Active track
Also known as: subject tracking, follow mode
A drone mode that follows a chosen subject automatically, keeping it framed while the aircraft takes care of its own flying.
Updated
What it means
Active track hands the framing to the aircraft. A subject is selected on screen and the drone keeps it in shot while flying itself, in the way FocusTrack holds a gimbal on a target, which turns a two person job into something one rider can set up alone.
Implementations differ by maker but the principle is constant: visual tracking decides where the subject is, and the flight controller moves the aircraft and gimbal to keep it there. ActiveTrack is the DJI name for it.
It is the feature that makes solo drone footage of yourself practical at all. Without it somebody has to fly while somebody else does the activity, which rules out most of the use cases.
How it works in practice
Open ground and a distinct subject are what it needs. A single rider against snow or water tracks reliably, where a group in matching kit under trees does not.
Setting the distance and angle before starting matters more than the tracking itself, since the shot it produces is whatever geometry it was given at the outset and nothing adjusts it mid flight.
Keeping a clear line of sight is both a legal and a practical requirement, which is why Visual line of sight (VLOS) constrains where this can be used rather than just how.
What to watch out for
Trackers lose subjects at exactly the wrong moment. A rider passing behind a tree or another person is where the lock breaks, and the drone then holds position pointing at nothing.
Obstacle avoidance and tracking also fight each other. An aircraft following a subject into trees will stop rather than follow, which is correct behaviour and a lost shot.
The resulting footage is also uniform by nature. A tracking shot at a constant distance is useful once in a sequence and monotonous three times, so it needs cutting against Aerial b-roll rather than used alone.
How RawClip handles it
Tracking shots are weighted as action coverage but their uniformity is taken into account, so a sequence does not end up as three identical follows of the same rider. Variety between angles is part of the selection rather than an afterthought.