I recently paid a guy to use his drone to help recover a deer, and it was honestly amazing to see it in action. He had a commercial drone, the Matrice 30T, and could switch between normal, infrared, and thermal views and even had a spotlight. It took him less than 10 minutes to cover around 60 acres, and I was blown away by all the things he could show me. Now, I’m not trying to go into this professionally, but I’d love to check on my deer herd, do some aerial photos, and maybe help with tracking on my own.
I’ve been looking into options and found that the DJI Mavic 3 can do this kind of stuff, but it costs about $5k. There’s also a used Mavic 2 Zoom near me for $900, but I’m not sure if I can upgrade it to add thermal capabilities. Do you think the Mavic 3 is my best bet, or is there a more affordable way for a beginner to get started? Spending $5k on a drone just to maybe crash it while learning sounds pretty nerve-wracking.
Unfortunately, you can’t swap out the cameras on DJI drones unless you’re looking at the super expensive models. So no upgrades for the Mavic 2 Zoom. If you want thermal, the Mavic 3T is really your entry point for that.
Yeah, the Mavic line is pretty much your starting point if you’re looking to get into thermal imaging. Anything lower probably won’t have the features you’re after.
Yep, we did! It was alive, actually, but it had a pretty decent wound across the backstrap. My girlfriend took the shot – her first buck with a bow, a nice 10-pointer. It looks like it ducked on her a bit, so she hit higher than planned. I wasn’t with her and only saw it on the drone and a trail cam after. At least it’s still moving around; could’ve been a lot worse.