Ultimate Drone Buying Guide for Total Beginners 2024

holy cow so many drones out there do you need a beginner drone how much do I need to spend what's the price difference really which drone works for me if you can't afford Coke drones are almost as fun and they last a lot longer in front of me I have all these drones that I own and I operate so let me save you a lot of hassle number one advice the Drone Community has a lot of astronomers not a lot of astronauts you have to look at somebody's work to make sure they don't suck before you take advice from them there are tons of people online and in forums who give the world's worst advice and they've flown a drone twice but this is always the most confident guy in The Forum I do this for a living for work and everything you're seeing is footage that I have filmed but I also deal with beginners on a regular basis I mean I've been teaching this stuff to people since I was fat and now I make these videos to promote my only fans so you're not going to get the super snoody advice that oh you have to spend at least 2500 or else it's not even worth it two really big bottom lines going into this the first there is no beginner drone it's not like you start out with the little ones and then you earn your way up to the bigger ones they have more complicated buttons they're all super easy to fly any of these could be a beginner drone even this giant ter tctl up here flies and behaves nearly identical to this teeny tiny little guy over here on the right bad news though there is a threshold for Quality anything under $250 is going to be a rinky piece of crap plastic toy you fly at once you show your wife she doesn't really care goes back to her phone why is she texting the pool guy again you crash into a tree and then just put in the closet and never fly the thing ever again I know they've got a bajillion good reviews on Amazon most of those are fake they have super subjective language like ooh super clear HD resolution blah blah blah but you look at the specs and that's like HD from 200 five on the other toy extreme if you got really excited because you saw a video of some guy do a front flip into a volcano or like dive off a cliff or something that's an fpv drone that means first person view if that's what you want just Google DJI Avada and that's like kind of a safe hybrid that you can get where it's like not too crazy but also you can go really fast way more hectic way more chaos a lot faster you'll crash a lot but that's what those drones are built for today we're talking about regular photo and video drones you connect these to an app on your phone plugged into a remote they have stabilized cameras that take photos and videos and save that to a memory card that is their one focus and that's what I have sitting in front of me on the table these drones increase in price and quality from left to right and the biggest reason for the price difference in these drones is photo and video quality we have the DJI Mini 4 Pro this is the most current version of The Minis and then the older models the mini3 pro and the Mini 3 and then the little mini 2 back here as well DJI air3 that one has two cameras on the front of it that's a big deal DJI mavic 3 Pro this is my favorite right here a watered down version of that one the mavic 3 Classic this one I should move over because it's in the middle tier this is an autel EVO light plus this is the at 2020 mic terrible positioning I've barely gotten this thing to fly at all ignore this one it's an Abomination I don't I don't want to talk about it then I've got this big robot thing up here this is the DJI Inspire 2 honestly it's for like shooting Network and broadcast stuff but I've got it up here just for fun just to show you what a really big expensive drone looks like because I have all of these these I want to paint a really fast picture for you to give you an idea of the kind of quality you can get for each of these price points while you're watching this if you can't see a huge difference between each of these cameras then you are in a very good spot it doesn't mean you're not an expert it means that buying a drone is going to be way easier for you some people need this for work or for clients so they need those extreme details to be perfect and I've sold mini3 Pro footage for 600 bucks because I had footage of an event so it's not like anybody's going to turn their nose up to the footage otherwise if you think all of this just looks like good 4K footage then you're going to have a ton of fun no matter which one of these you pick remember I have a background in video production and Camera operating I'm using a variety of angles and Framing and different lighting conditions to try and get good shots and then any that aren't completely there I'm changing the color a little bit in the editor to fix any problems there's two different models of the mavic 3 and then the bigger model has three lenses on it so I'm also here some examples of the long telephoto lenses that comes with it the Inspire is in here just for fun the really big camera honestly it's for like filming movies and like broadcast stuff I put it in here to show you what an expensive camera looks like all of my drones here are DJI drones except for these guys over here that is because DJI is Market dominant they're the first to come out with new features and new technology almost everybody is using a DJI drone they're the best bang for your buck by a long shot they made this whole drone thing a reality to begin with as well second place and their only sort of competitor is altel the problem is uh altel is either hit or miss and that's why I don't push them a ton you have something like this Evo light plus is phenomenal I love this drone or you have something like