By: Mick Jones

When I saw the announcement for the DJI Spark I knew I had to have one. Even though I have a Phantom 2, Phantom 3 and Mavic Pro, I wanted this for the fun factor. It certainly gets talked about as a "toy" and to be fair it does have very limited video options. But the more I use it the more I think the camera on it is pretty good value. The above video was edited and graded in Davinci Resolve and I always find that you can push things a little further in resolve than you can if you just stay in your NLE like Adobe Premiere. I don't know what it is but there is definitely some secret sauce in the processing of your footage within Resolve.

The video on the Spark is 1080P 30fps only. So technically to me that's 2 frame rates. You could conform to 24 or 25p and have a slight slo mo effect or just run it at native 30. There is no D-Log or different picture styles, just one baked in look. But I think that's totally fine at this price point. It is so easy to fly and rock solid stable. Not to mention FUN! It is my favorite drone to fly hands down. I have tried the object tracking in it which is an awesome feature. Just draw a box around your subject on the smartphone screen, hit GO and it will track with that object wherever it goes. You can even put a gentle orbit on it so it will move along with your subject and circle it, creating a very dynamic shot.

The fact that you can launch and land this thing from the palm of your hand is quite amazing. So launching from a boat, rock platform or sandy beach is really simple and safe. I will keep this in the kit as a backup for the Mavic Pro. But this will definitely be my "A" Cam for aerials on all our BTS shoots on our own productions. What a great way to add some cool shots to your BTS videos!