Drones

[Jim SoG]

Love the drone shots many use, so got me wanting one and that brings ups questions, for me at least:
Never used one other than a cheapy toy, want to shoot video, do not want to spend tons for one.........SO

Can anyone suggest a decent drone that has return to home, video, maybe even some extras like hover and collision avoidance at a decent price?

I figure to use this for awhile and "mastering" it till confident and ready to buy bigger better pro drone, if I ever decide that......

Appreciate your suggestions.......Links would be nice as well if you got them.

Jim

 

[Flipper]

Costco sells DJI Drones. $389 for the Mavic. The drones you are referring to are GPS Drones. They have features like follow me, come home, circle, load gps numbers in then will follow that route at a specific altitude then come home and land itself. Fly time, distance and altitude will also be a factor. If it is over a certain weight it will have to be registered. There seems to be two categories....toy or pro. You get what you pay for. One thing I found out 99.9% of the places I wanted to fly and photo or video they are illegal. National Parks, State Parks.........you name it, chances are they will be illegal. Authorities seem to have a real attitude towards them probably from numerous complaints. There is an app called B4UFLY that shows all the no fly zones which is great to have before you take off and end up getting in trouble because there was a school , airport, govt building that was too close you didn’t know about. That’s what happened with my first flight. Drove around until I found a big field with no trees. Didn’t know there was a school a block over, that was the end of my first flight.
Also go to YouTube and watch funniest drone crashes. You can learn a lot from others mistakes. Some of them are pretty funny but costly. Trees seem to be a big factor in the learning curve. I personally like the video of the drone touching down at the bottom of a lake and a fish swimming up to it checking it out, you can even see the props are still spinning.. there’s $400 out the window. Another feature is that it will fly to where will start losing it control signal and stop instead of flying off to never never land.. that’s never as in never to be seen again.

 

[Jim SoG]

Flipper you gave me tons to think on besides nailing the drone features, yep GPS is what I want, now the rest you gave me things to figure out and learn, thank you very much.
I will check out them DJi drones.

Jim

 

[Jim SoG]

I found this one with lots of features, anyone got opinion on it?

EXO X7 Ranger PLUS

The all new X7 Ranger PLUS from EXO Drones, the obstacle avoidance, reliably flying, 2K/4K dynamic drone. Ranger PLUS is on sale now, get yours at this link.

exodrones.com

 

[bucksandbrews]

Good advice from @Flipper. I am a commercial drone pilot in the telecom industry and we use a $300 Mavic Mini probably more then we do our $8k inspire. I would go ahead and get the package that comes with spare batteries a nice case and all that jazz though. I think it costs about $150 more but comes with everything you will probably end up with anyways. The Mini is great for most shots, you just don't get the cool tracking feature that comes with a much larger price tag. If you practice though you can get the hang of following stuff pretty quickly.
As for the restrictions, yeah they can be annoying sometimes, but so would 100 drones buzzing around a place that you were trying to enjoy the scenery! Unfortunately we have to have laws to prevent people from being stupid/inconsiderate.

 

[Flipper]

Good advice from @Flipper. I am a commercial drone pilot in the telecom industry and we use a $300 Mavic Mini probably more then we do our $8k inspire. I would go ahead and get the package that comes with spare batteries a nice case and all that jazz though. I think it costs about $150 more but comes with everything you will probably end up with anyways. The Mini is great for most shots, you just don't get the cool tracking feature that comes with a much larger price tag. If you practice though you can get the hang of following stuff pretty quickly.
As for the restrictions, yeah they can be annoying sometimes, but so would 100 drones buzzing around a place that you were trying to enjoy the scenery! Unfortunately we have to have laws to prevent people from being stupid/inconsiderate.

Great advise about the package deal, extra props, battery, case. Just like you said your going to end up buying it anyway. The Costco DJI is a package so it’s a pretty good deal. You picked a great career. I am a retired Broadcast Tech/ Engineer now but if I was younger I would definitely be in the Drone/LiDAR industry.

 

[Flipper]

I found this one with lots of features, anyone got opinion on it?

EXO X7 Ranger PLUS

The all new X7 Ranger PLUS from EXO Drones, the obstacle avoidance, reliably flying, 2K/4K dynamic drone. Ranger PLUS is on sale now, get yours at this link.

exodrones.com

I am not familiar with the Mfg. But I am not an expert by no means. IMO I would check reviews for customer support, how long they have been in business, software upgrades, part availability. DJI seems to be the “standard” with a lot of new companies making knockoffs of the dji mavic mini. Some do not care for them because they are mfg in China.

 

[BullNV]

I purchased this drone off of Amazon. Does really well. Has two extra batteries, props and case.

 

[bucksandbrews]

You got lots of options to pick from out there. Honestly most in the price ranges are going to be just as good as the other. The drone industry being somewhat new is just the same as any other tech industry in that most manufacturers will probably end up selling their product or tech to one of the "big ones" DJI and Parrot are kind of the industry standards right now for recreational use. I find the DJI Mavic line to be the best bang for your buck. I would recommend starting with the Mini or if you want more features the Air 2.

 

[Jim SoG]

Sweet ideas, appreciate it and a nice discussion on them.......

Jim

 

[sabjku]

I picked up a Mavic Mini not too long ago. My first drone ever. It's a blast to fly, and takes some very nice quality pics and video. If I would have waited about 2 months I could have grabbed the Mini 2 instead for 4k footage, and some other improvements as well, although quite minor for what I use it for. The 2.7k footage is more than good enough for some simple social media posts.