that’s 20m/s, and in addition assumes no payload), which is greater than what you’ll discover on the Matrice 300 RTK (the DJI Matrice 300 RTK has a max wind resistance of 33.5 mph or 15 m/s).
It will possibly fly in temperatures as chilly as 14℉ and as heat as 104 ℉.
Sony Airpeak drone security options
This drone can cater to any pilot, whether or not completely newbie or seasoned professionals. An enormous motive for that’s what’s thought-about probably the most essential security function: multi-directional sensing, coupled with an impediment braking perform (so if the drone senses an object in its path, it’ll hover however not crash into it). Nevertheless it doesn’t simply brake abruptly, as is the case with many different drones. The Airpeak’s imaginative and prescient sensors allow it to see roughly 180 ft (55 meters) away. On condition that, the drone is ready to sense and object and decelerate somewhat than come to a sudden halt.
Relying on the use case, superior pilots would possibly select to show off these sensors (the imaginative and prescient sensors are a stereo digicam in entrance, again, proper, left and downward instructions).
Sony Airpeak battery life
That is the largest space the place the Sony Airpeak falls flat: battery life. Whereas Sony touts this drone as having 22 minutes of battery life in most of its advertising supplies, it’s truly removed from that. That’s with no payload, which is an unlikely use case. Add in most typical payloads, like an Alpha digicam and gimbal, and the battery life drops right down to 12 minutes. Account for time to fly the drone from its takeoff website to the place it truly wants to collect photos, plus some security buffer time, and that’s painfully missing flight time.
Whereas the battery life itself is atrocious, there’s some excellent news: batteries are sizzling swappable. That principally means you don’t need to utterly energy down the plane to vary batteries.
Usually once you purchase the Airpeak, it comes with two batteries. You may purchase spares for $230 every. However the fee is hardly the annoyance right here; it’s that particular person flights are dramatically restricted.
Once I fly drones by myself, my extraordinarily cautious self sometimes perceives the 10-minute mark because the time to start out returning to residence. With the Airpeak, the ten minute mark happens once you’ve simply gotten began.
Utilizing the Sony Airpeak drone for cinematography
DJI began off making drones that didn’t have cameras, so it needed to discover ways to turn out to be a digicam firm after turning into a robotics firm. Alternatively, Sony had an attention-grabbing leg-up. Most folk agree that the road of Alpha cameras is a superb product, so — when Sony made the choice to construct a digicam drone — it actually solely needed to construct the drone itself because the digicam was already made.
The Sony Airpeak is suitable with the next Sony cameras:
It’s suitable with the next lenses:
- SELP1635
- SEL14F18GM
- SEL20F18G
- SEL24F14GM
- SEL24F28G
- SEL28F20
- SEL35F28Z
- SEL35F18F
- SEL40F25G
- SEL50F25G
- SEL50F18F
- SEL50M28
- SEL55F18Z
- SEL85F18
Although observe that when utilizing some wide-angled lenses, the plane itself can often partially hinder the shot, notably when sharply shifting. It’s additionally suitable with lenses as much as 100mm; that’s to keep away from the lens by chance contacting the touchdown gear or the bottom.
I’ll spare you the overview of every particular person Sony digicam (the opposite huge digicam blogs can provide you way more complete critiques of those cameras than I can). However know that, as a result of the Sony Airpeak helps all the above, there are such a lot of varieties and mixtures of cameras and lenses you should utilize with this drone, unlocking large potential within the sorts of photographs and movies that this drone can take. Select the digicam you need with the lens you wish to allow your imaginative and prescient to shine.
There are a number of different notes on utilizing the Sony Airpeak drone for images:
- The complete digicam system, together with physique, lens and potential extras like lens filter or hood, can’t weigh greater than 1.1 kg.
- You may fly this drone through twin operator capabilities, so one particular person can give attention to flying the drone whereas the opposite particular person can maneuver the gimbal.
The Sony Airpeak gimbal
For now, the Sony Airpeak S1 drone is just suitable with one gimbal, the GBL-T3 from Gremsy. Gremsy is a Vietnamese gimbal maker that’s identified for gimbals together with the Gremsy T3, Gremsy S1, Pixy F, and Pixy U. Its merchandise are utilized in a wide range of enterprise and cinema drones, together with German-based Digicopter and a few Auterion-powered drone platforms.
And it integrates seamlessly with the Airpeak, too. It’s straightforward to make use of, conveniently connecting to the Airpeak S1 through a fast launch mechanism. It gives 345° of panning and 120° of tilt adjustment.
The kicker is that it doesn’t include the drone; it comes at an extra value. The Gremsy gimbal sometimes sells for $2,200, and it’s a must have when you intend to make use of this drone for aerial videography.
The gimbal itself weighs 2.5 kilos (1.1 kg), or 3.1 kilos (1.4 kg) once you issue within the damper plate and cables. Assuming you’re utilizing the gimbal, you’ll need to issue that weigh into your (already-limited) flight time.
The gimbal is great by way of high quality, capable of quickly reply to fast turns. I carried out a take a look at flight the place I admittedly, deliberately flew like a maniac, tilting the drone backward and forward in speedy succession, and you possibly can see no distinction within the footage. It’s impossibly clean.