this that is like kind of Half Baked and has just a lot of weird issues um I don't want to talk about this so that isn't to say there aren't other legitimate Brands it's just that these are by far leading the race some of them have last year's technology but they sell a really good feature like tracking that's what skyio does and later on I will address where they sit in the range of quality if you're looking at one of those all of these drones that I'm talking about are smarter drones they have Smart features they connect to satellites so they know where they are GPS and then an app on your phone they can fly 5 miles away they'll still have a connection when you turn them on they just hover they have sensors to not crash into things they warn you if anything is wrong or the battery is low they won't take off if it's somewhere super illegal like an airport they'll record the location at takeoff and fly back to you before the battery runs out automatically or if there's an issue like the phone or the controller died they will remember where they were and then just fly home after like a minute without getting a signal from you all of these drones have gimb stabilized footage so even on the smallest one flying over a cliff and tons of wind it doesn't even cause a hiccup it's just nuts that we have this kind of technology in 2024 why don't I don't know why people don't care about it as much the good news there's no one brand that is charging like three times as much for the same amount of drone if you're paying $800 for a drone you'll get about $800 worth of drone and if you can afford at least $250 or $300 you have an entire career path you can follow with these drones and a massive leap in capabilities and functions this footage and these photos I'm I'm showing you right now are done on a $250 drone the mini 2 it's now called the mini 4K so it's even better than what I'm showing you right now it is incredible that you can get this kind of quality when I paid $1,300 just a few years ago in 2017 and it was a much much lower quality but people were still paying for it so yeah drone technology is moving at lightning speed I mean 2024 what a freaking time to get into drones every year I think it's going to be the last year where something insane comes out and it just keeps happening if you refuse to spend that money stop watching this video and go buy a holly Stone drone off of Amazon that's as much fun as you're going to have with a really cool toy but it's not like a flying computer the way these other drones are one cool thing is that buying used drones is actually a thing I've bought used drones before and it's been fine it's very easy to see when something is wrong with your drone the app will tell you the Drone will tell you you'll notice right away it's not like there aren't a million status checks you would be able to tell if this thing was about to set on fire and fall out this guy so buying a used drone is a totally okay thing to do but don't be that guy who sitting around on forums going hey I want to buy a drone should I wait for next year's model or the model after that you're going to be that guy forever stop annoying everybody and just get a drone if you made a huge mistake just sell it later and then buy this year's model and then by that point you will know what you want better even getting a used one off Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist is an okay thing to do and if you can't afford $300 get a job I don't know what to tell you I'm not your dad sell some Bionicles the cheapest drones up here don't have Collision sensors on the bottom and that's the mini 2 the most standard one you you can buy the cheapest and the Mini 3 the Mini 3 Pro the Mini 4 Pro everything up has anti Bon software on it to stop you from crashing into buildings from the front and back or wherever I've got a buddy who's crashed three of these things and now four as of last year when I bullied him in a video so if you're an orphan drone up for adoption avoid this man at all costs Collision sensors are helpful are important but if you've played video games your whole life you probably won't need them I barely ever need them and I'm not so clumsy that I will just fly straight into the side of a building and what's funny is that every one of these drones has a strength and a weakness like the Inspire 2 7,000 bucks films in cinema formats but it's so annoying you will never want to take it outside to film every guy within a mile in cargo pants and flipflops is going to come running to ask you how high does it go how far does it go you can kill a bird you can kill a small child covering up for both of those gets exhausting I don't think it's realistic for anybody to use this thing but when you're getting $1,000 a shoot you manage to find the motivation somewhere inside they say the best camera is the one you have with you and that is the case with these smaller drones they are so much fun to use they're so discreet it doesn't draw a crowd you look like you're just somebody making YouTube videos they can go in your pocket the experience is just way better you look forward to using this thing the trade-off is supposed to be quality but they've managed to get to a point where the quality is really good on like the Mini 4 Pro I mean it doesn't have as big a sensor but from the feedback that I've gotten it's okay if you have a little one as long as like if you use it the right way if you you've never been around a drone at all it's a lot louder than you think and it's pretty scary the first time you take off if you can if I can take off and you're still listening to me talk while I'm doing this then relatively speaking compared to other drones which are like way louder this is doing a really good job so I'm I