Given that the camera is required to fly I wouldn't think that the camera is considered payload. I've never tried to fly with any payload mostly because I haven't needed to and it doesn't seem equipped to hold anything (you would have to use some ingenuity to attach something to it). I can speak as to how long it flies without any payload but obviously with the camera. And in my use, it's been between 18-19 minutes of flight time. The very first time I flew it, it landed itself due to low battery around the 18 minutes mark, even though on the handheld controller, the screen said there was 2 minutes of flight time left. I haven't flown it enough while taking video/stills to determine how much that drains the battery. Hope that helps.