DJI - Phantom 4 Pro

It has a rolling shutter too so is not great for photogrammetry. Great for photos and videos.

If you want accurate maps, you need the Mavic 3 enterprise with it's mechanical shutter. For basic mapping for fun, you can go as low as a Mini 3 pro, but the rolling shutter will reduce accuracy and resolution. I work with the Mavic 3 Enterprise with RTK at work, and does incredibly accurate and detailed maps, but really no better than my old personal Phantom 4 Pro I have at home. With RTK and GCP's you can get accuracy within a cm or two. I'm trying trying to get our non-profit to get a Matrice 350 RTK with all the goodies to increase functionality as the Mavic 3E is great for maps, but not much else.

Buy DJI used. They are rock solid - literally fly for years. I still fly a Phantom 4 Pro, and it works great.  The FCC ban is for new models, so the old one's are good for now since they've already received their licenses. 

For mine, it meant that it started acting a little weird during a flight and then it dropped out of the sky. The connectors inside looked loose but if that caused the crash it was caused bumpy the crash I won’t know. I bought a Mini 4 Pro from Costco after that. Their were things I liked better about the P4 Pro, including the manual shutter, but the software on the M4P takes much better low light pictures and the rolling shutter issue doesn’t seem to be much of a problem. But I make maps and large pictures for fun not a business.

Get you an older model, there's no shame in that. I got me a phantom 4 pro to educate a municipality on the benefits of drones and GIS. Just make sure you do the maintenance on it and the batteries. It's more budget "friendly" than an newer drone capable of your needs. Just remember you are also going to need the software to process the imagery. Good luck on your endeavors.

P4 still good for mapping because of the mechanical shutter. I wouldn’t use it for anything other than that though.

Honestly the P4P was a workhorse for so long and iconic i don't know if we'll see the likes of it again. We still use one for general mapping. Nothing complex and she still flies like she used to. You do have to start moving around software restrictions and things like that and batteries are becoming increasingly rare. We'll probably fly her untill we replace it with a mini or m3e We luckily have an old school electrical engineer in our parts, one of those that could fix a matrice with a paperclip and some tape. He's done wonders in keeping the drone flying.

Of all the drones I’ve used the Phantom 4 Pro was always my favorite for this!

I am a serious hobby photographer. I shoot with Nikon cameras on the ground but shoot with a Mavic 3 pro and a Phantom 4 pro. So far the the wide angle on the Mavick 3 Pro is a little better than the single camera on the Phantom 4 Pro. The two zooms, 70 and 166 on the Mavic 3 Pro are barely usable but I have read the Mavic 4 pro zooms are pretty good. I have ordered a Mavic 4 Pro, I have read that there is significant quality step up especially in DR up to 16.5 stops in the Mavic 4 Pro wide angle (28mm). That would be pretty nice since my Nikon D850 and Z9 only get about 14 stops of DR. We'll see, I can hardly wait. Mavic 4 pro Creator is due in next week.

✅ **Mavic 3 series** (Mavic 3, Mavic 3 Cine, Mavic 3 Classic, Mavic 3 Pro) → D-Log & D-Log M ✅ **Air 3** → D-Log M ✅ **Mini 4 Pro** → D-Log M ✅ **Avata 2** → D-Log M ✅ **Inspire 2** (with X5S or X7 camera) → D-Log ✅ **Inspire 3** → D-Log ✅ **Phantom 4 Pro / Pro V2.0** → D-Log ✅ **Phantom 4 RTK** → D-Log ✅ **Matrice 30 series** → D-Log ✅ **Matrice 300 RTK** (with Zenmuse H20N, P1, or L1 payloads) → D-Log ✅ **Matrice 350 RTK** → D-Log ✅ **Zenmuse X7, X5S** cameras → D-Log Thank God for Chatgpt and here you go!

I had this literally happen to me on a big job. I think I had used those non-OEM batteries no more than a handful of times. About ten minutes in, the P4Pro just lost connection and fell out of the sky. Things were pretty melty when I found it. Only OEM from now on.