so ive been running an Inspire 2 with the X7 for about four years now and honestly it's still pulling its weight on most commercial gigs but im starting to wonder if im just used to it at this point or if it's actually still competitive. the dual operator setup is what keeps me on it for cinema stuff because having a dedicated camera op makes such a difference when youre doing fast moving shots on set, no way im giving that up for a Mavic 3 Cine regardless of how good the footage looks.

the thing that's been bugging me lately is the CinemaDNG workflow ? clients are starting to ask for ProRes more and more and while the X7 handles it fine the whole licensing thing with DJI still annoys me every time i have to explain it to a producer. also the battery situation on cold shoots is getting worse, i think my TB50s are finally starting to go.

anyone switched away from the Inspire 2 to something else for professional work and actually been happy about it? not looking at the Inspire 3 thread before someone says it, that thing is way out of my budget range right now

still running mine too and honestly the X7 with the DL 24mm is hard to beat for the price point it sits at now used. picked up a second body last year for like 2800 and it feels almost irresponsible how cheap that is compared to what it can do. ProRes licensing thing is annoying yeah but once you just budget it into your quote it kind of disappears as a problem.

the battery thing is real though. i do a cold weather job every winter up in the mountains and i basically double my battery count estimate and build in way more warmup time. TB50s at -5c are a completely different animal than at 20c. if yours are old and youre seeing that degradation even in normal temps might just be time to bite the bullet on new ones, they're not that expensive compared to a whole new platform.

genuine question ? have you looked at what renting an Inspire 3 costs vs buying and just passing that through on bigger jobs? i know you said budget but depending on your gig frequency it might actually pencil out better than upgrading the 2. the 8K RAW out of the X9-8K is kind of insane for episodic work if you ever get into that space