There are few companies that are more dominant than DJI in their respective fields, especially in the tech industry. Having swept away competition from all comers thus far, it now appears that one established photography company may be stepping up to the plate to see if it can challenge the dominance of the Shezhen-based giant - Canon.

However, Canon isn’t aiming to compete with the consumer grade Phantom or Mavic line, but in the more lucrative (albeit smaller) industrial drone market. Although DJI’s products aren’t as well known here, its market share is at a similar scale.

Although Canon isn’t manufacturing the drone itself (it’ll be built by Prodrone Co, a Japanese company in which Canon invested in 2016), Canon will pair its cameras with this hardware, and act as a principal distributor. In its first foray into flying cameras, the company has recently shown off a prototype search and rescue drone, developed for use with its ME20F-SH camera.

The drone is obviously weatherproof and can carry loads of up to 10kg, but Canon are more focused on the capabilities of the camera that’s attached. With a staggering ISO of 4,000,000, the camera can all but see in the dark, making it perfect for mountain or cliffside rescues being performed at night.

Rather than relying on casting light from inbuilt lighting rigs, as some search and rescue drones do, Canon’s idea is to make the best of existing light and therefore broaden the capabilities of the drone as a search and rescue aid.

The rumored US$20,000 price tag (which doesn’t include the price of the camera, which costs almost US$20,000 by itself), is targeted at governments and NGOs, but will need to be seriously convincing to knock DJI from its perch. Depending on how this initial effort is received, Canon may decide to invest more heavily into this rapidly expanding sector.

2017-4-6 03:00