Video: Race Drone Follows Bas van Steenbergen Down Wrangler in Kamloops

 That was common in a ton of drone racer footage, it made the Nines edits unwatchable for a few years. Thank god there are now skilled drone pilots who also know how to film, it looks so good. Tom has an instagram you can check out. He's shredding.

 @scott-townes: those spinny shots are a fundamental part of fpv racing/cinematic drones. The fpv camera is set a t a fixed upwards angle which in turn dictates the drone speed. At slow shots, or shots with varying speed, its super difficult if not impossible to keep the rider in view. If the drone slows down, the shot will contain mostly sky... So spinning around the subject is the main way to keep following. I agree it can be distracting, especially for normal non-pilot viewers. You can't really blame the pilot, though.

 I'll go so far as to say that as much as this was a nice shot of Tom, it doesn't come close to the difficulty and stakes of the Danny slabs shots. I understand why people found it dizzying, im just saying that its not due to bad piloting skills.

 The hardest part about FPV drones is they have a fixed camera angle facing forwards, if the rider is moving quickly and on fairly flat ground (like in this video) it's easy to stay in a nice position behind the rider. However once the rider goes from high speed to slow speed, or rides anything steep the only way the drone can stay at the same speed is to orbit around the rider. If they stayed behind the rider they would simply hit the rider. I fly the FPV drones for the EWS and am slowly working out which trails work and which ones dont. Drones are not always the answer for the shot. Hope that helps!

 @Nico-T: I find slow steep stuff to be the worst. Tilting forward to view down means you can hardly control the speed. I wonder what it would be like to fly fpv with a downwards negative tilt

 pretty sure it exists already.

 I'll go so far as to say that as much as this was a nice shot of Tom, it doesn't come close to the difficulty and stakes of the Danny slabs shots. I understand why people found it dizzying, im just saying that its not due to bad piloting skills.

 @adrennan: browser acting up- ignore my previous unrelated reply.

Anyway, google Skydio2. Purely automatic. Check out Tmac's edit for example. Mind blowing stuff.

 @foxinsocks: It's Bas, not Tom Van Steenbergen.

 @leon-forfar: oops my bad. Understandable confusion, but thanks for the correction.

 it just look so easy when he does it. tell me the cheat code already lol

 Yep agree, fixed angles work for drone racing but not so much for following.

I'm sure drone operators could keep things interesting with drone location, but leave the framing alone.

It's early days for this type of footage, the spinning has already stopped, it'll take one clever edit to make the step forward... Maybe Discovery+ will do it

 I agree. People do that for various projects with varying degrees of success. There are even several fpv frames (pavo360, x- knight...) That are built around an insta 360drone, and even special add-ons to stick such cameras on dji drones. The resolution is often limiting factor though.
However, your key misunderstanding is that the pilot usually has to make those maneuvers to even be able to see the subject himself. If he doesnt, he will lose the subject in the fpv camera (goggles), and its REALLY difficult to get back into pace again. Results will be quite choppy.
A safer bet would be an adjustable tilt fpv +hd camera system, but im not aware of any off the shelf ones which are practical for such shots.

 @foxinsocks: You can change the lens of your FPV flight cam to a 2.1mm or even a 1.8mm focal length one to get a much wider field of view than the GoPro mounted to your drone, so that'll make it easier for the pilot to still have the rider in view even when taking evasive action. Feels a little strange to fly at first but nothing you can't get used to.
Servo-driven tilt systems for the FPV cam controlled by the head pitch sensor in your FPV goggle also exist but are very rarely used.
It'll just come down to using autonomous camera drones that track the rider with flight path planning through the obstacles so they can follow you through the forest as well, some of the sub-250g ones can already kind of do that like the Skydio 2+ and I'd expect in one or two years the DJIs will have gotten their algorithms and sensors good enough to be able to follow a fast rider.

 5.3k over 360 degrees just doesn’t give you the detail of 4k and 160 degree fov. Look up medlindrone.com

 @rarerider: agree. those are the lenses i normally use, at least on my freestyle drones. Still, I dont think that will totally mitigate the aggressive maneuvers problem at that is still inherent to the way the drone flies and how dynamic the rider is. There's no getting around the fact that a fixed tilt flying camera will struggle with a dynamic speed shot. Not to even mention the added difficulty of downward facing shots with an upwards tilt camera, such as on steep but slower tracks - that's truly an achilles heel for those drones.
I think the results of cinematic drones in recent years are good enough (and usually far beyond) that there's just not enough incentive to develop a truly dynamic tilt system. For those you might as well just have professional cinema drones with a dedicated gimbal operator.

Anyway, my bottom line is to explain to non-pilots that these types of shots are usually a necessity and much less of a creative choice by the pilot.

 Kamloops.

 They have to build berms everywhere, there is no traction.

 Skydio2

 @noakeabean: freaking awesome!!!!!!!!

 Think it’s a hyper

 @dandunne13: HYPER HYPEEEERRRR