Beginner wanting to buy a drone for the first time and needs advice

De Villiers · Jul 25, 2017

We own a farm and are wanting to start filming our wildlife. We are struggeling to decide on which drone to buy - the phantom 4 or the mavic pro?
We will use the drone to take pictures of them to market them and use it as a tool to see if everything is ok on the farm. Any advice ?

microlinux · Jul 25, 2017

What's more important to you, camera quality or portability?

De Villiers · Jul 25, 2017

The quality of the camera

microlinux · Jul 25, 2017

P4 would be my choice if camera quality is most important.

DaveP4Pilot · Jul 25, 2017

Agree, the P4 Pro would be the choice for best camera.

Javier Ruiz O · Jul 25, 2017

I would also recommend the Phantom 4 pro if image quality is a must, but take into consideration that wildlife, or cattle, or other animals (nesting or not) can be scared of the noise of propellers. If you do not want to disturb the animals, then Mavic has lesser noise footprint

Meta4 · Jul 25, 2017

De Villiers said:
We own a farm and are wanting to start filming our wildlife. We are struggeling to decide on which drone to buy - the phantom 4 or the mavic pro?
We will use the drone to take pictures of them to market them and use it as a tool to see if everything is ok on the farm. Any advice ?

Neither would be particularly good for photographing wildlife (unless you are talking about things the size of elephants ... but maybe you are?).
Both have very wide angle lenses which means you would have to be very close to get good images of most individual animals.
Close - like only a few feet away.
Wildlife photography is usually done with telephoto lenses.
You could possibly get some good group or herd shots with background scenery but the noise of the Phantom at close quarters would scare away most wildlife and probably your farm animals too.
The Mavic is a little quieter but you still have the issue of the wideangle lens.
Here's an example to give you an idea of how close you can get and how big the animals look in the image: Zebra Herd Follow Grasslands Aerial, 4K, 35s, 10of14, Stock Video Sale Drone Discoveries llc water

ajyak · Jul 25, 2017

I use deer cams instead because once the leaves come on, you'll have a hard time seeing what's down there, and they'll be too tiny in the pic to really be of use, if you do catch an opening.