The Rapid Ascension of Drone Technology

With popular trade shows such as the NAB and CES showing us how versatile drones have become since their inception, there is no doubt that the drone industry is going to become a multi-billion dollar market in the years to come. However, what we don’t currently know is how large it will become and what the duration is for it to rise to its pinnacle.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have become considerably more affordable, at least at the lower end. Consumers can buy UAVs for as low as a few hundred dollars and be able to enjoy flying them and capture video. These low-end models however cannot match up with some of the newer versions being introduced. Image stabilization has vastly improved over the years and even though drone cinematography is in its infancy stage, directors and cinematographers are using UAVs to capture shots that would be far too expensive or dangerous for a helicopter to record.

On a daily basis, drones are making their way into event videography and are able to capture mesmerizing vistas from vantage points that otherwise would have been almost impossible to film a few years ago. Take Chinese drone manufacturer DJI, who recently has been able to amass a fair amount of capital that may make the company’s value stand at somewhere around $10 billion. So what does this mean for cinematographers in the long run?

A recent report by Reuters stated that DJI has a market share of more than 70% in the global drone market. This makes the company a dominant player in the industry. An executive at B&H Photo&Video located in New York claimed that his store has sold several thousands of DJI copters monthly for almost 2 years, allowing the brand to be a large and credible source of revenue for the company. But DJI products aren’t just limited to professional video; they are also applicable to real estate, the fashion industry, farming, architecture and beyond.

With such a promising outlook, there is certainly no limit as to what drones can and will be used for in the future.