DJI, maker of drones and aerial imaging technology, unveiled its most awaited drone here in Manila: the DJI Spark. This fun and easy-to-use mini camera drone is the size of your Android phone. To start capturing the special moments in your life with an awesome view, the Spark can simply lift form the palm of the hand. How is it possible that this little drone can just lift off on its own, you ask? It’s thanks to DJI’s powerful technology.
With the Spark, the power to control the drone isn’t at the palm of your hand. The power to control the drone IS your hand. So even if you’ve never flown a drone before, you’ll definitely find it easy to control Spark.
Once the Spark takes off from the safety of your palm, it automatically enters Gesture mode, which features new advanced gesture controls like PalmControl, letting the user control the Spark with hand movements. In Gesture mode, you can also send the Spark up, up, and away from you, take a selfie, and call it back with just your hands. Neat, huh?
Designed to be the perfect lifestyle accessory to capture your best experiences, you can bring the Spark anywhere since it fits in almost any bag. Weighing just 10.6 ounces (300 grams), it weighs less than a can of soda. The Spark is ready to launch within seconds and can also be operated by a remote controller or a mobile device. It’s available in five different colors: Alpine White, Skye Blue, Meadow Green, Lava Red, and Sunrise Yellow. The Spark has a high-energy density Li-Po battery and a maximum flight time of 16 minutes.
Spark’s FlightAutonomy system consists of the main camera, a downward-facing vision system, a forward-facing 3D Sensing System, dual-band GPS and GLONASS, a high-precision inertial measurement unit, and 24 powerful computing cores. With these features, the Spark will be able to hover accurately with vision system assistance at up to 98 feet (30 meters).
Like its brother drones, the Spark has a sufficient GPS signal so there’s no need to worry about squinting through the air, panicking, and trying to find the drone when you lose sight of it. While using the remote controller, the Spark will fly back to the preset home point if the battery gets too low, connection is lost, or the operator presses the Return to Home (RTH) button.
Of course, the Spark also cares about safe and responsible flying. With DJI’s GEO System or NFX geofencing, you’ll be up-to-date and guided with which areas are dangerous to fly in or are simply barred from drones.
The Spark also has the new QuickShot Intelligent Flight Mode where you’ll be able to make professional videos even if you’re not used to cameras. Just select a QuickShot and Spark will fly along the path you preset all while tracking and recording your subject as it goes. For each QuickShot, Spark automatically creates a 10-second video of the flight, which is ready to share on social media.
There are four QuickShots available: First is Rocket. As the name says, Spark will fly up into the air with its camera pointed down to the ground; Dronie, where it flies up and away from the subject; Circle, where it rotates around the subject; and Helix, which has the Spark spiraling away from the subject as it flies upwards.
Intelligent modes that are based on DJI’s vision technology like TapFly and ActiveTrack can also be found on Spark along with some sub-modes. For TapFly, there’s Coordinate, which allows Spark to fly to the direction you tapped on your mobile device. TapFly also has the Direction mode, allowing the drone to fly in the direction you tap on your phone screen.
Meanwhile, ActiveTrack allows Spark to automatically recognize and track an object you choose, keeping the subject at the center of the frame for a perfect motion shot. With the 3D Sensing system, there’s no need to worry about the drone slamming into obstacles since Spark can actively sense these obstacles from up to 16ft (5m) away.
While using the remote controller, the Spark allows for real-time video transmission from up to 1.2 miles (2km) away. Along with that, Spark’s remote controller accessory allows the users to switch to Sport mode. At this mode, you’ll be able to see Spark speeding through the sky at 31mph (50kph). Sport mode also sets the gimbal to first-person view by default so the camera moves with you as you fly. For a flight experience where you actually feel as if you’re in the air too, the DJI Goggles are compatible with the Spark.
Under normal flight mode, the Spark’s camera, which has a downward-facing vision system and a 1/2.3” CMOS sensor, can take photos of up to 12 megapixels and 1080p videos. Thanks to the drone’s 2-axis mechanical gimbal and UltraSmooth technology, there won’t be much shaking and rolling shutter effects so you’ll be able to get the cinematic shots you’ve always dreamed of taking.
This drone also has many of the previous shooting modes along with two new additions: Pano, where the camera will automatically adjust its gimbal and heading to take a series of pictures and weave them together to create either horizontal or vertical panoramas; and ShallowFocus, which lets you keep a part of your picture in sharp focus while the rest of the image is softened, creating photos with a shallow depth of field.
With the variety of filters available in the DJI GO App, creators would be able to easily and quickly edit videos and share them directly to Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms.
The DJI Spark is priced at P30,500 for the unit itself, a battery, a USB charger, and three pairs of propellers. The Spark Fly More Combo goes for P42,700 and includes the aircraft, two batteries, four pairs of propellers, a remote controller, propeller guards, a charging hub, a shoulder bag, and all the necessary cables. Pricing and availability of other accessories for Spark will be announced at a later date.
DJI Spark is now available at MSI-ECS and other authorized dealers in the Philippines.
