How have I not written about this yet?
In late 2019 I got a wild idea to pick up a drone so I did that very thing and bought myself a DJI Mavic Mini. The super cool thing about that drone is 1. it's pretty inexpensive (refurbished ones can now be found for under $300 with three batteries) 2. it's compact size makes it easy to take along nearly anywhere 3. it's fairly quiet so you can fly pretty unobtrusively and 4. because it weighs in at under 249 grams it doesn't need to be registered with the FAA (though now I believe you're supposed to register all drones/UAVs). There are a few drawbacks of that drone which are 1. it's only got a tiny 12 MP sensor that can shoot at 2.7k. 2. the battery life isn't spectacular at around 20 minutes (less in more extreme weather) 3. it's light weight can really make it struggle in higher winds to the point of where I was seriously concerned that I wouldn't get it back and finally 4. there's no obstacle avoidance built in to the drone so crashes (especially with newer pilots) are inevitable.
I sold that unit not too long after having a good time with it in Mexico and remained drone-less until the spring of 2021 as some of the wineries that I'd been partnering with had asked about drone footage so it seemed a good time to think about getting another. After exhaustive research I'd narrowed the field down to a few solid contenders (DJI Mavic Pro 2, Autel EVO 2 PRO, and DJI Mavic Air 2) and after being honest with myself about how much I'd really use the thing (vs. the cost) I settled on the Mavic Air 2. It's got a larger 1/2" sensor, larger battery, newer remote control, and has basic obstacle avoidance built in. It's pretty easy to fly and fairly affordable these days with refurbished "fly more" units (the ones with more batteries which you definitely want) hovering around $800.
It's maiden voyage was our Central Coast California trip in April of 2021 and I got some cool footage in the area. I definitely had to learn about editing video footage (that was new to me) and have recently begun using the built in DJI app for editing the footage because while it's time consuming to upload the video from the drone to your phone (which you use as the viewing screen to control the UAV) it's very intuitive to edit and comes out great. Recently I've begun doing some more real-estate photo/video work and it excels in that application allowing me to get shots I'd never be able to get with just a camera (well without the usage of a helicopter of jetpack).
Having a drone has definitely opened up a whole new world of options for me and it's exciting to learn a new skillset
