Importance of Flight Time?

[galfridus]

I'm a casual photographer who has been planning to get a drone (the Mavic Pro Platinum was my pick). Like many people here I'm trying to see how the Air stacks up.

I'd like to ask those of you with drones how important the flight time difference between the Pro and the Air might be. I won't be traveling to Patagonia to get gnarly kayak shots, just augmenting my SLR photography with aerial drone shots and video. I can certainly have extra batteries on hand - is that enough, or is the added flight time important? I imagine it takes a bit to get aloft, line up shots, etc., and that time has to be repeated when you land and replace batteries.

 

[twitchyzero]

as someone who came from the 15min battery life to 25ish....the 25 almost even feels too long! never hurts to have more because sometimes you can even squeeze in 2 short flights off one battery.

IMO if you only intend to get a few shots, 20 minute should be fine. I never intended not to buy additional batteries so it's not a dealbreaker for me at all.

 

[DefaultIT]

For strictly video work it's not too big a deal, mitigated a lot by battery size and cost. Compare total kit flight times based on how much you plan to spend and carry.

I've gotten interested in aerial time lapses and plan to do a lot more, so the usable time (i.e. to 20%) winds up limiting my finished shot length...especially with large minimum intervals like 2/5 seconds for jpg/raw photos. There are just only so many pics you can get into 15 of usable flight, and you really can't continue it on subsequent batteries

 

[brandy234]

In some cases I've found myself wishing I had a bit more battery - but buying another battery solves that problem. I think early on I tried to use up all my battery making sure I captured everything, whereas the best idea is to put the drone up for a few mins and get an idea of the light and the perspective, then land, plan it out and go back up to get the shots. As said, 20 mins in the air is a long time. A few more mins can help if you need to re-do any shots, but spare batteries really are the answer.