Skydio 2

The Skydio 2 is the best drone available for those who want to film themselves on the go.

While autonomous flight modes still have some limitations, those limitations are far less than any other drone on the market.

video quality

  • The Skydio 2’s 4K camera delivers incredibly clear and sharp images, vastly improving on its predecessor.
  • In our tests, the Skydio 2’s camera always produced high-quality images with good resolution and attractive color composition.
  • Under ideal lighting conditions, this footage corresponds to almost all of DJI’s top prosumer models.
  • The main weakness of this drone’s camera is in cloudy conditions and low light.

Under these circumstances, the colors may look a bit dull and dull if you can even fly the drone (if the drone detects that there is not enough light for the obstacle avoidance cameras to work well, it will not take off).

  • The Skydio 2’s camera can record 60 frames per second (fps) at full 4K resolution.
  • It means you can get great slow motion effects even when shooting in ultra high definition.
  • If you lower the resolution to 1080p HD, the maximum frame rate increases to 120fps.
  • They let you dip your toe into super slow motion territory. There are also standard options for 24 and 30fps at both resolutions.

Flight performance

  • The autonomous flight performance of the Skydio 2 is top notch. Manual flight performance is useful but leaves a lot to be desired.

Manual flight performance

  • Unless you’re buying an accessory, you’ll need to use an app on your phone that uses virtual joysticks to fly the Skydio 2 manually.
  • It severely limits both the range and capabilities of the drone and is only useful for positioning the drone before activating any of the autonomous flight features.
  • When you buy the Skydio controller ($149), you get extended range and physical joysticks that allow for much better overall control.
  • Here you can also connect your phone to the controller to access a real-time video feed during the flight.
  • This setup allows you to move the drone farther and get some more classic landscape style drone shots.
  • Although the controller’s specifications state that this gives it a range of over 2 miles, we have found this range to be much less in practice.
  • We’ve seen dropouts in video streaming and even a temporary loss of connection with the drone conveniently less than a kilometer from the controller.
  • Even in areas with few physical obstacles and little to no RF interference.
  • Also, the shorter joysticks make it much more difficult to perform more precise maneuvers than the longer joysticks found on competitive controllers.

Autonomous flight performance

  • The Skydio 2 is designed as a solo flying drone and in that capacity it is the best in the field. We skied, mountain biked and ran.
  • In all cases, its autonomous tracking mode kept pace with the subject, contained problems and avoided obstacles far more adeptly than any other model on the market.
  • The drone offers 2 modes with which you can follow a subject autonomously. The first is motion tracking, which always tracks a subject from the same angle around the subject’s direction of motion.
  • For example, if you set the drone to follow behind you and then turn around, the drone will quickly come back behind you.
  • The second is the fixed track that continues from the starting angle. Regardless of the direction of the subject’s movement.
  • In this style, if you start with the drone following you from behind and then turn 180°, it will stay in the same position and continue to follow you, but this time from the front.
  • Complete your autonomous flight functions with Dronie, Orbit, Cable Cam, Hover (tripod follow mode), Boomerang and Vortex methods.

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