im a roofing contractor and just getting into using drones for estimates and post-job documentation. bought a mini 4 pro about 6 months ago and its fine for getting overall shots but im running into limitations when i need to actually see storm damage close up on steep residential pitches or do a proper condition assessment on a big flat commercial roof with all the HVAC equipment and penetrations.

the mini's camera is good but im basically hovering close enough to make myself nervous on steep residential and still not getting the detail i need on things like cracked flashing or lifted shingles. on flat commercial its actually worse because theres so much equipment in the way and i cant get a clean nadir shot of the whole surface without doing a full grid mission which the mini handles okayish but im not confident the resolution is there for a real deliverable.

do i need to step up to something with a better sensor and actual zoom or is this more of a flying technique thing. also wondering if anyone is doing thermal on commercial flat roofs for moisture detection because ive heard thats a thing but seems like a whole other level of equipment and cost

thermal on flat roofs for moisture is absolutely a thing and it works really well but you have to fly it within like an hour after sunset or just before sunrise to get the differential you need. the wet areas hold heat differently and it shows up pretty clearly on even a mid-range thermal sensor. we use a mavic 3 thermal for that specifically and it's paid for itself many times over in finding trapped moisture before it becomes a catastrophic decking failure situation. the dual camera setup on it is nice because you can overlay the thermal on the RGB and actually show clients exactly where the problem is without them having to interpret a heat map.

for your steep residential problem honestly yeah the mini is limiting you. the zoom on the mavic 3 classic or the full mavic 3 makes a huge difference because you can sit at a safe distance and actually resolve the detail. i typically hover maybe 30-40 feet off the ridge and use the 3x or 7x optical to inspect the surface without getting sketchy close to the structure

the grid mission thing on flat commercial roofs - are you using any ground control points or just relying on GPS for the ortho? because ive found the accuracy on small drones without RTK is kind of iffy for anything you want to measure precisely. not saying it doesnt work for visual documentation but if clients start asking for actual measurements off your deliverables you'll want to think about that. we had an awkward situation where our ortho was off enough that a client noticed and it wasnt a great conversation