mean this thing's closer to the mic than I am and if you can still hear what I'm saying it's I just noticed that it's quieter so I'm also going to do the mavic 3 and it's going to be I have to yell a little bit more it's not the end of the world I have to project a lot more I'm going to do the Inspire so you have an idea can't hear anything I'm saying I enjoy the sound from the mini3 a lot more than the other drones I teach a course on drone cinematography and editing I've said it a million times somebody up here using the smallest drone on this table will blow somebody out the water using the biggest most expensive one if this person is just flying in Auto and shooting Earth and doesn't know photography principles the angles the conditions the settings it makes a big difference back to the guy flipping into a volcano you've all seen that those videos are shot on a GoPro so it's not like it needs to be the most expensive camera in the world it's just the content matters more and knowing what to do with the camera just to get to the point with all of these the best drone out right now is the mavic 3 it's really just uncontested it's the king of drones if you can afford one of these you basically have an easy bake oven for getting phenomenal like broadcast quality footage whether you get the super mega version with three cameras and a t Rex head on the front or you get the water down cheaper one that only has the one main camera the most important thing on the Drone is that wide camera and both of them have it so either way you will get phenomenal footage that price to be able to get this quality to me is just mindblowing when it used to take so much more than a guy in a helicopter I know what you're thinking can I just go film everything around me and then sell that footage online because the quality is so good you still have to know what you're doing you still have to know what angles and conditions and settings and how to set this up you can't just point shoot although out of all of these it will by far get you the closest but for 80% of the situations I would have taken the giant expensive drone on the mavic 3 can handle it so to me the convenience of getting basically that quality but in a foldable drone that can fit in your Ninja Turtles lunchbox is just invaluable the mavic 3 telephoto lens sounds freaking really cool but it kind of goes unused other than when I Spy on my enemies do you work in utility and you need to climb Towers then it's great do you need to spot the invading Huns at the border sure I don't need it much though the 3x lens though is like the perfect length to push in and it gives you a ton to work with just at that distance on the mavic 3 though you're always going to compare it to the really good 5.1k wide camera that 3x is a lower quality camera and you're going to feel that the air 3 however has two cameras of equal quality and I found myself using that 3x telephoto constantly I thought I thought it was going to be a party trick but I really like this lens and use it a ton now with the mavic 3 the footage is also very data Rich so if you want a color grade which is important to me because if I made any mistakes you have a lot of editing room you can adjust the color much easier and if you want your footage to have thousands of shares online color grading is something that everybody does so what is happening in this drone to make the picture so much better the number one most important way to improve image quality is to have a bigger sensor this is also the reason people pay more for more expensive drones this is the weight class that the Drone is in so when you're comparing drones quality-wise this is kind of the bottom line right now everything right here is what I consider professional quality meaning it's good enough that you can sell this footage any of these qualify for making a town reel to make money with if you hear me talking about that you can get good footage with any of these drones up here but a mini 2 is never going to beat a mavic 3 if they are filming the same thing with the same settings the biggest difference in a larger sensor is dynamic range that's being able to see bright brights and Dark Shadows at the same time so if you decided to splurge and just go buy an expensive drone with a bigger sensor this is the first thing you would notice filming a sunset would have way more visible clouds and shadows underneath waves on the beach at the same time so lighting extremes you can see now why sometimes professionals need to get this kind of footage if you're just filming your kids at the beach maybe you can't get the shot whatever but if you're being paid to do it you need to be able to pull that off the second biggest thing you would notice is low light footage if you want to film after Sunset you can't use a drone with a one over 2.3 in sensor one of those old ones it has to be bigger than that it's okay though because most people don't need to do this and good news in photography world this doesn't even matter you can still do long exposure photos with an old drone and they will be phenomenal these gimbals are so good they can hold completely still for a full second and just soak in light any of the drones in the past 5 years can pretty much do this photography technology is light years ahead of video you have such a good time shopping for a drone every drone here shoots raw format and that's really the only thing you need you notice in Old cameras the footage looks like it's wayfer thin it's like there's this film over the footage it kind of makes it all one color a bigger sensor means a bigger range of colors deep reddish gold gray Blues Rich Browns instead of just red yellow white where does resolution come into play you notice I haven't brought this up