Why do I have four drones?
When I first got my concealed carry gun license a friend of mine told me I would keep buying more and more guns for different situations and as a hobbyist. I do have a couple guns locked up in my safe I bought for different reasons but that is it. I may go to the shooting range every once in a while but other than that they are primarily for home and self protection.
Drones fall into a similar category. There are a lot of drones out there but I have not bought any I could not justify for one reason or another.
On a side note: I always get the DJI Care Refresh, whatever higher end ‘fly more’ bundle offered, descent hard case, ND filters, extra batteries and a lanyard for the remote controller.
Below are my drones and why I bought them. Notice they are all made by DJI. At this point I see no reason to use another vendor:
Phantom 4 Pro V2.0
DJI Phantom 4 Pro v2.0: I bought this drone on eBay a while back and even though it’s the oldest drone of mine, I use it regularly for paid drone jobs that require consistent video or photos from the same locations. I also use it for creating orthomosaic maps and other abilities with software like DroneDeploy and Litchi, and others. Once the Mavic 3 has these abilites this drone may not be needed anymore. I’ve used it for many things in the past, has a great camera but it is bigger and louder than my other drones.
Mavic 3
DJI Mavic 3: This is currenty my ‘go to’ drone especially for video but photography as well. I use this drone on all other paid drone jobs (real estate, events, other). I cannot justify another variant of the Mavic 3 or simlar drone at the time of this blog entry but this drone is amazing.
Mini 3 Pro
DJI Mini 3 Pro: This is my backup drone for the Mavic 3 for photography on paid jobs. It takes great photos however the video quality is not as good as the Mavic 3 (or Phantom) because of the camera sensor size. That being said, it’s 25 grams and can fit in your pocket easily. I’ve flown in a number of local Metro Parks, I previously shown the Park Rangers the Mavic 3 and a lot of the time they said ‘no’. When doing the same thing (even the same parks), when the Park Rangers saw how small and less intimidating the Mini 3 Pro was they usually said ‘yes’. I believe some thought it was a toy or cheap drone not know how wrong they were. It’s also great for traveling but even then I may opt for the Mavic 3.
Avata
DJI Avata: I’m still learning FPV flying and seeing what I can really do with this drone but it is damn fun to fly! I see using footage from this drone for many different scenarios. It’s a different look and perspective than a typical camera drone. Sucks you need a VO (Visual Observer; another person who can see it flying with their eyes) when flying it but thats the law (at the time of this blog entry).
In conclusion: The above drone lineup may change in the future but not without good reason.
