Purchase advice for drone to map forest

[Noceur]

Hello,
I hope to get some advice one what to purchase as this is a total jungle and I really haven't gotten a clear picture after 2 days of reading even as someone who flies FPV (non DJI drones).
So the situation is that my family has a bit of forest (200hectars/500acres) and we would like to have a better understanding of the damage that is caused to the forest (storms and insects mainly) and would therefor like to map it out somehow. So what I have found out so far is that I have two ways of doing this, manually flying it and making sure to get GPS locations in a SRT file which I can later use to identify where exactly I saw the bad trees or get a drone with SDK support.

Unfortunately this seems to mean I cannot get a mavic 3 pro, air 3 etc but have to stick to either mini 3/pro or mavic 2 pro or air 2s. What I prefer (as someone into open source and coding) is a system that is as open as possible so that I'm not locked down (I know this doesn't go well with the DJI philosophy exactly unfortunately but it is what it is) and with a budget of up to 25000SEK/2300$/€ (but we'd prefer to keep it lower since we don't know know if this will be worth it for us). As for the forest is quite hilly with some mountains and ponds and there are other obstacles as well (powerlines).

Someone offered to sell their mavic 2 pro with extra batteries for about 600$/€ which seems like a good deal but it has no zoom (although I'm not sure if this is something we should care to look for).

Any advice would be really really appreciated.

 

[wild bill]

Hello,
I hope to get some advice one what to purchase as this is a total jungle and I really haven't gotten a clear picture after 2 days of reading even as someone who flies FPV (non DJI drones).
So the situation is that my family has a bit of forest (200hectars/500acres) and we would like to have a better understanding of the damage that is caused to the forest (storms and insects mainly) and would therefor like to map it out somehow. So what I have found out so far is that I have two ways of doing this, manually flying it and making sure to get GPS locations in a SRT file which I can later use to identify where exactly I saw the bad trees or get a drone with SDK support.

Unfortunately this seems to mean I cannot get a mavic 3 pro, air 3 etc but have to stick to either mini 3/pro or mavic 2 pro or air 2s. What I prefer (as someone into open source and coding) is a system that is as open as possible so that I'm not locked down (I know this doesn't go well with the DJI philosophy exactly unfortunately but it is what it is) and with a budget of up to 25000SEK/2300$/€ (but we'd prefer to keep it lower since we don't know know if this will be worth it for us). As for the forest is quite hilly with some mountains and ponds and there are other obstacles as well (powerlines).

Someone offered to sell their mavic 2 pro with extra batteries for about 600$/€ which seems like a good deal but it has no zoom (although I'm not sure if this is something we should care to look for).

Any advice would be really really appreciated.

M3 Enterprise

 

[PHZ]

Yes, the M3E with a ground station is your best technical solution, but the learning curve is probably beyond your interest level and definitely beyond your budget.. You could alleviate that by reselling it after the project.
Given your use case, I think a M2 Pro from your seller is one solution. Max value would come from serially mapping over time to look at the changes (insect damage, etc). Then you have to learn DroneDeploy (or similar), pay for the processing and then store the map somewhere.
I would suggest you just hire someone whose business this is and get a professional, expedient solution to your issue.

 

[Noceur]

Yes, the M3E with a ground station is your best technical solution, but the learning curve is probably beyond your interest level and definitely beyond your budget.. You could alleviate that by reselling it after the project.
Given your use case, I think a M2 Pro from your seller is one solution. Max value would come from serially mapping over time to look at the changes (insect damage, etc). Then you have to learn DroneDeploy (or similar), pay for the processing and then store the map somewhere.
I would suggest you just hire someone whose business this is and get a professional, expedient solution to your issue.

As we intend to do this a few times per year we figured we probably don't want to pay someone else to do it but rather learn on our own as that would give us skill to do this well over time and it's definitely a interesting area. I guess if the M2P turns out great maybe we ought to look into a multispectral one at a later point. We'll see.

I appreciate the feedback!

 

[PHZ]

As we intend to do this a few times per year we figured we probably don't want to pay someone else to do it but rather learn on our own as that would give us skill to do this well over time and it's definitely a interesting area. I guess if the M2P turns out great maybe we ought to look into a multispectral one at a later point. We'll see.

I appreciate the feedback!

I have mapped with the M2 Pro, and it works well. Be sure to keep your shutter speed up as it is an electronic shutter.

 

[Noceur]

I have mapped with the M2 Pro, and it works well. Be sure to keep your shutter speed up as it is an electronic shutter.

Noted, thanks for the advice!

 

[Sam36401]

@Noceur , I (like PHZ) have mapped with the M2Pro and thats why I have 2 of them.
To give you a sample, here is a screenshot of 352 acres (>2,000 images from 400 ft altitude) and a zoomed in screenshot of the area circled in yellow. You can see a lot of detail even from 400 ft (122m) altitude.