Sony Airpeak Drone Unveiled – Carries Sony Alpha Cameras

Drone News

by Jakub HanJanuary 12^th, 2021

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The Sony Airpeak drone was officially unveiled virtually during CES2021. As the first model of the Airpeak series, the drone will be able to carry mirrorless cameras such as the full-frame cameras of the Sony Alpha series.

The drone market has been massively dominated by DJI in recent years. Now it seems that Japanese camera giant Sony wants to enter this market and secure market share for itself. Back in November 2020, Sony teased the new drone project with a mysterious Youtube video. Today, during the virtual CES2021 show, Sony finally officially announced the drone and revealed more details about it. Let’s take a look at the Sony Airpeak.

Sony Airpeak Drone

Sony is marketing this drone as “the world’s smallest drone capable to carry Alpha camera systems”. That means, in fact, that the drone is not that small. At least not small enough to compete with DJI Mavic line. It resembles rather the DJI Matrice or FREEFLY Alta drones. There is virtually no technical info about the drone from Sony yet, so I am only writing up what I observed from the published videos.

Airpeak is a classic quadcopter, so it has four arms, each with one motor and one propeller. It seems to have two fairly large batteries in its body as well as a handful of sensors on every side. There also seems to be a small gimbal-stabilized camera on the drone already.

The main camera for the drone hangs on a larger three-axis gimbal. The drone will be able to carry mirrorless cameras such as the Sony Alpha models. I assume it will be able to carry also other brands of cameras as long as they will be within the weight and size limit. However, Sony could offer remote full-camera control exclusively for its Alpha cameras. We will have to wait for the specs to know for sure.

As my colleague Olaf wrote in November 2020, Sony is planning to use the Airpeak more as a brand of a new line of products rather than a name for this one drone. As the first phase of the Airpeak project, Sony will launch a new business targeted for professional photography and video production in the spring of 2021. I am curious to see where the Airpeak line will evolve in the future.

Sony tested the Airpeak drone in Austria during the VISION-S road test. The drone was equipped with the Sony a7S III full-frame mirrorless camera. This combo makes a lot of sense as the camera features a very capable autofocus and lowlight capability.

Seeking Professional Collaborators

Sony announced that they are looking for professional drone users (who currently use drones professionally to create content or provide additional services to customers) in the United States and Japan to become collaboraters and participate in the Airpeak project. If interested, you can sign-up here.

The benefits of doing so include receiving updates on events and other activities hosted by Sony, and opportunities to collaborate with products under development.

Price and Availability

There is no information from Sony about the price and availability of the Airpeak drone yet. Stay tuned to CineD as we will, of course, be watching this project closely and keep you informed.

What do you think of the Sony Airpeak drone project? Do you see this drone complementing your shooting kit? Would you like to see an all-in-one drone from Sony to compete with DJI Mavic line as well? Let us know in the comments section underneath the article.