Need Help! ABSOLUTE NEWBIE- Mavic Pro for first drone?

[Vindibona1]

I am an absolute newbie to drones. Never flown one and don't know anyone who has one. I am fascinated by flight and know how to fly a single engine plane and have knowledge of how helicopters work. But I know drones are different than both. I've never held a controller in my hands, even for video games. But I am a semi-retired commercial photographer who is semi-retired because I've reached the "been there-done that" stage in my life and need a new challenge. Not sure if or how to take aerial photography/video into a money making venture. So I'm not sure exactly how to get my feet wet seriously without wasting money or crashing my investment into the ground within the first 15 minutes. However... I don't like buying things twice because I was too cheap the first time around.

I've done some preliminary research and a couple options have come up. 1) Go cheap for now and buy something like a Mintoo Fairy 174 for $200. 2) Go a little deeper and get a Parrot Beebop 2. 3) Go big with a Mavic Pro bundle. $1000.

The Mavic Pro looks interesting because there appear to be deals on bundles with FPV and quad charger SD cards, backpack etc for around $1000 which look interesting, similar to the price of the Mavic Air Fly more packages. Of course batteries would add a bit more expense. What attracts me to the Mavic Pro over the Air is the range and small additional flight time per battery. I'm not sure of anything at this point. It all could be a bust. I know the Air has better camera potential, but it's a trade-off. And I think my video processing at home would limit my ability to make use of the camera potential in the Air, if I'm going in that dirction the Pro would be the better choice between the two.

But the over-riding questions is may lack of flying experience. Am I better off to start with something like the Fairy to minimize possible/potential loss due to inexperience- or just jump in for $1000 with the Pro (or Air if there are over-riding factors I'm not aware of?

Any other drones or deals I should be looking at?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

[packnrat]

I am an absolute newbie to drones. Never flown one and don't know anyone who has one. I am fascinated by flight and know how to fly a single engine plane and have knowledge of how helicopters work. But I know drones are different than both. I've never held a controller in my hands, even for video games. But I am a semi-retired commercial photographer who is semi-retired because I've reached the "been there-done that" stage in my life and need a new challenge. Not sure if or how to take aerial photography/video into a money making venture. So I'm not sure exactly how to get my feet wet seriously without wasting money or crashing my investment into the ground within the first 15 minutes. However... I don't like buying things twice because I was too cheap the first time around.

I've done some preliminary research and a couple options have come up. 1) Go cheap for now and buy something like a Mintoo Fairy 174 for $200. 2) Go a little deeper and get a Parrot Beebop 2. 3) Go big with a Mavic Pro bundle. $1000.

The Mavic Pro looks interesting because there appear to be deals on bundles with FPV and quad charger SD cards, backpack etc for around $1000 which look interesting, similar to the price of the Mavic Air Fly more packages. Of course batteries would add a bit more expense. What attracts me to the Mavic Pro over the Air is the range and small additional flight time per battery. I'm not sure of anything at this point. It all could be a bust. I know the Air has better camera potential, but it's a trade-off. And I think my video processing at home would limit my ability to make use of the camera potential in the Air, if I'm going in that dirction the Pro would be the better choice between the two.

But the over-riding questions is may lack of flying experience. Am I better off to start with something like the Fairy to minimize possible/potential loss due to inexperience- or just jump in for $1000 with the Pro (or Air if there are over-riding factors I'm not aware of?

Any other drones or deals I should be looking at?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

[packnrat]

i jumped in with both feet for a mavic pro platinum.
good and bad, the weather around here has been wet of late so flying time has been very little. in northern ca we need the rain. and snow pack.
but i love this little thing. i do not fly it, only tell it where to go. the putter does the flying. it will defiantly fly out of my vision way to easy. flight place for now is a old quarry, so hills (three sides) and lots of brush and trees around. but i do have a good open football field sized area to play in for now.
need more flight time. but we need the snow for drinking water this summer.
at least for now i can "play" with the settings a bit.

 

[Vindibona1]

i jumped in with both feet for a mavic pro platinum.
good and bad, the weather around here has been wet of late so flying time has been very little. in northern ca we need the rain. and snow pack.
but i love this little thing. i do not fly it, only tell it where to go. the putter does the flying. it will defiantly fly out of my vision way to easy. flight place for now is a old quarry, so hills (three sides) and lots of brush and trees around. but i do have a good open football field sized area to play in for now.
need more flight time. but we need the snow for drinking water this summer.
at least for now i can "play" with the settings a bit.

I guess if you can afford to live in Northern CA you can afford a lot of things if you're not totally house poor. I'd love to get a Mavic Platinum, but I don't yet even know how I'd use a drone or how often I'd fly it- or where I could do it legally. So spending $1000+ on my first drone isn't practical even if there might be some logic to buying something once rather than twice. But there are numerous horror stories about newbies losing or breaking their drones on the first or second flight.

 

[packnrat]

I don’t know about “affording to live in ca”?
Been trapped here all my life. ( age 59) And I want out.
But I do like my “toys”. I have too many and the cc bills to prove it.

but as a way of just doing things I cry once. Not many times. So I can get the “better” up front. as long as I can keep from destroying it I can use it for years.. decades?

 

[Jkosmo]

I would recommend getting a cheap quadcopter and learning how to fly it first. fly it, crash it, enjoy it and then go get the mavic and you'll actually know how to control it and you'll appreciate what it can do for you.another poster said he doesn't fly the mavic he just tells her where to go is a shame because you're really missing out on a lot of the fun in this hobby.

 

[Nicolenicole]

I'd love to get a Mavic Platinum as well, but the price is a bit pricey for a drone beginner, so I will just wait and see.

 

[Seekingsummits]

I also got a Mavic Pro as my first real drone. I had a small sub $80 learner and that does help to learn how to do actual rolled turns and LOS flying etc. The mavic almost flies itself. So far Ive only had the guts to fly 1 mi away in terms of distance but it did that greatly. I was even on a recent dive trip to dive with Great White sharks for 3 days and used the mavic to fly about 1/4mi to get some elephant seal and sea lion footage. Great drone. Always keep the firmware up to date and set your max altitude at 400ft and its a champ. You can still learn the fundamentals of flying with it but you do have to give it a lot more room for stopping and turning that you would a faster quad. A its not designed for those types of maneuvers and B. that gumball is pretty delicate so you dont want to jar that thing with hard stops and turns really. I bought mine used on ebay and then bought a couple extra new batteries. For me it was the way to go and was 1/2 the price of buying new. Now Im considering the Hasselblad version of Mavic Pro 2