Thanx for the compliment. Very nice. I appreciate that.
Funny you ask. I actually HAVE given this more thought than you would think. Hopefully, this doesn't get too long. But you DID put a token in me...LOL....
As my drone career moves forward, I have learned that there is no "one drone does all." I have also learned that, while DJI offerings are extremely well built and priced to sell, their firmware, software and support fall far short the "gold standard." So...if one can overcome these support short-comings, one can take full advantage of DJI's sophistication, reliability and robustness. Because I'm a bit of a software/firmware geek, I don't mind diving deep into the knowledge pool, and I don't mind spending hours configuring and testing different software / firmware combinations. The "secret" to DJI products (if you will), is to find the golden cusp between features and reliability. Naturally, as DJI adds more "burden / features / responsibility" to software / firmware, the less reliable they become. The good news is there exists such a cusp. Finding it can be time consuming. For this reason, I use DJI products exclusively. So, essentially, this entire paragraph is a disclaimer, designed to stop short those who wish to suggest other offerings.
To fully understand where I am going, one has to know where I came from.
For a couple years I flew gasser helicopters. I won't bore you with that history. My first hobby quad was a DraganFly with a camera. Piece of crap. I won't bore you with that history, either. My first PRO quads were all Phantom 1's; 1 with a Hero3+ with Peau Productions lens mounted to a Tarot 2-axis gimbal and (for still photos), another with a Hero4 mounted to a DYS 3-axis gimbal (for film), and a third with 2 cameras for mapping (that bird never went into service). These birds got me into the drone profession. EASY to fly with features I only imagined. To me, RTH, FPV and GPS stabilization were like little miracles from the drone gods. They were SO easy to fly that I could actually concentrate on the photography part of what I was doing. Amazing!
Naturally, my business eventually outgrew the lowly Phantom 1's. While I continued to produce decent photos and video, I sat back and watched as DJI cranked out more and more offerings. I've NEVER been a "latest / greatest" kind of guy, so I sat back and read the forums. My mind was blown how many crashes there were. How? In the years I flew Phantom 1's, I crashed only a couple times, twice due to battery running out mid flight (remember, no telemetry in those days). All crashes were minor.
While I was "out there" making a reasonable living, DJI released the Phantom 2 and the Inspire 1. While I wasn't interested in any of the Phantom offerings, the Inspire 1 caught my eye with its dual operator mode, and a level of sophistication unseen in the drone community. And while I was intrigued, it wasn't until version 2 that I pulled the trigger. And I'm glad I did. With its dual operator capabilities, me and my partner became a formidable player in the film industry. My phone rang often.
In the interim, another market had opened up for me; the mapping market. Based on a fellow professional's advice, I explored the
P4P with its 20MP camera. I started diving into the mapping side of UAS, which was comprised of automated flight only. So that opened up a whole other venue of research. I was now exploring third-party applications for my mapping needs. The money was good. Very good. I stopped taking real estate jobs because the money:work ratio just wasn't there. But then DJI released the Mavic and subsequent Mavic Pro. This drone was so small, diminutive, non-threatening, and easy to deploy that it rekindled my interest in real estate videography / photography. I could now be "in and out" in about an hour. And because the thing was so small, nobody bugged me. I could once again justify the $100 paycheck. For these clients, I deal strictly in cash, and hand over the file on-site. For a small fee, I deliver the files.
Meanwhile, the film industry has been moving towards RAW aerial cinematography. And, as of this writing, they pretty much demand it. So, to answer your question, I first must ask myself if I'm interested enough in the film industry market to purchase a replacement for the Inspire 1. Naturally, this replacement will have to be able to shoot in RAW.
Naturally, one thinks of the
Inspire 2 for this purpose. But I don't like the
Inspire 2 for a couple reasons:
1) They're still too expensive. I would have to purchase 2 of them, as I would never show up on set without a replacement drone.
2) They're too duty specific. They're designed for film (and apparently they do that well), but there's little other use for them.
3) I still see far too many crash reports. I can attribute a lot of these crashes to "user error," but a good portion still seem related to HARDWARE issues, which can be extremely difficult to overcome.
The bird I *actually* like is the M600 Pro. Why? Because I can mount a X5R to the beast for film, and a LIDAR unit to it for mapping. It will fly automated flights for mapping, and will accommodate dual operators for film. I have set up a couple M600 Pro's for customers, and I must say that I am impressed with their engineering. I only have about 2 hours of flight time on them, spanned across 2 birds, but in that time I must say that I fell in like with the things. The battery redundancy thing is a REAL carrot for me. For many reasons, I have always felt that the single battery was a crappy design for heavy lifters.
The reason I don't pull the trigger now is because I know the longer I wait, the lower the price will go on these birds. There's always a community of people with more money than sense who just see these heavy lifters as a big toy. I call this "garage candy," (a term left over from the Harley-Davidson craze of the 90's) - purchased with all the extra bells-n-whistles, spare parts, spare chargers, spare batteries, flown once or twice, and then left in a box in the garage.
As of this writing, the mapping market is my favorite market. If we get to the point where we have to incorporate my partner's $80,000 LIDAR unit into our mapping jobs, I'll pull the trigger on an M600 Pro, and outfit it accordingly. And while everyone is raving about the latest / greatest DJI camera offerings, I think the X5R is still a fantastic camera. I believe the industry will be happy with 4K for a while. I always felt the X5R was too great a payload and power burden for the Inspire 1 to carry effectively. Such a payload will be small carrots for the M600 Pro. 25 minutes of flight time should be easily achievable.
I hope this answers your question...<;^)
D
