ok so i've been lurking here for a while and i think its time to just ask because im going in circles reading reviews and getting nowhere

background: i have zero experience with drones, never flown anything except a cheap toy thing my nephew had at christmas. i want to get into aerial photography mostly for landscape stuff, i hike a lot in the pacific northwest so lots of trees, mountains, that kind of scenery. budget is around $400 maybe a little flexible if somethings genuinely worth the extra

ive been looking at the DJI Mini 2 SE, the holy stone hs720 came up in some listicle i read but something felt off about that recommendation, and someone in another thread mentioned the autel nano plus but that seems more expensive. im just not sure if the cheaper non-DJI options are actually useable or if ill regret not just going DJI from the start

also does the sub 250g weight thing actually matter that much for a beginner or is that more of a concern for people flying professionally? i keep seeing it mentioned but i dont fully understand the registration stuff

skip the holy stone. i know that sounds harsh but i had one for about two months before getting a real drone and the image quality, the app stability, the return to home ? none of it compares to what you get from DJI even at entry level. its not even close. for landscape photography specifically youre gonna care a lot about image quality and the holy stone stuff just doesnt hold up when you look at footage side by side

at your budget the Mini 2 SE is honestly the right answer. its not the newest thing but the camera is solid for the price, the fly more combo gets you multiple batteries which matters a lot more than people realize when youre hiking and cant just run back to charge, and youll spend your time learning to fly instead of troubleshooting weird app issues. the sub 250g thing in the US basically means no FAA registration for recreational flying which is nice but not a dealbreaker either way, just a small convenience

yeah what he said about holy stone is pretty much the consensus around here. the autel nano plus is actually decent and worth considering if you can stretch the budget, some people prefer autel because of the color science and their customer support has gotten better. but if $400 is your ceiling the mini 2 SE makes more sense and youll have money left for a good carrying case or ND filters which you'll want eventually for landscape shots anyway