There are a lot of occasions where you can't use a drone. When a storm struck a few weeks ago, I wanted to check my roof and my neighbours, but I live near an airport in an urban area and it was still pretty windy so a drone was unacceptable for legal (and common sense) reasons.
I did, however, happen to have an Insta360 Extended Edition Selfie Stick and the Insta350 X4 camera to hand as they were with me for my review of the X4 camera. That turned out to be the ideal solution.
A large amount of roofing material 'appeared' on the street, causing damage to my home – my internet cable was dangling in the street – but I wasn't sure where it had come from.
At first, I thought the materials were from my roof because the guttering and – very irritatingly – fibre optic internet cable definitely was! People nearby had a mix of concern and, as the minutes passed, some desire to find out who was responsible for clearing the mess!
This is where the need to check things came, but as mentioned I couldn't fly my drone in the high wind.
Max resolution wasn't essential – it'd be easy to see a roof with that much material missing – and the wind couldn't have carried it too far, so I headed upstairs with the Extended Edition Selfie Stick that happened to be included with the accessories provided for the X4 review.
The retracting pole, which shrinks to just 36cm (just over a foot) and extends to 3m (9.8ft) is great for all kinds of activities. I've seen someone using one as a way of capturing video over a crowd at an Easter mass in Spain!
At full extension, there is a slight bend in the pole but it is still surprisingly rigid. It can be attached to any device, but fits in the base of the X3 or X4 series like the standard Invisible Selfie Stick, so images & video can be caught and re-positioned.
Insta360 even market the pole under the tag "no drone, no problem" and they might have a point, at least in this kind of scenario!
Both those cameras capture 360-degree stills at a resolution of 72 megapixels, and there are other options in our best 360-degree cameras guide.
I chose to capture stills using the 10-second self-time activated using the camera's screen. It might have been easier with a second person who could have held the pole in both hands (sensible in the wind) while I operated the camera using the app, but this was more than sufficient.
I could then crop the view, which might not have been a crystal clear image, but was enough to convince my neighbours to call in their builders.
It transpired that the roofing materials had blown off and landed on my fibre-optic cable, which was so strong as to have pulled my facia and guttering off the house with it!
The camera was useful because, with a lot of ageing roofing in the area, and most homes at the same height, a simple pole proved a quick way to solve the need for an emergency survey sooner than even a certified operator would have been able to secure permissions to fly. We didn't even need to wait for the wind to die down.
If you do fancy a drone, check the best camera drones and best beginner drones, and we keep a guide to the best selfie sticks too.
