Right. The FAA doesn’t regulate photos and videos they regulate aviation so they can only regulate what you are doing during the flight which is your purpose or intent.
You know, it's funny you bring this up.
<rant>
The clear line in the sand between commercial and recreational aviation is "payload." Either you're flying a plane by yourself (or with a single passenger) (recreational), or you're flying a larger aviation vehicle with paying passengers and/or commercial payloads. It's pretty cut-n-dry. Even the most dismal observer can see why the FAA has made such a clear-cut difference between "commercial pilots" and "recreational pilots." It makes a lot of sense. I totally get it.
Conversely, the lines between commercial UAV and recreational UAV are almost non-existent. The payloads don't change. The risk doesn't change. Nothing changes. I can fly a circle around a house and take photo "recreationally" or "commercially." There is literally zero difference between those two flights. The "risk" changes not one iota. Even size doesn't matter. I flew my M600 Pro last week for test purposes. I could just as easily fly a Mavic Pro professionally or "commercially" as the FAA likes to call it. I flew my M600 Pro out at an RC Park right next to a dozen or so other recreational RC Pilots. CLEARLY, "size" matters not.
I guess my point is that there is no logic or common sense to any of this. It just seems like a whole bunch of posturing and bureaucracy for the sake of ego or revenue under the guise of "safety." The FAA completely ignores any statistical comparisons between UAV's and full-scale aviation. No other faction in the world ignores statistical data like the FAA does. The UAV community boasts literally zero deaths, very few injuries and very little property damage (I concede that if one digs hard enough, I think there was ONE DEATH in like 1975 from a large RC helicopter). From an underwriter's POV, UAV flying is the Holy Grail of safety; Zero deaths. No major injuries. Almost zero property damage. A dream come true. But everybody ignores this, favoring, instead a myriad of "what if" arguments and scenarios that are completely unsupported by any and all available data.
The FAA is hyper about safety, and I get why. When you're transporting millions of souls millions of miles thousands of feet in the air annually, you had BETTER be focused on safety and diligence. Especially since aviation has killed thousands and done billions in property damage throughout its sordid history. But when you're flying a 3 lb. toy with NO souls on board, no payload and a kinetic potential of a tennis ball, maybe - JUST MAYBE - "safety" can be relaxed a little.
Consider this....
Any Joe Blow can Willy-Nilly purchase a drone and fly it. And they do. By the millions. All over the world. Regardless of the level of stupidity or ignorance, the damage drones have done to the entire planet over their entire history is orders of magnitude less than any SINGLE aviation crash. Let that sink in. Any SINGLE AVIATION CRASH. If that kind of carnage could be put into scale, Aviation would be all of Florida beaches and UAV's would be a grain of sand.
I'm not against safety. What I AM against is a bunch of bureaucratic BS under the GUISE of safety. Honestly, until ONE PERSON is KILLED - JUST ONE - in my humble opinion, the FAA needs to relax. But there's no money in that. And fat-cat FAA jobs have to be justified.
Dozens if not hundreds are killed annually by commercial aviation. Until UAV's begin to even scratch the surface of that level of carnage, it makes ZERO SENSE to treat us with nearly the same level of regulation as the rest of the aviation community. Just my $.02.
</rant>
D