so ive been running an Inspire 2 with the X7 for about 4 years now and its been my main workhorse for commercial jobs, weddings, real estate, the occasional short film stuff. thing still produces incredible footage and the CinemaDNG raw is honestly hard to argue with even now. but im starting to feel like the platform is getting long in the tooth and DJI has been pretty quiet about any Inspire 3 updates or support stuff.

had a gimbal calibration issue last month that took two weeks to sort out with DJI care and the whole time i was just thinking like... if this was a newer platform would it have been faster. anyway not trying to rant just genuinely curious if other people doing professional work are sticking with the I2 or if theyve moved on to something else. the dual operator setup is still really hard to beat for certain shoots where you need the camera op focused purely on framing.

also does anyone know if the Zenmuse X9 from the Inspire 3 is actually a meaningful upgrade over the X7 in real world use or is it mostly spec sheet stuff

still running mine too and honestly the X7 with the DL primes is still one of the best imaging setups you can put in the air. the X9 on the Inspire 3 is a real step up though, larger sensor and the dynamic range in LOG is noticeably better especially in high contrast situations like golden hour with deep shadows. the 8K raw is kind of overkill for most jobs but for cinema deliverables it matters. the problem is the Inspire 3 price point is just brutal, youre looking at close to 16k for a ready to fly setup with the X9 and thats before you factor in extra batteries, a second controller if you want dual op, ND filters for the new mount.

if your I2 is still flying well and you have the X7 id honestly ride it out unless you have a specific job that demands what the I3 offers. the dual operator workflow is basically identical between the two which is nice.

bit off topic but the gimbal calibration issues on the I2 are so annoying, ive had mine go weird twice and both times it was after a slightly harder landing than usual. think theres something with the vibration dampers on the camera mount that gets knocked out over time. ended up just learning to do the manual recalibration myself instead of sending it in, saved a ton of time once i figured it out