so ive been running an Inspire 2 with the Zenmuse X7 for about 3 years now and honestly it's been a workhorse, zero complaints about the footage quality but im starting to feel the pressure from clients who are asking about newer tech and honestly the whole dual operator setup is getting annoying on smaller jobs where its just me and one other person

the thing is i already have two X7 lenses, the DL 16mm and the 50mm, and those arent exactly cheap to just abandon. does the Inspire 3 even use the same lens mount? i keep seeing conflicting info about this and DJI's own site is kind of vague about backwards compatibility. the X9-8K air on the 3 looks incredible but if im basically rebuilding my whole kit thats a serious conversation to have with myself about whether the ROI makes sense for the kind of mid-budget commercial work i mostly do

anyone actually made that jump from i2 to i3 and regretted it or loved it, real world feedback would help a lot here

the DL mount on the Inspire 3 is the same as the X7 so your lenses will work, at least physically. theres some autofocus behavior differences depending on firmware but for cinematic stuff where youre pulling focus manually anyway its basically a non-issue. i made the jump about 8 months ago and honestly the low light performance alone justified it for me, been doing a lot of night aerial stuff for a TV production and the X9 in low light destroys what i was getting with the X7

that said if youre doing mostly daytime commercial real estate or promo work the I2 is still totally respectable footage. i wouldnt feel embarrassed delivering X7 material in, clients who know what they're looking at know its good glass

honestly the dual operator thing bothers me too and ive only been using mine for about a year. tried doing single op on a smaller job once and it was fine for simple shots but anything with camera movement and flight path at the same time got messy fast. might just be a skill thing but yeah it does limit flexibility when you cant always bring a camera op