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The 5 Best Camera Drones for Beginners
Overall, the best camera drone for beginners is the DJI Mini 3 Pro. It’s the perfect mix of camera capabilities and affordability.
If you’re looking for a purely entry-level drone with a camera to see if you enjoy flying, then we recommend the DJI Mini 2. It’s much more affordable than the Mini 3 Pro, but also lacks a lot of the high quality camera features.
If you want to learn more about the best camera drones for beginners or check out a few other options, read on!
Table of Contents
Best Camera Drone for Beginners
To start, it’s best to get an understanding about the current camera drone manufactures that are out there. Without question, DJI is the largest, most popular, and probably best drone maker on the market.
DJI creates the leading drones for photography and makes them as intuitive and easy to fly as possible. They also have excellent obstacle avoidance capabilities, which will surely help any beginner to flying.
For these reasons, 4 of the 5 drones on this list are from DJI. We included a drone from a different manufacturer to show other available options, but if we’re being honest, DJI is the company that you should buy your first drone from.
Understanding that, we can move on to the 3 things that you should be looking for in a drone when considering the best camera drones for beginners:
- In flight avoidance software and tools. Meaning that the drone comes with plenty of sensors and software that will help you avoid any crashes.
- Overall intuitiveness. You don’t want flying the drone to be complicated or made harder by a clunky app or poor performance.
- Decent camera capabilities. There are plenty of good beginner drones out there, but many of them don’t have quality cameras. You want to find a good balance between price, drone capabilities, and camera capabilities.
These 3 factors pretty much describe DJI as a company. They do the best balancing act between all three things listed above and offer up affordable drones that fly easily and capture good photos.
It’s definitely worth noting though, that if you plan to use a drone commercially at all, you’ll need to get your FAA Part 107 license. Commercially means that you are selling drone services, so if that’s your plan make sure you are licensed.
With all that in mind, here are our choices for the 5 best camera drones for beginners.
Best Camera Drones for Beginners
DJI Mini 3 Pro
Just recently released by DJI, their Mini Pro 3 is an excellent drone that is very beginner friendly. It’s an incredible value for anyone not looking to spend a ton of money but wanting really high quality photo capabilities.
It comes with all the high end features that DJI is known for, but offers a great value purchase in relation to DJI’s best drones like the Mavic 3 or Phantom 4.
Pros:
- Excellent camera capabilities
- Vertical photography/video capabilities for mobile sharing
- 34 minutes of flight time
- Relatively affordable
Cons:
- Slightly expensive if you don’t need a good camera
DJI Mavic Air 2
This is the drone that I used before upgrading to the Mavic 3. I found that it was a very serviceable drone for professional photography and really great for learning how to fly.
Pros:
- Affordable
- 4k video
- Good image quality
- Excellent battery life
Cons:
- Very large remote control
DJI Mini 2
Similar to the Mini 3 Pro, the Mini 2 is a more beginner friendly version with a lower purchase price.
The lower purchase price means a less capable camera. However, overall the Mini 2 still has a good camera and is perfect for anyone that doesn’t want to break the bank but still wants a quality camera drone.
Pros:
- Great image and video quality
- Very affordable
- Excellent intro-level drone
Cons:
- Missing the higher end camera options from more expensive models
DJI Phantom 4 Pro Plus V2.0
A more durable build than the Mavic style drones but with similar features. It’s an easy to fly drone that will produce excellent images and video.
Much larger, much heavier, and much more expensive. I would only recommend this drone for beginners that are positive they will be using the drone quite often. If you’re looking to purchase a drone to take photos for fun, this one probably isn’t worth it.
Pros:
- Excellent camera
- 4k video
- Extremely smooth and easy to control
Cons:
- Very expensive
Autel EVO Nano+
Arguably the best non-DJI drone producer, Autel is a respected name in terms of building drones.
I have not used one personally, but if I had to buy a non-DJI drone, I would choose this one pretty easily.
Pros
- 40 minute battery life
- Excellent image quality
- Best non-DJI drone maker
Cons
- For the price, you might as well get an easier to use DJI drone
Recommendations
The best camera drones for beginners is somewhat dependent on how you plan to use the drone. If you know that you will be using the drone for a long time and want a quality camera, then we recommend choosing the DJI Mini 3 Pro.
It’s an extremely capable drone that is built to be easy to fly and intuitive to use.
If, on the other hand, you aren’t sure whether or not you’re going to be using the drone often, then we recommend the DJI Mini 2. It’s the most affordable drone on the list and still has some really impressive camera capabilities.
If money is no concern, you know you’ll use the drone a lot, and you simply want the best drone available, then go with the DJI Phantom 4 Pro Plus V2.0.
Although it looks big and intimidating, it’s actually one of the easiest to fly thanks to it’s on board sensors and heaviness which helps to keep it steady in the air. It is, as we said, quite expensive however.
Finally, check out our Gear page to read more articles just like this with up-to-date product reviews for gear across all photography genres.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the best drone for beginners?
The DJI Mini 3 Pro is the best camera drone for beginners, but if you’re looking for an inexpensive and easy to fly drone with a decent camera, the DJI Mini 2 is the best.
How do I choose the best drone?
You need to think about what you need the drone for. If you plan to offer photography and video services, you’ll want a drone with a good camera like the DJI Mini 3 Pro. If you just want a drone to learn how to fly and to use for fun, the DJI Mini 2 might be a better choice.