Hi Mike. Drones UAV whatever you want to call them all fall directly under the CASA flight regulations and as such you do have to be a little careful what you do with them. That aside there are quite a few good manufacturers of drones but more so the control system to make them fly. If you want something ultra stable and a reasonable working platform DJI Inovations make some great gear but again the high end stuff is pricey.
http://www.multiwiicopter.com/ this is the web site of a gent called Quinton Marious in QLD, he sells some really nice stuff and will almost certainly tell you not to go with DJI at all. Believe me the controllers are very good and make the learning curve much easier than some of the others and of course he will sell you a DJI if you want one.
Remember how heavy your DSLR is and that along with the weight of a nice gimbal requires some real horsepower. A gopro on the other hand is quite light.
Points you need to think about
:
if a motor fails, 4 motors ,it crashes, 6 motors, you might be able to land if you are lucky. 8 motors and it will still fly, not very well but it is still flyable.
Flight time is all important, you have to be able to fly back from wherever you fly too.
You will probably want to step up to FPV and this can be a very quick jump so get a multi with some spare horses.
Buy it as a kit and put it together yourself and if you buy one already built strip it down and go over every screw as one loose screw can cost you a lot.
Spend a bit of time just learning to fly it in a football ground or similar until movements are second nature.
Have fun. I have built a few, crashed a few and videoed with quite a few and the only way to get good at taking Pix is practice and maintenance.
Another place worth looking at is
www.hobbyking.com as they sell quite a few RTF models. The Quanum is one that rates quite well and I suspect the Walkera is also pretty good. As I said I quite like the DJI Phantom as a no fuss platform.