The downfall is that, with only one gimbal to select from, the GBL-T3 from Gremsy, you don’t have any choices by way of a cheaper price nor a lighter weight. I’ve a sense Sony will ultimately permit for extra suitable gimbals to combine with its drone, however for now that is it.
Utilizing the Sony Airpeak drone for enterprise purposes
Sony initially marketed its Airpeak drone closely towards skilled photographers. I get the sense that even Sony was shocked by how quickly it was adopted by the enterprise and industrial aspect of the trade.
There are a number of the explanation why the Sony drone is so nice for enterprise purposes. Given options like ultra-high wind resistance (that’s increased than most rivals) and sense and avoidance, the construct of the drone itself is great. It’s dependable in all kinds of how. For instance, the compass on the Sony Airpeak cycles by itself so — if flying in areas that may in any other case trigger electromagnetic subject points — the drone’s compass stays sturdy and dependable.
Then there’s the crossover between Sony’s Alpha collection of cameras and different industrial imaging purposes. In February 2020, Sony launched a brand new SDK (software program improvement package), giving third-party builders the flexibility to create instruments to manage cameras together with the Sony α7R IV and α9 II cameras. That’s enabled extra purposes together with real-time visualization, augmented and digital actuality options, photogrammetry and 3D scanning. (In actual fact, I used Sony’s drone to make what was my first-ever LiDAR map in an expertise I’ll element in a future weblog put up).
After which there’s another reason why Sony is wildly well-liked in industrial purposes — that Sony type of lucked into: Sony will not be a Chinese language firm.
Many within the drone trade have pushed again exhausting on Chinese language companies. Whereas many of us desire drones made in America (Sony is a Japanese firm), no less than Airpeak will not be made by a Chinese language firm — and it’s undoubtedly not made by DJI.
In actual fact, Congress in 2019 handed laws particularly banning the Division of Protection from buying and utilizing drones and parts manufactured in China. On the finish of 2020, the U.S. authorities put dozens of Chinese language firms, together with DJI (and others reminiscent of China’s high chipmaker, SMIC) on a restricted commerce record.
Guidelines have gone backwards and forwards on whether or not or not the federal government should buy drones (it could fluctuate by company and whether or not these companies have waivers). However the proposed American Safety Drone Act would prohibit all U.S. federal companies from buying Chinese language-made drones. (As of December 2022, the invoice is sitting with the Committee on Homeland Safety and Governmental Affairs).
Alas, for firms trying to purchase a drone sure they’ll use, skipping Chinese language-made drones appears to be the transfer.
Sony Airpeak overview: is it price it?
For folk particularly looking for to fly the Sony Alpha collection of cameras, this drone is the one to do it. Sony already shines within the brand-recognition of its cameras, and the combination with the Alpha digicam ensures unparalleled picture high quality.
No different drone gives the combination that Sony does between the Alpha digicam and the pilot. It’s perfect for cinematographers who need too incorporate drone footage into their movies, whereas nonetheless sustaining the aesthetic of their different photographs. Typically different drone cameras just like the DJI drone supply what is solely a differing picture high quality. That may typically stick out like — not essentially a sore, however — a special thumb.
The Sony Airpeak S1 drone can also be proving its personal in lots of enterprise use circumstances. It’s able to thermal imaging, high-powered zoom and mapping. I used it to make a Lidar map, and for mapping purposes this is likely one of the greatest payloads within the enterprise.
That stated, the flight time is atrocious. If flight instances beneath 15 minute are a dealbreaker for you (and they’re for a lot of people) skip this drone till Sony solves that drawback. For what it’s price, I get the sense that bettering battery life is a excessive precedence (and maybe a high precedence) within the second iteration of Sony’s Airpeak drone.
Moreover the battery life, the Airpeak wants to resolve having a fully-integrated digicam payload. The Gremsy gimbal works nice, but it surely’s nonetheless tough to spend time on a third-party gimbal.
There are some clear alternatives for enchancment within the subsequent technology of Sony Airpeak. On condition that, it is likely to be price ready for the second version, earlier than choosing up this one. However for folk needing the easiest way to combine a Sony Alpha digicam into their flights (and for folk looking for a sturdy, dependable DJI different), the Sony Airpeak S1 is completely a winner — so long as they don’t thoughts the tough battery life.
Editor’s observe and FTC disclaimer: My Sony Airpeak overview is predicated on my expertise flying the drone on the Sony Airpeak Summit in February 2023 in San Diego, which was an invitation-only gathering hosted by Sony. Usually I overview drones solely by myself — by myself time and at my very own expense. However given the character (and excessive value) of this product, it was solely doable for me to overview this product beneath the purview of Sony itself.
Whereas Sony didn’t pay for me to overview the Sony Airpeak S1 drone, the corporate did cowl lodging in San Diego which was mandatory for me to take part of their summit (and was the identical place I reviewed their drone). Sony didn’t affect this overview and didn’t see the contents of the Sony Airpeak overview earlier than it was revealed.
