I2 in 2026?

[syazoo]

My drone service company is all data. I have a Mavic 3 Cine just for personal use. I am also a bit of a romantic I suppose because I openly admit that I must have beautiful and I do love to capture it. I wonder what you experienced guys have to say about the I2 and the versatility of shots you can achieve with a good assortment of lenses on an X5S camera. I have the X5S and several lenses and the price of I2 drones looks to be about rock bottom. Size is not going to bother me. I am using M350 and M400 drones as well as Agras series drones so the i2 is not large to me at all. I am just very curious about what experience says about my believing I can get much more beautiful footage with an I2 compared to my Mavic 3 Cine. Thanks for looking.

 

[Donnie Frank]

Well, there's "beauty," but....

For me, dual operator was the deal maker for the Inspire series. It's what allowed me to break into the film industry. The deal breaker for all of the DJI offerings pre gen 3 was the inability to rack focus or rack the aperture, which is partially why I got out of the film industry (along with a host of other reasons).

I don't own a Mavic 3, so not sure if it's dual operator or if you can rack the focus or rack the aperture. One CAN do these things with the Inspire 3.

The other thing is range. We were lucky to get a mile of range out of our Inspire 1. The Inspire 2 wasn't much better. The Inspire 3 with the new OcuSync™ technology broke the mold in that regard. I imagine any and all DJI Gen 3 DJI drones have the latest OcuSync™ technology. I routinely fly my M300 a mile down range without a problem. This, with the controller on the cab of the truck. To get a mile of range out of any Lightbridge offerings I had to hack the software and put the remote up on a stand 8' in the air.

"Good optics" is definitely part of the equation. But if one is shooting beyond nature shots, one needs a tool. For me the drone is a tool that has to have other features (as previously mentioned). But honestly, it sounds like my use case was quite different from yours. But, as I said, I got out of that kind of work. These days I do strictly mapping and traffic analysis, which generate just as much revenue as film did without having to deal with "that industry" or "those people."

D