Shoot Your Own Google Earth-style Aerial Photos with the E382 Drone Kit

If you happen to have $600+ just lying around (who doesn’t?) and are looking to take photos from a whole new vantage point, then Event38’s E382 Aerial Mapping Drone may be worth looking into. The $600 starter kit includes the plane, motor, speed controller, and the ArduPilot Mega 2.0 autopilot system to handle all of the pressure, GPS and flight data.

In order to take photos you can either attach your own point-and-shoot camera or opt to add a Canon A2200 and 8GB SD card to the kit for an additional $120. Once you’ve got it airborne the plane will run at 25mph for 60 minutes on a 5000mAh battery (which will cost you yet another $50).

On the one hand, we realize that upgrading it to full functionality doesn’t come cheap; but on the other hand, you might be hard-pressed to capture photos like this any other way:

One final note: if you’re worried about actually piloting the plane there’s no need to be; the plane comes with available autonomous modes, just in case you’re more interested in photography than flight.