I recently sold my DJI Inspire 1 to replace it with the DJI Mavic Pro.  The main driver of this insanely difficult decision?  A surf trip I have coming up this summer.  There was just no way I could possibly bring the Inspire 1 with me.  The Inspire is a work of mechanical art for sure, but it is not good for traveling.  

These pictures are from my first two flights with the Mavic and they turned out really well considering I did not even try to fly during the best sunlight.  The first group of photos I just flew out from my Lanai.  The wind was pretty strong and I got lots of messages warning me about the wind.  This got really annoying and hopefully I can turn it off.  This little beast simply will not be able to match the wind performance of the Inspire 1 - I expected this.  I knew the camera was not as good as the basic X3 of the Inspire 1 but the pictures turned out great.  They are plenty enough for basic real estate and aerial photography around the water. 

After my initial flights with this, I have to say it is awesome.  It is super portable and quick to setup.  It also stays in the air for a long time and is super quiet.  As a surfer, there are often Mavic's buzzing around the line up and I can say they are significantly quieter than anything else I have ever been around.  I would highly recommend this drone to just about anyone.  

This is an affordable, all in one option for an indoor / backyard FPV drone.  It comes with a screen, a controller with several functions, and a drone with a built in HD camera that transmits back to the screen.

I love flying fpv, so I tested it out inside and outside in my backyard.  The range and signal was fine for my tiny yard, and I expect it would be fun in a small park setting too.  The video screen seems bright enough, although I was in the shade.   The E40 flies like many of the other indoor, whoop style drones.  It has 3 flight modes, and you probably want to have it in the most aggressive mode if you are going to be flying it outside.  Also, I want to remove the prop guards because they look awful, but I will leave them on for testing.

The top left shoulder button on the remote control takes a picture with a quick press and starts video with a long press.  The next part of the review will be more in depth.  If you want to buy this ~$40usd indoor fpv drone, you can click the following link:  Eachine E40.  

I will do a more detailed post soon that will test out the HD camera capabilities in a following post. 

Reach out to local musicians and ask them if they have any music videos planned.  These are more vanity projects than anything else but they can offer a substantial amount of word of mouth advertising and they are really fun.  My favorite shoot of all time was for a Texas rapper and his crew out on a dirt road on the outskirts of Austin. I did some shots where I followed some of their rides coming down dirt roads with my DJI s800. I kept watching for this footage to show up in the music videos but I never saw it. I had so much fun hanging out with these guys I told them no charge. The main guy said “no, everyone gets paid” and gave me $200 cash for the shoot.  Their on screen gangster personas did not match how friendly and entrepreneurial these guys were.  

I did another shoot for a girl singer and I loved the footage I got, but this was before I really did a good job of protecting my footage.  You will have to watch the video below (around 1:15) to see my favorite shot of flying over downtown Austin.  This shoot was the only time I ever came close to crashing my beloved S800.  If you are ever flying in an urban setting on a windy day, watch out for crazy wind currents where buildings are close together!  I was flying in this alley and all of a sudden the wind just pulled the drone straight at the wall.  I have no idea how I avoided crashing it but I did and I immediately brought it down and told them no more alley shots!

I have a friend here on Maui who did highest of high end video stuff and he would do music videos because they were so fun but never paid well.  I had the same experience, I never made much money but they were fun and I liked working on them.  Another side bonus is you do not have to do any editing. ​