What’s the deal with these? My brother wants one so I’m helping research. At what price point do you move from toy to useful device? This will be used primarily for amateur filming (nephew is a competitive hs fisherman), land surveying (checking on cows, downed fence, etc), and a little fun.
They're getting better every 30 minutes. Get a last gen DJI thing for 60% of the new one and start playing.
I was kinda interested in one until I found out they don't do well in the wind. We get hammered by wind here so I might be able to fly it a day or 2 a month.
What rural said DJI mavic pro for doing that type of work. Could get a lower end consumer model to practice with but the mavic pro is what I’ve seen commercial level stuff is done with.
Look at the Autel Evo. Much better than anything DJI. Check out all of the geofencing garbage and tracking DJI does and avoid them if you plan to fly anywhere near civilization. Autel does not have any nanny software like that.
Work bought a DJI Mavic Pro and a Yuneec Typhoon H for me to use for crash site surveying. The ONLY advantage the DJI has is portability as it can pack down into a lunchbox-size case. The Yuneec is more stable in wind and has 6 blades with a limp home mode if one blade or motor gets damaged. If the DJI loses a blade or motor it goes down immediately. Video quality (up to 4k, 30 fps) is very close between the two, range goes to the DJI but the Yuneec's range is still way out past my line of sight. If I have the choice I fly the Yuneec 9 times out of 10 over the DJI. Ditto on the above comments about the PITA of the DJI privacy and geofencing restrictions. Yuneec shifts the airspace responsibility to the user instead of disabling take-off or enforcing an auto-land like DJI. The FAA has made some significant changes to hobbyist and commercial users, you should look here: https://www.faa.gov/uas/
I'm DoD so we civilians operate under what is essentially a memorandum of agreement. NTSB and other fed agency counterparts (and local/state LEOs) have similar agreements or have to be "licensed" under the Part 107 like all other commercial operators. If the FAA uses drones I assume their operators have to, too.
And now that the vendors have a few generations of product out there, you can easily find used drones under $1k with very few hours on them.
i just bought a used marvic pro from @Metalhead haven't used it yet, will wait until christmas. but i'm very tempted.
I have a great DJI Phantom 3 pro set up I would sell. It is a great drone to learn with as its very stable and easy to fly. Excellent camera. Lots of spare rotors, and a few batteries.
You might want to start with a toy first and learn how to control a drone manually, but you don't have to. It's almost like learning to use a sextant. Most serious drones are all gps stabilized. I'd go with the dji mavic mini fly more combo. $499. I've had 3 dji phantoms and they were all great. Big and noisy, but great. I've been flying the Parrot Anafi for the last year or so. Very small and quiet and the zoom lens lets you stay back undetected and still get the shot.
