so ive been shooting commercial work for about 4 years now mostly on the Mavic 3 Cine and renting Inspires when clients want that proper cinema look. been thinking about finally buying an Inspire 2 outright because rental costs are eating into my margins on mid-tier jobs that dont really justify a full rental house rate but still need more than what the Mavic delivers.

the X7 with the DL mount lenses is still genuinely incredible for the money if you buy used, like the CinemaDNG output from that thing holds up really well even now. my concern is more about the ecosystem dying off a bit ? firmware updates have slowed down, and finding someone to service the landing gear motors if something goes wrong is getting harder depending on where you are.

anyone still running the I2 for paid work regularly? curious if the dual operator setup is still practical for two-person crews or if most people are just running single op with the master controller at this point

still running mine yes, got the X7 and a couple DL primes and honestly the image quality argument is still there, nothing in that price range touches it for actual cinema acquisition. the dual op thing is situational in my experience ? i mostly fly single op now unless its a complex tracking shot or we're in a tight space where having a dedicated camera op really matters. the cinecore 2.0 recording in CinemaDNG light is still holding up in post no problem.

the landing gear issue is real though. had one of my strut motors start making noise last year and it took me a while to find someone who would actually open it up. DJI care refresh doesnt really cover that kind of wear either so just heads up on that front. if you can find a clean used body with low hours its still a solid investment for the work you're describing, just factor in that you're buying into an aging platform and parts availability isnt getting better

whats your typical deliverable format? if youre ending up in 4K prores for broadcast or streaming anyway the X7 raw workflow might be more pipeline than the jobs actually need. asking because i went down this road and realized like half my clients couldnt tell the difference in the final cut and i was adding two hours to every edit day dealing with the raw files. not saying dont do it just worth thinking about before you spend the money