Thinking hard on buying a Mavic.. actual use?

[Colorado_scott]

I'll fess-up ; I always found posts like "should I buy this, or that" annoying. Do your research and buy what you want but no one should make the decision for you, and being swayed one way or another is crazy - owners of "something" will tell you to buy it.

History: I've been taking digital photos for 30 years - at least. I had the first Kodak digital camera, cost me $1000 as I recall. Took 640x480 pictures, but it was neat and used it a lot with my young children. I still take digital photos, and more movies now than photos, and I edit on a decent computer (fast) and burn DVD's monthly.

I am questioning the actual use of a drone / camera / taking video. I see time editing (a lot of editing time) to make a 'movie', but who am I making it for? Me? to show others? any decent movie will take forever to upload to YouTube. Then only a few will look at it, as it's not an informative 'how to' - and I've done these types of reviews for R/C planes, Helicopters, and Kayaking videos. Yep, I've gotten free products to do videos on certain things. So, ok, that's neat, but not my goal.

I've been flying RC for 30 years, and have flown 2 drones (a total of about 10 flights), which I have returned both; charge time too long and flight time too short. Not hard to fly with my RC experience, but I'm searching for an actual use for a drone. Sure, go out and have fun... so OK, I can do this for a bit, but I saw myself heading to Rocky Mountain National Park - but found out, can't do that. Then I found "maps" and NFZ's and found very limited real airspace for fly, and the areas where you can fly are not too interesting.

So here I am, there are a few Mavic's I'm interested in - classified section, and I can afford one, but don't want to throw away $800. I think many find out flying a drone is fun for a bit, but then you lose interest because the nice places to shoot video are NFZ's. So this just sucks. I'd spend $250-300 and consider it a throw away, but flight times are so limited. When I spend $800+, then it gets a bit more serious.

Suppose I'll sit tight - perhaps a new Spark will come out with longer flight times for $500 and then I may get the 'bug' again. I'd sure like to play around with a good drone, but the cost and potential return seems hard to justify.

Just some thought above, perhaps others will comment on their experience and thought process when purchasing a drone.

Scott

 

[james_mav]

I agree that anyone spending $1000 on a drone should consider whether or not they will really use it. I've got a $2K workout machine that I use as a coat hanger. Everyone is different, $1K for someone to use the drone on a few vacations every year may be well worth it for some but others would think the expense is crazy. I can walk out my door & fly so the Mavic was one of the best investments I've ever made even if I'm shooting the same thing day after day. I don't know why you need more flight time since 20 minutes is not bad & you can always buy more batteries to extend your flying time. The Mavic is an amazing piece of technology & provides countless hours of cheap fun

 

[beachcombing]

For me, I enjoy taking video of interesting places with my drones. It gets me a perspective on the environment that I can't get by taking pictures and videos on the ground. I mostly (almost exclusively) fly in remote areas away from people such as wetlands and beaches.

And I like to post them to YouTube so that others (friends, family, other drone users) can see them and experience the places I have videoed. I like going to some places at different times of the year to see the differences in the vegetation in different seasons.

There are plenty of places to fly legally. You just have to do a little bit of research. No, you can't fly in National Parks, but I'm actually okay with that. But in the places that you can fly, it's awesome to get video from above the ground.

 

[MichiganMavic]

I bought the combo kit on 12/22 and extra batteries (5 total) and still haven’t flown it. The temps have been in the low teens..... now I’m not sure if I even want it. I have an Inspire and the P4 already so it’s not like I can’t fly something. It sure looks pretty in my office [emoji16]

 

[Anthony Viscomi]

I've got a $2K workout machine that I use as a coat hanger

+1...if i had a dollar for every useless item I purchased I'd be a millionare