Discussions

Hi All,

I'm pretty new to drones. I want to be able to fly a drone over a farm to take near infrared photos to help farmers manager their crops more efficiently. I was initially thinking of using a fixed wing, since they can cover more area. But, I want to fly in wooded areas, so I definitely need something of VTOL capabilities. I want something relatively affordable (entire setup <$3500), that could possible fly 200 acres in an hour.

If it flies for 20 minutes or so, that would be fine, as long as it can cover almost 100 acres in that flight. I was thinking that a DJI phantom might work for this purpose. But, I would like to put both a regular and a nir camera on it, so that I wouldn't have to make multiple flights to cover the same area. Does anyone know how I could put 2 cameras on the Phantom? How much flight time could it get with 2 cameras? What model Phantom would you suggest? I would stitch the images together to get a image, so would I need a gimbal, or what else would I need?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Best, Walter