it almost doesn't matter since all of these drones can give you at least 4K footage we're at a point now where it doesn't matter if the Drone gives you 6K or 4K I would take the one with the bigger sensor either way this is a sales point because the average Shopper loves the sound of 6K and 8K that's why they hype it up Lord of the Rings wasn't filmed in 8k and we're still watching it if it's going on social media it's going to get dumbed down so much anyways it won't be half the quality of that so don't stress same thing with frames per second 60 or 120 frames per second it doesn't matter the Cinematic look is 24 frames a second and all of them do that at a minimum higher frame rates on other cameras are for slow motion footage I never need to slow my footage down Drone footage is so far away it's already slow the only thing I ever need to do is speed it up if you are filming strictly for social media I will make an exception there because 30 or 60 frames per second just looks great on a cell phone screen Tik Tok Instagram reals whatever it just looks a lot crisper and clearer I'm fine shooting 24m frames a second so I don't need it but I do notice that it catches my eye when there's a 60 frames per second video of Drone footage playing people online love obsessing over specs when a new drone is coming out and most of them don't even matter flight time does it do 25 minutes I'm happy I don't need more I don't know who out there needs to fly for 40 minutes straight I never need to go through an entire battery on one shoot I have a second battery that's charging in the car while I'm using the first one and I get everything I need in like half of that somebody online decided to start 9 million arguments about range and connection why we need to be able to fly 10 km who what are you planning if you need to fly 6 miles away what what prison are you smuggling kitkats and Sudoku into that you need to be able to go 6 M straight I never need to go that far and all of them have been able to go as far as I need for a long time active track and follow me mode are like really cool funsy features I just never need them people usually try those once and then just don't use it again if you're like a biker or a surfer I can understand that being a really cool feature I'm morbidly inactive though I'm never going to need it all of these drones do it except for the smallest ones the mini 2 and Mini 3 those don't have any follow me modes I will say that it's pretty intelligent it works really well I'm doing my best here to try and shake this thing and it's it's some for I don't know why usually I can but today it was I wasn't feeling great that day it's helpful but it's not perfect so you can still hit telephone wires you can still hit teeny tiny branches on trees a huge reason that this is a great time time to get into this stuff once again I'm talking about my one true love the smart remote that is now so much more affordable this used to be like 800 bucks to get one of these things and it didn't work as well the world's biggest boost in quality of life for your a drone I don't know anybody who regrets getting one of these things I promise you I'm sick of talking about these things because I've talked about them so much if you don't pay for the version that has the smart remote and you save money you have to use your phone and a remote that plugs into it it's just fin angling this phone in this stupid cradle gets so aggravating once a month you could suck it up but when you fly all the time it gets really aggravating removing that third variable which is your phone is really helpful you won't get calls or text you don't have to worry about phone battery it's so simple turn on the Drone turn on the controller Fly Away make a million dollars your dandruff is cured timesaver stress saver I fly a ton already for work and as a tester and this puts so much fun back into flying that I will make time to pull over if I see a sunset now because of how quickly I can take off if it were any more human- shaped I would be in a lied relationship with this thing you need to be a big kid and make a decision are you doing this for fun you are going to have the time of your life with a used mini3 Pro or a mini3 are you doing this for work you want to make money or you're just rich and you want all the cool features you need to be looking at a more serious drone the air 3 which is great all around or if you can afford it the mavic 3 you could also get away with the mini4 pro actually it's a great drone the mini4 pro is the updated model so the sensor is the same size but because this is the current Hardware it has a little bit better load light and better exposure balancing just overall a slightly better picture just like the air 3 and the mavic 3 the Mini 4 Pro does have night mode though which gives it a big Advantage when you're filming at night time it just makes things easier better obstacle avoidance cool funsy features the difference isn't so massive though that it's like the end of the world if we're just talking about the very nice drones the difference is that the Mini 4 pro has a smaller sensor it won't be as good in low light same thing with the air 3 and both of them shoot 4K Max the mavic 3 does 5.1k Max that's handy if you're edting and you want to crop in on the footage Su otherwise it's not a big deal you wouldn't notice the Mini 4 Pro is small enough that you wouldn't notice it's with you the air3 and the mavic 3 are big enough that they would be annoying if you have to carry it around with you in a backpack or on a hike 150 extra with any of these and you get the Smart Remote because they're all compatible any of these take phenomenal photos they're more than enough and you can do a hyperlapse with all three of them it