Total Newbie thinking of buying a drone for fun videos, etc. Advice needed!

[SeaNile]

Glad I found this forum. I'm considering getting a drone for fun aerial videos, of the boat, house and generally just playing around with it and taking various videos. I have no RC experience but saw a few videos of boats shot with a DJI Phantom Vision 2 and love the idea of shooting videos from this vantage point.

I don't want to assemble a kit or make a wish list of parts and put together a drone with camera. Guess what I am asking is there a turn key out of the box drone that would work for me? Having a built in camera would be OK but I am not against getting a GoPro as I would use it as a stand alone video camera for other activities, like on my boat.

Any feedback or advice would be great. I use a MacBook Pro and an iPhone 5s if that makes a difference at all.

Lastly, as this could be a hobby that flames out quickly I do not want to spend more than $1,000. I'm even OK going used via classifieds, members looking to upgrade or even a craigslist find.

Thanks for all of the help.

JK

 

[jbrumberg]

JK- I see a lot of enthusiasm from a lot of individuals such as yourself here and at other sites. Multicopters are really not as easy to fly as those videos make them appear; even those with all the fancy flight controllers that essentially do the flying for the owner/operator. Sooner or later either due to improper O/O programming input of the flight controller or FCB set up, signal interference, flight controller failure the O/O will have to manually control his aircraft. If the O/O has no clue how to manually fly his aircraft it is bye bye aircraft which can put the safety of the aircraft, owner/operator, the general public, other living things and property at risk. It is really easy to become disoriented flying these things, especially at distance. It might be advisable and cheaper as a first step to purchase a cheaper "trainer quad" to learn the basics of transmitter operation and flight orientation practice and have some fun practicing flying. This could save you a lot of money in the long run because anyone who flies these contraptions also crashes them and cheaper quads are easier on the pocketbook for part replacement and quad rebuilding and/or replacement. They are also really fun to fly and the skill sets learned are directly transferable to bigger, better aircraft such as the DJI Phantom Vision 2.

This can become a very expensive hobby. It is very addictive.

I am "old school" on this. I started out flying helis, and learned multi-rotors on a 3 axis stabilized quad which still costs ~$30 USD and I still fly the 4 I have. I'll mention two: SYMA X1 and Blade Nano QX. There are many others as well.

Just my $.02 USD.

Whatever you do good luck, have fun, and most importantly fly responsibly.

Jay

 

[SeaNile]

Definitely good advice! I will absolutely take my time learning about these crafts, especially the obvious part of safe flying. What I do want to avoid is buying a very entry level machine and in a few weeks time spending more $$ to upgrade to something that suits my needs better.

Think a DJI would fit my needs, just trying to decide on a Vision 2 or one that I can mount a go pro.

 

[jbrumberg]

All our RC flying interests are different. I like sport (ACRO) flying and I am slowly moving towards LOS FPV flying. I am currently grounded due to family issues, but I can honestly tell you that when I finally get home again the first thing that I will do is start charging lots of batteries and those lipo's I use for my X1's will be charged up before the lipo's I use on my quad build and I will be banging around flying my mini X1's first. Your posted needs are different than mine. I can get my jollies attaching an #808 16B to my X1's. There are a few ARF, RTF multi rotors that can accommodate a GoPro camera. The Blade 350 QX is one such quad. There are others. There is nothing wrong with learning to fly a "trainer" quad while building your own either. Flying experience helped me better understand my building and building helped me better understand my flying.