I've been playing around with drones for a few years now, and when my department started an unmanned aviation program, I applied as soon as I could. I was able to get my unmanned pilot's license this Spring on the department's dime, which is needed in order to fly for other than personal recreation.
My personal aircraft is a Parrot Bebop 2, which I love. It's a fun drone to fly around the house and weave between trees. It's also a pretty stable camera platform when I need it to be. The Skycontroller 2 makes piloting it a lot more intuitive than my previous drone, a Parrot AR.drone and its strictly smartphone interface.
My little drone is nothing compared to the department's massive DJI Matrice 210. It weighs in at more than 10 times as much as the Bebop with similar flight times. It carries some serious hardware as well. We've outfitted it with two gimbal cameras. One, with 32x optical zoom, can resolve human-sized objects from almost two miles away. The other, a FLIR camera, can not only see in the dark but see hidden heat sources in any light. The controller is way beyond the Bebop as well and is not restricted by wifi's limited range.
Of course the Matrice suite costs 250 times what the Bebop does, so I won't be adding one to my personal stable anytime soon. Heck, I could almost buy two Bebops for the price of a single Matrice battery, and the Matrice needs two batteries to fly!