background: ive been flying a pretty modded out quad for about two years, mostly real estate and some landscape stuff on the side, currently using the stock camera that came with my original setup which is fine but i keep running into situations where the image quality just doesnt hold up when clients want to crop in or print larger stuff.

been looking at going with an Olympus OM-5 or maybe a GH6 on a 3-axis brushless gimbal, probably the iFlight Nazgul or maybe building something around a Gremsy. the weight jump is obviously significant and im going to have to rethink my whole power system probably, but the image quality difference would be massive especially in low light. the MFT sensor even on the GH6 is going to destroy whatever tiny sensor im using now.

i guess my actual question is whether anyone has gone through this kind of upgrade and whether the real world results actually justified the hassle and cost, or is it one of those things that looks great on paper and then the vibration isolation ends up being the limiting factor anyway and you dont get the full benefit of the better sensor

done exactly this, went from a smallish 1 inch sensor cam to a GH5 on a Gremsy T3 and yeah the quality difference is real and noticeable to clients. but you are absolutely right that vibration isolation becomes the limiting factor. spent probably two months dialing in my soft mounts and dampening before i stopped getting jello in certain conditions. the gimbal itself was fine, it was everything upstream from it ? motors not perfectly balanced, slight frame flex, all of that gets amplified when youre trying to push a heavier payload.

if you go the Gremsy route just budget time not just money, its not a plug and play situation at that payload class.

honestly for real estate i wonder if the bottleneck is really the sensor or the glass. ive seen people get stunning results from relatively modest sensors with sharp primes versus mediocre results from bigger sensors with so-so lenses. not saying dont upgrade, just something to think aobut before you rebuild your whole power system around a heavier rig.