I currently own a dji mini2 and am working on part 107 cert. Ultimate goal is to take real estate pictures for my wife, who is a realtor. I also want to build the drone in the course. I already have a pi4b and a radio, but I suspect the radio will not cut it, it’s a 4 channel that I used for sailplanes. The link in the parts list results in a 404; would the DTXMX Flysky FS-i6X be a good candidate? I also have not found much info on actually using a camera with the drone. If that is not practical I will probably build the drone anyway just for fun, and use the Mini 2 for real estate photography and video. Any info regarding camera usage would be appreciated. Also, it seems that Mission Planner is available for windows only. I saw verbiage that suggests that the same results can be obtained using Linux, except without a gui. Any comments on that? Thanks!
Camera drone, radio questions, mission planner
The kit and courses will provide you a great start for learning about building and programming drones.
You could build a larger frame setup with a camera and gimbal, but most real estate drone photographers use a dji setup as it is easy to get going. To learn more about commercial drone photography, you might want to check Drone U.
Mission Planner runs best on a Windows platform and there is an Android API as well. You can also check out QGroundControl which works on more platforms.
Thanks for the reply. I’m really not interested in programming. I’m 63 and have tried to wrap my head around programming countless times, to no avail (I’ve been a computer geek/linux guy/IT guy/network engineer since about 1983.) I’ve also been into photography since 8th grade, so I guess that’s my real focus. It seems it would be hard to replicate the camera functionality available on some of DJI’s drones, so maybe I ought to just rethink the whole thing. I’d really like to build a pi drone, but I don’t really know what I’d do with it. Lots to think about.
FYI, am using a GoPro Hero11 and rubber mount (no gimbal) fitted to the underside of the Power Distribution Board. The Hero11 sends video straight to Android phone and filters out vibrations.
Also using a MLX90640 IR Camera on same mount. great so far 
Nice! I think I might want to try this. Possible to upload some of the thermal images?
A gimbal of course provides a means to (manually or by programming) adjust the camera attitude independent from the drone orientation.