Drone News

We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: it’s not nice to buzz wildlife with aerial drones. In the latest incident of “when animals attack drones,” a chimpanzee at the Royal Burgers’ Zoo in the Netherlands can be seen swatting a pesky drone out of the air with a big stick in the below video.

DJI just launched a brand new camera drone: the Phantom 3 quadcopter, which features an improved video and still camera along with several new tools to make shooting and sharing aerial video and photos with this UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) easier.

Photokina 2014 in Germany has been covered widely on the Internet already—including our own extensive reporting on the show on Shutterbug.com—so there’s no need for me to rehash the major announcements from the event, such as the latest full-frame cameras from Canon and Nikon and the like. My photo report here is aimed at sharing some wider ranging thoughts and perspectives on this important biennial show and what it told us about photography today and where it might be heading tomorrow.

Today drones are better known as unmanned military aircraft that appear in the news with ever-increasing frequency. There was less coverage years ago when they were used strictly for surveillance. But now, as they fire ordinance on suspected terrorist targets, these high-tech vehicles are rewriting the rules of aerial warfare.

Will people ever get the message that it’s not polite to buzz wildlife with a flying drone? Last week we shared a video of a pride of a male lions chomping and chewing up a crashed Phantom imaging drone.  Now’s here’s a similar clip involving a group of seven kangaroos.

Even if you've seen aerial imaging drones before, you've probably never seen one as small as the Zano.

PhotoPlus Expo in New York City may not have featured as many blockbuster photo gear announcements as photokina in Germany had last month but there was certainly an ample amount of interesting new gear and software at the show.