For those hearing about this for the first time, the Sony Airpeak S1 is the company’s first drone designed for professionals. Usually drones come with their own cameras, which is fine, but for professionals who desire better quality and customization, the Airpeak S1 can actually support the company’s full-sized mirrorless Alpha series digital cameras.
This means that you can attach your own lenses onto the camera and set the camera’s settings to what you know and are familiar with, and have it fly around on a drone and take those aerial shots you’ve always wanted. The battery life of the Airpeak S1 is rated at 22 minutes normally, but for heavier payloads like when attached with an A7s III, it will run for about 12 minutes, which honestly isn’t very long so you’ll have to plan your shots accordingly.
There is an accompanying app that lets users set out repeatable flight plans, a dual operation mode that lets one person handle the flying and the other to handle the camera operations, and there will also be an optional Airpeak Plus cloud service that offers storage, enhanced geofencing tools, flight log importing and exporting, and will cost $300 for 12 months.
If the Airpeak S1 is of interest to you, then you can pre-order it now from Sony’s website where it is expected to ship on the 24th of December.