Review: Hands on with the LaCie DJI Copilot

Drone photographers are used to travelling far and broad in search of epic scenes to shoot, however typically the practicalities can get in the approach of that sense of journey.

An excellent instance is cupboard space. If you’re capturing in 4K over the course of a visit, reminiscence playing cards are going to get full shortly. Organizing your media on the go is paramount – the last item you need to be doing is deleting footage simply to make room for the subsequent cease.

There are loads of options to this problem: spare SD playing cards, transferring every part to an exterior laborious drive or laptop computer, capturing in a decrease decision to save lots of room. But none of them presents a lot flexibility.

Spare SD playing cards aren’t splendid if you wish to go over footage throughout stops; capturing in a decrease decision is an annoying sacrifice to make; laptops have restricted room, too, even when they do help you arrange and edit on the transfer.

LaCie, a subsidiary of storage specialists Seagate, has come up with an answer in partnership with DJI.

The DJI Copilot: A BOSS answer

The very first thing we must always say is that ‘Copilot’ is a barely deceptive identify. Instead of taking on the controls once you want a rest room break, it is a smarter-than-average exterior laborious drive that acts as each storage answer and a kind of media organizer. It’s comparatively small, light-weight and simple to make use of, making it a great backup on-set answer.

So sure, it’s got your again in a way. But Copilot is likely to be pushing it.

The LaCie DJI Copilot manages to tick all of these bins as a result of it’s rather more than only a 2 TB laborious drive. For starters, it has a built-in battery, an LED show and connects to the LaCie DJI Copilot app on your smartphone. This permits it to repeat media playing cards or system information with the contact of a button, somewhat than needing a laptop computer to behave as a go-between.

Key to its performance is the undeniable fact that this drive could be related to absolutely anything. There are 4 completely different ports that cowl Apple and Android smartphones, in addition to SD and USB ports for reminiscence playing cards and laptops. These make it splendid for drone pilots, DSLR photographers and anybody who desires to again up media on the go.

Once you’ve plugged in your system or SD card and copied your media throughout, you should use the Copilot app to view, watch, rename, arrange and delete recordsdata as you select.

The Extras

There are a couple of different helpful parts to the LaCie DJI Copilot. First of all, it additionally acts as a charger in your smartphone. It’s under no circumstances designed to be as highly effective in that regard as a devoted moveable charger, however it’s a pleasant contact nonetheless.

The Copilot can be rugged, splash, mud and drop resistant. It’s actually strong sufficient which you can throw it in your bag and never fear about it being broken throughout an outside journey. It’s additionally larger than carrying round a bunch of unfastened reminiscence playing cards, which has to make it tougher to lose, proper?

Aside from that, the LaCie Copilot comes with one month’s free entry to Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite and Seagate’s rescue information restoration providers.

The LaCie DJI Copilot: How a lot does it price?

The DJI Copilot presents a functionality just about unmatched by its rivals, wrapped up in a comparatively small drive that’s splendid for utilizing on the go. For a drone pilot the attraction is easy: now you can journey, backup and arrange your media with a single, uncomplicated system. For many pilots that will likely be sufficient.

Another issue is publicity, simply not in the images sense. All too usually drone pilots and photographers head out into the wilderness with hundreds of {dollars} value of drugs of their rucksacks. Not everybody enjoys that form of publicity. With the Copilot, you may at the very least depart the laptop computer at residence with out compromising your skill to retailer media and make area for one more day of capturing. So it may be seen as a weight off your shoulders in additional methods than one.

There will likely be loads of individuals used to carrying spare reminiscence playing cards or backing up media onto a laptop computer as soon as a shoot has completed. But the LaCie DJI Copilot presents a useful various in particular situations: if you happen to’re on a protracted street journey, climbing to a shoot or attempting to be a bit extra spontaneous with your drone.

The One draw back, as you may count on, is the value. This doesn’t come low cost.

The LaCie DJI Copilot will set you again round $349.

Our take? If you’re a critical images fanatic, somebody who likes to shoot in rugged, adventurous areas or a drone skilled, it’s effectively value the funding. If not, you may need to contemplate lugging your laptop computer to shoots for the foreseeable future.