When Your Passion for DJI Drones Exceeds Your Bank Account: A Survival Guide

Hello dear pilots! How’s it going? I hope you’re having an excellent start to your week! Once again, here we are talking about that thing we love so much: drones. The more expensive they are, the prettier they look. And the prettier they look, the more we NEED them in our lives.

And this is where common sense enters the conversation: if I already have 1, 2 or maybe even 3 drones, why should I buy another one?

But wait – these are stabilized drones, not FPV. Or maybe they’re drones that don’t record native vertical video. Or they only record in 4K 60… Or only in 4K 100… Or they don’t have omnidirectional sensors!

What can we do in cases where our passion for drones exceeds our bank account?

Join a drone group

In drone groups, you’ll always find people with more money and fewer responsibilities than you. Identify them. They’re generally the more discreet ones who barely talk in the chat and then—BAM!—suddenly pull out a Mavic 3 Cine Pro Ultra Max Plus (coming soon in Rose Gold!) and start uploading flights from wherever they live.

Flights that are obviously recorded in glorious 5.1K but somehow end up looking like 480p potatoes after Facebook’s compression algorithm destroys them.

Become known at drone shops

You know those beautiful stores in shopping malls where drones almost always arrive three or four months late? Get to know the salespeople. Don’t be that drone guy who shows up acting like you know everything – instead, be helpful and ask lots of questions. These shops are almost always empty, and you’ll help break up their endless routine of scrolling through TikTok and Facebook.

No, seriously, ask genuine questions about the equipment as you’ll help them refresh their knowledge (which they’ve probably forgotten while watching cat videos during their shift). Show them some of your flights, just don’t show that 10-minute video of static shots that you think is artistic but will put them to sleep faster than melatonin.

You’ll very likely get access to new drones that arrive on their shelves. Remember, their goal is to sell to you, not be your friend. So learn to set boundaries before they have you on speed-dial every time a new shipment arrives.

Be very active on social media

One advantage of being very active on social media is that there’s a good chance that big brands or national distributors will see you as an authority figure in the drone world.

This can give you a competitive edge when writing to them and telling them you want to test or do an unboxing of the latest model in their line of flying gadgets.

Get into debt

Have you heard about “good debt”? It’s debt that your clients pay, not you. But here’s the question: do you have clients, or do you just fly recreationally because you love drones and haven’t yet learned how to squeeze juice from your skills? The same photo that a Mavic 4 takes can be taken by a Mini 4. Only in one case, the debt is greater and your credit score weeps a little more each month.

Obviously, there will be differences in quality, but if you don’t establish a difference in terms of which client will buy that photo, and you only plan to show it on social media where everyone’s scrolling at light speed anyway, then there won’t be a perceived difference.

Obviously, you can become a geek, go to exhibitions, you can even go to flight academies or stores and say you want to Review certain equipment (hey, that’s what I did with the DJI Flip, and I got away with it). Our imagination is unlimited, and I’m a firm believer that we’re just a few “no” away from getting anything we want, whatever it may be.

Only many times we don’t have the courage to ask enough times, and that’s why we fall into laziness, sadness, into that hidden corner where we bury our dreams along with the user manuals we never read.

Is getting neweer drones the best option?

And here I ask you, dear drone enthusiast: what have you done lately to grow as a pilot? Are you one of those who believe that a newer drone with more technology will make you have better material? Or are you one of those who knows that even a bird from several generations ago can obtain extraordinary material if only the pilot becomes better?

I leave this question hanging in the air (much like that drone you almost crashed last weekend) since it’s very common in the world of photography and video to suffer from GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome). This leads you to believe that lenses, cameras, expensive drones can compensate for lack of talent.

I’m not saying there isn’t specific equipment for certain jobs; what I am saying is that we tend to overestimate equipment and underestimate our abilities, as well as our capacity to learn and get more juice out of the tools we already possess.

Does your passion for drones exceed your bank account? What has been your craziest purchase that you regret the most? Let me know in the comments!