Anything in the name of a Good Shot. And they are beautiful shots! Good luck!
I was 2 feet from getting hit by a drone jogging/limping around my neighborhood. The 'pilots' were wearing goggles that prevented them from seeing me as I slowly came huffing and weezing down the street. Scared the bejebus outta them with my 'WOW'!
I hope drone pilots get some liability insurance because if they injure me, I'm going to make sure I'm not the only one paying the bill...
May all drone photographers/pilots be conscientious and responsible!
Plenty of drones here in Sacramento and I have a legal commercial crew with lots of capabilities and at least one climber, me.
I would love to get into marrying drones and climbing and I have been doing both for a long time. I typically make a trip to the mountains for one or the other, but not both.
I get the manifold commercial uses, but there doesn't seem to be any aspect of the outdoors that someone isn't going to try to ruin with some kind of motorized battery-powered intrusion. No place is too remote, no nook or cranny too removed, for a busybody quadratcopter to nose about. The quiet, "nature's peace," the "good tidings" John Muir so eloquently wrote about...
"Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of nature's darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves."
...all of this is now becoming material for a eulogy rather then a paean to the wilderness.
What do all these high-tech selfies add to the outdoor experience, other than satisfying the subjects' apparently insatiable need to self-publicize?
For my sins I have a Phantom 2 Quadcopter or Drone and have been using it in my wee climbing videos I have been filming over the last year or so. They are amazing pieces of kit and allow you to get perspectives of a route, crag or climber from a bird's eye view.
However I am very aware that drones can be noisy and intrusive and the key, like most things in life I guess, is to use them sensibly and responsibly.
Consequently I tend to use my drone in remote climbing venues anyway but I normally fly it early or late in the day. This means I hopefully do not disturb anyone (and they do not disturb me!) but also to get the best light as you would for standard photography.
On the very odd occasion there has been a member of the general public around I always tell them what I intend to do and ask if they are ok with it and have always had a positive response. If anyone ever expressed that they were unhappy or did not like the idea, especially a climber, I would never fly!
We just posted a drone review at TechGearLab. We have not used it for climbing applications yet. But Corey Rich has shot some cool stuff of Alex Honnold soloing in J Tree (1/3 of moive below. other 2/3 are white water kayaking and mtb. I helped on the white water shots in Mexico. The drone actually took off on its own and crashed into a tree. It was an expensive flight.