Venice, CA —In this community there are stark contrasts in people and lifestyles.   Let me take you on a magic carpet ride to the better side of town along their famous canals!

This is an Align quadcopter with a Panasonic GH4 4K motion picture camera perfect for electronic news gathering assignments.   Atlanta, GA —All Federal Aviation Administration regulations were and are conceived and written in blood, literally!   That is, that there is a deadly aircraft accident behind every rule.   That has always been the case except when it came to drones. We all must take safety seriously and any legitimate concern deserves study and respect.   The drones are somewhat expensive and their owners simply don’t want them damaged through recklessness. For some strange bureaucratic reason the FAA has outlawed the use of a drone to make money.   As un-American as that seems, they’ve gotten away with this form of economic tyranny. The FAA has always allowed the use of drones for recreation and hobby activities with scant few restrictions.   Rather than make rules just last month they’ve finally issued a few advisory Dos and Don’ts fo...

Los Angeles, CA —Before I share my thoughts I want you to see what a seemingly thoughtful journalist, Matt Waite has to say about the use of drones for Electronic News Gathering or ENG .  It’s important that you first watch his video presentation. My response is below the video. Okay, Waite made a really melodramatic example of anecdote from his reporting past to make a point.  It was a really unfair and simplistic overstatement of a highly unusual situation he once encountered.  Waite’s dramatic example is one we all can resolve by simply keeping enough distance between the drone and the grieving woman that Waite described. Only the most soulless bastard would dare to bring a buzzing drone into that poor woman’s face!  Additionally, Waite unleashed his little drone inside the theater where he’s speaking and the natural acoustics there exaggerated the multi-rotor drone’s noise substantially.    At 40 or 50 feet outdoors that noise is barely n...

Phoenix, AZ —My spies at the FAA insist that they will very quickly authorize the commercial use of multi-rotor, mini-drones weighing in at less than three pounds for among other things, newsgathering. Any TV station news department that has not made plans for this new technology will be left in the dirt.  The very day the drones are authorized is when the promotions departments should be heralding their new newsdronie correspondents. They all should be up and running with two or three of these prime time ready “newsdronies” to cover routine accidents, crimes and fires.  Sending a helicopter to a school lockdown for example is foolish when you can use a drone and only pony up a fraction of the price.   That FAA weight constraint will limit the size of the cameras that of the GoPro types.  But they can really capture epic and stunning imagery. What that means is the local television markets can dispatch a drone pilot that’s able to operate the device, cam...

Los Angeles, CA —Yes! As most of my visitors know I’m pumped up and over the top about camera drones as a photographer and filmmaker.   I already own two of them.   My current flagship is the DJI Phantom 2 , which uses a GoPro camera . Today, worldwide there are more than a million multi-rotor camera drones in civilian hands.   They well outnumber conventional helicopters.   They have a perfect safety record of no reported deaths or remarkable injuries.   To date there are still no known collisions between a camera drone and any conventional aircraft.   Like all of the DJI drones the new Inspire 1 model they unveiled yesterday is relatively easy to fly.   If you have or acquire photography and video editing skills you have the time of your life capturing images.   I find flying these multi-rotor copters incredibly exciting, addicting and empowering! Now there is a new must have camera drone in the skies as I speak.   It’s the DJI ...

,   Washington, DC —The Federal Aviation Authority was created for and exists for serious public safety issues.   They regulate airships and pilots in order to keep our air space safe.     That is absolutely an honorable mission. However they have overstepped their mission by banning the use of small drones for so-called commercial purposes.  Hobbyists currently can fly their drones virtually anywhere without any interference.   Flying at a lower altitude than 400 feet and staying away from other aircraft makes sense.   Nobody wants to endanger anyone or anything including his or her own drone. They will eventually formally regulate drones.   Common sense should dictate that the size and weight of these air vehicles should determine what is or is not regulated.    The FAA will never have enough inspectors to regulate every teenager with a drone in America.   I don’t think that the taxpayers could or would...