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.

I have. Phantom 4 Pro. Is that worth getting a new battery for and getting that bird in the air?

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!

✅ **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.

I bought a $30 drone. 3 days later I ordered a P4P in 2018. 7 years later I only upgrade when the work covers the cost and I still walk with decent pay.

A phantom 4 rtk is still top of the line for survey grade mapping. Next step up would be a Mavic 3E but, like you said, its a bit confusing with DJI right now. I still occasionally use a phantom 4 pro at my survey firm alongside pix4d for processing data.

End of life means they are not making the parts anymore or supporting it in any way. It may still work perfectly but once those batteries stop charging or something goes wrong you are on your own and unlikely to find parts except for used parts online. It's also possible that in the future the software will stop working on it. For example, if you are using the Go4 app on your phone and your phone updates, it's likely that Go4 will stop working at some point and then you are out of luck. But, if you can buy a few of them, with spare batteries, and keep the device the software is running on isolated from updates then they are great machines that are still very capable.

I used to do all my photogrammetry work with first a DJI phantom 4 pro, then I modified it with an onboard emlid gnss for on the fly rtk positioning. Then, I bought the DJI phantom 4 rtk. Then I had to buy American drones. The phantom 4 pro still remains the best inexpensive drone for that. The camera has a mechanical shutter as well. It worked well for me. I still have one P4P v2 unopened that is RID compliant and used as a possible backup. Now it is collecting dust.

I have one in the sealed box. This was a backup when I used to fly them for mapping. As someone else mentioned it has a mechanical shutter and it is RID compliant. I must use drones on the Blue list 2.0. It is a great versatile drone that can carry light payloads. I used to fly rtk with mine with the light hack and a multispectral camera. I could launch and retrieve from virtually anywhere even from a kayak for very tough spots to map.

keep the 4 pro, i just bought one off amazon, liked it so much i went to get a 2ed one. nope all sold out :(

The P4 is a good drone and we used one for years. However, for the money, an M3E is a huge upgrade. Better camera, faster camera, longer flight times, etc. Plus the controller software is so nice. If you get to the point where you are doing a lot of flights, and you will, the M3E is an absolute workhorse that yields great results.

you can't reflash the newer ones? I've bought a few used ones years ago and just flashed the firmware. a mavic pro and a could phantom 4s. well one phantom, I only have the one controller so I've yet to put the second one back together. I have all the parts, just haven't needed it since the first one is still going strong.

DJI minis are about the best you'll get. i don't have a mini but I'm still running my mavic pro platinum and a phantom 4. pretty sure the mini outperforms both of those 

Yea, no i was being sarcastic, it is a good point to make. My problem is, I use my mav2p for personal flights while im traveling for work... the small travel bag is kinda a big selling point for me. A lot of time my work truck is loaded down, front to back, bottom to top and I get very little room for personal items. I tried taking a p4 in a hard case with me one time and yea... it was a nightmare.

I fly a Potensic Atom, it's alright, no major complaints. It's far less sophisticated than my phantom 4.

Not true, at least with earlier Phantom series drones. I had a "fly off" while trout fishing in rural Missouri several years ago. It started to rain shortly after I lost it and I had to head out. One week later, I'm back. I use the "find my drone" option and it gives me its "last known position". I follow it for about a 1/2 mile and there she is... directly in the middle of the Niangua river under 4' of water. I don't know how it works on the Avata, but the Phantoms have "last known location", not just "current location".

I use the mini 4 pro. It should be easy to get a used one without a problem at this point. The thing with drones is a lot of people buy them, never use it and sell em. Before I got the mini I used various generations of the phantom starting on gen 1. I even used the first professional inspire model that was a freaking huge monster you could barely fit the case in a normal car. It’s absolute insane how a 250g foldable Mini 4 performs compared to back then. I don’t even start about how easy it is to fly them with all the fail save and automatic functions. 10 years ago you needed actual skill to fly great shots. Today it does it for you. I would recommend the controller with build in screen. It’s easier, it’s faster, it’s a lager screen, it doesn’t bug out and so on. The amount you can save here is not worth it in my opinion.

It absolutely will help. Your friend can probably find pretty good deals on used phantoms or inspires from DJI that will have transateable control characteristics.

Well you stated “entry level” so this way it keeps you budget reasonable. If you can afford a bigger budget and want to gamble that you will be flying your drone regularly in a years time then I would either wait for another couple of weeks and go for the new pro 5 with the RC2 controller or the excellent pro 4. You can use a standard controller with your phone attached for those as well, that would reduce your initial outlay and then upgrade to the RC2 controller at a later date

Fingers crossed that it will be really early September. I just sold my 4 Pro the other day for a pretty good amount on eBay (only lost about £200 on it from what I paid on jt) knowing this was rumoured very soon and was said to have a 1 inch sensor.

Either is fine for the most part if you’re not pixel peeping. The 5 has a larger sensor which would make it better in low light. You would get less noise at higher iso. But if you are in the United states if you want to fly it dawn or dusk (30mins before sunrise and 30s after sunset) you would need to add an RID module and an air collision strobe light. That would put it over 250 grams and you would have to register it. (The rule is weight at takeoff). If you wanted to fly at night you would need to get a waiver from the FAA. So if you’re not shooting in low light the 4 pro would be fine.

dji 4 pro bought it as my first drone and I'm not dissapointed ... but be aware and buy dji refresh it can save you loot of trouble and money