so i finally pulled the trigger on a mini 4 pro last month, got the fly more combo which came with extra batteries and the charging hub which is great. but now im kind of going down a rabbit hole of ND filters and propeller guards and cases and lens cleaning kits and all this other stuff and i genuinely dont know whats actually useful versus what is just made to get my money. like do ND filters actually make that much of a difference for someone who isnt doing professional video work, im mostly just doing landscape stuff on weekends. and are propeller guards worth it or do they mess with flight performance. there seems to be so many options and the price range is massive too

ND filters are genuinely worth it if you care at all about how your footage looks. the 180 degree shutter rule is a real thing and without NDs your video ends up looking jittery and weird in bright sunlight even if you dont immediately notice why. for landscape shooting id say get at least an ND16 and ND64, thats pretty much all you need to start. i use the Freewell magnetic ones and they work great, easy to swap out. skip the propeller guards honestly, they add weight and drag and the mini 4 pro is already light enough that wind affects it, adding guards just makes that worse. the only time guards make sense is if youre flying indoors or in really tight spaces.

honestly the one thing i wish someone had told me was to just get a decent hard case first before anything else. i went down the filter rabbit hole and spent like 80 bucks on stuff before i realized i was storing my drone in the original box like an idiot. dropped some money on a pelican style case and it just feels way better. filters are good too but the case thing was more immediately useful for me day to day