Difference between drone specific camera's and others

jan-pieter14 · Jan 9, 2019

Hey everyone,

I am a student and my faculty is looking to buy a thermal camera which would be used for archeological research.
The budget is about 1.5k euro and we were looking at FLIR VUE PRO 336. However I recently came across the Seek
Thermal Compact Pro and Seek Thermal Reveal Pro, 550 en 600 euro respectively. These have nearly the same resolution but aren't UAV specific.
Do these have any disadvantages, compared to the VUE PRO series, with regards to drone use?
I couldn't find any specifications which indicated a downgrade.
Another faculty used a FLIR SC305, which also isn't a drone specific camera, a few years back. So again are there disadvantages of using their camera compared to a VUE PRO.

Thanks in advance,
Jan-Pieter Van Parys

Outta Control · Jan 9, 2019

I highly recommend to go with a UAS specific imaging device.

Issues you will face are possible thermal smear when vibration or instability may occur and also a method to frame the shot. Having the thermal imager on a 3-axis gimbal would give a night and day difference in the result versus a non-gimbal.

If you budget will allows for a 640 resolution it would be ideal but a 336 would still be capable as long as you learn how to focus on your target correctly through proper ranging of the imager, based on your distance.

jan-pieter14 · Jan 9, 2019

Outta Control said:
I highly recommend to go with a UAS specific imaging device.

Issues you will face are possible thermal smear when vibration or instability may occur and also a method to frame the shot. Having the thermal imager on a 3-axis gimbal would give a night and day difference in the result versus a non-gimbal.

If you budget will allows for a 640 resolution it would be ideal but a 336 would still be capable as long as you learn how to focus on your target correctly through proper ranging of the imager, based on your distance.

Ok thanks for the advice