won't look this good because I have some editing tricks for this but still all three of them have very good obstacle avoidance most people are okay though if you've played video games you'll be fine I haven't even mentioned yet but with the minis one really cool feature is that the camera will turn sideways so you can film full 4K vertically which is great if you're a content creator because this saves so much time if your stuff is going on Instagram or Tik Tok or something that's a really cool feature to have if you're buying a first drone for a kid a mini 4K if you're buying it for a stepchild you don't really like a used Mini 2 off of Craigslist I have shown you plenty of footage from the mini 2 and the Mini 3 you see what kind of quality you can do so if you want to step down price-wise and get one of those don't worry about it that's totally fine don't let somebody tell you you have to be an absolute expert at a hobby in order to enjoy it it's a hobby if you're getting plenty out of a mini 2 or mini3 that's all you need and just enjoy the heck out of that thing and learn as much as you can with it if your bottom line is quality and you need this to be the best and you have paying clients just get the mavic 3 you are going to love it in videography World once every 7 years you get a product that performs so well it feels like you're cheating trust me professionals love this thing I have sold footage multiple times to n works and almost Disney but they changed their mind last second and that is using drones that were nowhere near as capable as what this thing can do I'm not talking about making money here though I have other videos for that if your bottom line is the experience you'll have and getting ready to do pro stuff get a mini4 pro the mini3 is really for someone who's like just get me a drone that does a great job I'm not going to think too hard about it the mini4 pro is for a person who's been researching this a billion times comparing who really wants a drone that can do a lot and they won't outgrow it for a long time because of those extra Pro features that that you can learn and experiment with the air3 is a really cool halfway point between cameras but honestly just get the mavic 3 classic if you're torn because you can't tole the quality of that wide camera the air3 is really great but you're accepting that the priority is the price and having a second 3x telephoto lens for cool angles and stuff though it wouldn't be my choice I can respect it it's a good argument either way so if you do pay for one of these drones how much can you do with it no matter what nothing beats going somewhere filming it from a newer perspective and the foot footage coming out better than the feeling of what it was like when you were there that's a common frustration with cell phones you take a picture and it doesn't match the feeling something about a larger sensor just looks way more like you're there way more realistic and less like a cell phone filmed it with these drones or anything larger it qualifies you for professional work you can sell this footage but you can't just turn it on and film you have to know what you're going to film conditions are a big deal in the cinematography section of the course you always hear me complain about making sure you don't just pick a day you try and get a day with a lot of visibility this kind of drone will show a dramatic difference in the environment during a sunset or when it's morning time you also have enough data in the footage that you have room to work with when you're color grading so you can fix errors and make it look a lot nicer that's a lot of work and it takes um some knowing what to look for so for a beginner you would probably just shoot a normal profile but most of my footage is using normal profile to show that off and it still looks really really good when you hear me talk about not outgrowing your drone for a long time that means it's going to take a long enough time to learn so much about cinematography editing lighting stuff like that that your drone is what is holding you back for a beginner it's great even if you were filming just with default normal settings and then when you're good enough to learn how to shoot flatter and color grade your footage you will get phenomenal stuff with this color grading will take it a long way but that's for later from my perspective being able to use the features as marketing points and if you win one extra job just because of the difference in quality you're pretty much already there towards paying off the difference and that makes it an obvious choice I have a course on all of this stuff I'll link in the description otherwise I don't know what else to tell you also get a few shots in mind before you take off because a lot of people get one fly it straight in the air and then don't have anything in mind so their footage is bad and they give up you have to have a plan before you take off once you look at your footage afterwards and you get that feeling of like everything came out better than what you were planning in your head that is a very addictive feeling and you'll want to go back for that again and again and that is how it starts [Music]

Channel: QuickAssTutorials

Views: 232,363

Keywords: best drones for beginners, best drone, dji mavic 3, best dji drone, ultimate drone buying guide, best beginner drone, best budget drone, best beginner drones, dji mini 3, dji air 3, drone video, drones side by side, dji mini 4 pro, best drones 2024, drone tutorials, best drone 2024, drone reviews, best cheap drone, cheapest pro drone, ultimate drone buying guide for total beginnners, 2024, ultimate drone guide 2024, total beginner drone

Id: L73w5N0SLbw

Length: 22min 59sec (1379 seconds)

Published: Mon May 13 2024