so ive been running an Inspire 2 with the X7 for about three years now and honestly its been solid. done a bunch of commercial spots, some TV stuff, nothing massive but consistent work. now i've got a feature film inquiry coming in and the DP specifically asked if we could run the X9 air because they want to shoot 8K for some overhead establishing shots and want to match the look of their ALEXA package as close as possible.

thing is i dont own the X9 yet and would have to rent or buy before the job even confirms. the X9 mount is different obviously, the weight balance on the Inspire 2 shifts noticeably, and im not 100% sure my current operators are comfortable with it yet. also heard there were some early firmware issues with the X9 air that caused gimbal drift at higher ISOs but not sure if that was ever patched out properly.

anyone actually used the X9 air on a long form film shoot? talking like 3-4 week production, not just a day here and there. curious how the color pipeline held up when they tried to match in post too because thats always the part clients dont think about until editing starts.

ran the X9 on a Netflix doc last year, three weeks in Iceland so yeah pretty extended use. the gimbal drift thing you mentioned was real but the firmware update from late sorted most of it out. we still saw occasional micro jitters in extreme cold but honestly that might have been operator related too. the color match to ALEXA is... close. your colorist will have to do some work, it's not a 1:1 thing no matter what the spec sheet implies, but for establishing shots that are cut together with ground cam footage it holds up fine. clients rarely notice unless they're really scrutinizing. the bigger thing for us was the vibration isolation at certain altitudes, had some jello issues early on that we traced back to prop balance rather than the gimbal itself. just make sure your props are dialed in before you even think about color matching conversations.

not sure about the X9 specifically but i'd be careful about committing to a rental cost before the job confirms, seen people get burned on that more than once. maybe see if you can negotiate the lens rental into the quote so it's conditional. also the X7 at 6K CinemaDNG is genuinely underrated for a lot of cinema work, some DPs just ask for 8K because they think they should rather than because the deliverable actually needs it.