I find the idea that drones with cameras are somehow a new surveillance risk for "bad guys" a) prevalent, and b) bemusing. Probably 40% of the population is currently carrying round an 8 or 12 (or more) megapixel camera all the time. Nobody would bat an eyelid if you stood across the street from a bank for 40mins with a iPhone pressed against your ear with the camera facing the bank, or if you left a phone in a windscreen mount in a parking lot facing a prison. Why would people wanting that bother learning how to use a drone?
For less than the price of a typical no-skill-required drone, you can go buy one of these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csp6asxf00o (search for "Nikon P900" for many many more examples)
I'm not even sure any of my drones would be capable of getting out to take the shots in the first 15-20 seconds of that video, then making it all the way back to where the camera is. And those people have infinitely less chance of noticing they're potentially being photographed than if I'm flying a drone close enough to take those same shots. (And no, drone stabilisation - even with high grade brushless camera gimbals - isn't _anything_ like steady enough to use in conjunction with optics like that. Raytheon and General Dynamics can probably get useable imgaery from 2000mm equivalent lenses on military grade drones, but it's _way_ outside hobbyist or even small commercial photography grade gear)
What makes a camera on a drone scary, but a $700 point-n-shoot not worth worrying about?
