so ive been doing real estate and some event work for about two years now mostly with mavic pro and then upgraded to air 2s which honestly has been fine for what clients were asking for. but im starting to get inquiries for actual cinema stuff, one production company wants aerial for a short film and another client does brand videos that go to broadcast and they specifically asked if i could shoot prores or raw.

ive been looking hard at the Inspire 2 with X7 and the numbers make sense on paper but its a completely different beast to operate compared to anything ive flown before. dual operator setup, licensing for the CinemaDNG unlock, the whole thing. a friend of mine who does grip work said i should just rent before committing which yeah obviously but im also wondering if anyone here actually made that transition from prosumer stuff to the I2 and what surprised them most. not asking about specs i can google those, more like what actually catches you off guard day to day

made that jump about 3 years ago and honestly the biggest thing that caught me off guard wasnt the flying itself, the I2 handles pretty well once you get used to the weight and the prop noise is something else. its everything around the flying. the case setup, the battery logistics, two operators if you want to actually do proper gimbal work independently, the CinemaDNG licensing thing is annoying but its a one time deal. the X7 with the 16mm DL is genuinely stunning though, we did a car commercial last spring and the DP on set was using it as a reference on his laptop and kept forgetting it was drone footage which is kind of the whole point right.

the real estate and event background will help more than you think because you already know how to work fast and be professional on site. that matters more than people give credit for.

renting first is the right call no question. the I2 rental market is actually decent in most cities and it'll tell you real fast if the workflow fits how you work. also just be aware the X5S is significantly cheaper to get into than X7 and for broadcast the 4K Apple ProRes out of the X5S is genuinely enough for a lot of jobs, not every client needs 6K raw. depends what youre delivering into.