Just purchased my very first drone!
I am an avid amateur photographer and I also enjoy camping, the outdoors (not necessarily in Houston) and visiting the West Texas Deserts whenever possible. I've been working a lot these past few months which means I've been thinking about my interest more than participating in them and I've decided that once things slow down at work I want to try out aerial piloting and photography. I also hope to keep my new craft in my Jeep on road trips for fun aerial recon when I'm out off road. I don't plan to do anything dangerous like rely on it for orientation but I thought it would be super cool to be able to take a birds eye view of my surroundings and investigate areas I don't have the time or capability to access provided it's legal and I'm not bothering anyone with the noise. Anyway I just thought a drone would make a great addition to my hobbies.
I was originally going to get a used-but-not-really Mavic Pro on ebay. I see basically new ones going for $600 and by my understanding the Pro is a mature and competent product. Plus it just seemed like a very reasonable amount to spend. Then I started reading online and seriously considered the Spark before eventually settling on the Mavic Air. It was only about a hundred dollars more than a used Pro and I liked the smaller size for when I'm going to be carrying it around in my pack/camera bag. I ran into a serious problem though when I tried to purchase from the DJI store. Somehow I bought a Mavic Pro 2 instead. I knew for sure that of all the drones I looked at I wasn't going to buy the Pro 2 and then I bought it anyway completely invalidating my hours and hours of reading and internal deliberation on the most sensible purchase. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It's bigger than the Air but still smaller than my Mamiya 645 and weighs only a little more than my Nikon F3 and I carry both of those everywhere so no regrets on the larger size.
I also got the $11 slip cover and gimbal cover and will get a couple of batteries and a car charger eventually. I don't need a special case for it, it'll either go in a camera bag or one of the existing equipment bags in my jeep.
Now I just head over to the FAA website for registration info, figure out how to mount my giant phone to the controller and learn everything I can about safe flying before it gets here. I have learned a lot and met many great people on internet forums and I'm happy to have found this one!
I am an avid amateur photographer and I also enjoy camping, the outdoors (not necessarily in Houston) and visiting the West Texas Deserts whenever possible. I've been working a lot these past few months which means I've been thinking about my interest more than participating in them and I've decided that once things slow down at work I want to try out aerial piloting and photography. I also hope to keep my new craft in my Jeep on road trips for fun aerial recon when I'm out off road. I don't plan to do anything dangerous like rely on it for orientation but I thought it would be super cool to be able to take a birds eye view of my surroundings and investigate areas I don't have the time or capability to access provided it's legal and I'm not bothering anyone with the noise. Anyway I just thought a drone would make a great addition to my hobbies.
I was originally going to get a used-but-not-really Mavic Pro on ebay. I see basically new ones going for $600 and by my understanding the Pro is a mature and competent product. Plus it just seemed like a very reasonable amount to spend. Then I started reading online and seriously considered the Spark before eventually settling on the Mavic Air. It was only about a hundred dollars more than a used Pro and I liked the smaller size for when I'm going to be carrying it around in my pack/camera bag. I ran into a serious problem though when I tried to purchase from the DJI store. Somehow I bought a Mavic Pro 2 instead. I knew for sure that of all the drones I looked at I wasn't going to buy the Pro 2 and then I bought it anyway completely invalidating my hours and hours of reading and internal deliberation on the most sensible purchase. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It's bigger than the Air but still smaller than my Mamiya 645 and weighs only a little more than my Nikon F3 and I carry both of those everywhere so no regrets on the larger size.
I also got the $11 slip cover and gimbal cover and will get a couple of batteries and a car charger eventually. I don't need a special case for it, it'll either go in a camera bag or one of the existing equipment bags in my jeep.
Now I just head over to the FAA website for registration info, figure out how to mount my giant phone to the controller and learn everything I can about safe flying before it gets here. I have learned a lot and met many great people on internet forums and I'm happy to have found this one!
Florida and welcome to the forum 
