Do we have any drone operators in here that work as professional photographers/videographers?  I have worked as a professional photographer/videographer for over 25 years and am considering getting my FAA license to operate a drone commercially.  I have been researching the DJI Mavic Pro to get my feet wet.  Here in Atlanta you can throw a rock and hit 1000 photographers, my thinking is that the FAA licensing will dissuade many from pursuing drone work and the pool of competition will be much smaller. What has been your experience?

Check with Jake at QRF. He does some drone stuff.

FAA does not have the staff to police people.  They mainly investigate after an incident such as a crash occurs.  There are a large amount of drone operators working without being certified.  Unless the FAA changes something, that is not going to change.

The drone jobs market is weird.  It is in somewhat of a race to the bottom.  Most companies focus on things other than photography.  They do mapping or inspections.  there is more money in that.  Realtors typically don't want to pay much for photos that will be used in listing.

I'm FAA certified and fly a drone as a small part of my job.  If you have any questions, don't hesitate.

Been flying under a 107 for almost 2 years as a news drone pilot. I've followed the industry locally closely the last several years, there isn't much market really. Most of the advertisement agencies have their own pilots in house, and there is 1 local real estate photog who picked up their license to add aerials as an add on.

@jharpphoto

Been flying under 107 for over a year now, flying drones longer than that though.

Been a professional photographer for over 15 years, mainly architecture and product photography.   There is a big market for architecture photography, all of our clients want drone shots now.    We started out with a phantom 3 pro years ago because one big job required drone shots, now everyone wants them so we upgraded to the Inspire 2.

As stupid as it sounds the Inspire "looks" professional, it impresses clients and that counts for something and it helps separate you from the 100s of other guys flying phantoms or anything else.   You should start out small, but if the work is there I would upgrade when you can.

As far as the test its easy, I had no pilots experience and I just studied over a week then took the test, missed two questions about military routes that I hadn't read about while studying.  Drones are here to stay in this business and its great.

thanks for the replies. I'm taking the FAA test next week and bought a Mavic pro 2 and took it on it's maiden voyage today.   Decide to go by the rules and get the certificate just in case.