There are a large number of camera drones on the market covering a vast range of cost, from hundreds to thousands of £/€/$/etc.
What are the things to look out for in a photography drone for someone looking to try amateur drone photography?
Please focus on the drone specific elements, such as camera gimbals, stabilisation, etc. Discussion on cameras is welcome and relevant, but when going into detail consider that this is a drones question rather than Photography.
When looking for camera drones, there are several things to look out for:
GPS is a big one. It allows the quad to hold its position so you can line up the shot perfectly. It also allows auto-return functions and flight tracking.
A 3 axis gimbal is also important. You can get away with 2 axis, but three is much smoother. This allows you to angle the camera properly and holds it steady so you can get the perfect shot. It is also very useful for filming as it removes the actions of pitch and roll, and reduces yaw.
Large prop are helpful as a larger wheelbase generally means more stability.
Not that it needs saying, but brushless motors are a must.
And FPV feed to a phone or other monitor is essential to line up your shots, and also relays useful information about the state of the aircraft.
For filming, you’ll want a neutral density or ND filter in bright conditions to make the footage smoother and add motion blur (not essential but can make footage look better).
Finally, you’d obviously want excellent battery life (at least 25 minutes) to give you time to set up and get the shot you want.
Not sure this is what you look for, but I would recommend to watch this video from Rotor Riot. The community around that specific drone has an add-on where you connect the RPi Zero camera to the bottom of the drone and make quite interesting 5MPx pictures. Combined with the GPS-coordinated flight, this would make for quite interesting aerial photography gig still under 250g.
