TLDR: I frequently need to look at stuff on rooftops at work and I'm looking for a fairly budget camera drone to let me do that more easily than I can with my extension ladder.
I'm a commercial refrigeration/HVAC tech which means I do a lot of rooftop work often on large commercial sites where sometimes the only roof access is the extension ladder on my van. The most anoying thing about that type of work is the constant trips up and down from the roof often just to check basic like like if flipping that breaker inside actually turned the rooftop unit off.
I've been considering getting a cheapish camera drone for a while just to do things like reading rooftop unit dataplates, checking the readings on my instruments connected to the rooftop equipment while I work on the indoor parts of said equipment, or checking the rough state of equipment before I climb up to the roof so I can have some idea of what tools to bring with me. I could also see a camera drone being very useful for taking aerial surveys of large industrial sites to map out all of the rooftop equipment.
So I'm looking for a camera drone which can withstand moderate wind fairly well and is fairly rugged. On the other hand, range is not really a concern for me because I'll usually be operating it from 100-200ft away at most. Having longer range would be nice but I can only think of two customer sites where that would be necissary so it definitely isn't a priority. For the same reason, battery life also isn't really a concern. Odds are this drone would only ever be doing short jogs up to a roof to check something and then coming right back down. My work van has an inverter which could run my house so charging between jobs would be trivial. I'm also not terribly concerned about picture quality. I need good enough camera quality and fine enough control to read equipment data plates but outside of that I'm not going to be doing professional photography with it or anything. So as long as the drone would be capable of flying up to and reading a newspaper then the camera is good enough.
Right now I'm just looking for the cheapest drone that fits my requirements. At the same time though, I have had to spend thousands of dollars on tools far less frequently useful than it seems like this drone would be so if I need to spend up to about $800 on it then I can do that. I am also aware that diy is an option and I would love to get into that at some point but I already know that that way lies maddness for me. Right now I just need a functional drone and not a hobby I will definitely wind up spending more money on than my vehicle.
So what do you all recommend for a budget no frills workhorse camera drone?
If you need all-weather capabilities, your budget is blown.
What does moderate wind mean to you? 25 knot winds are common where I live, and drones that can handle 25 knots tend to cost more.
Resolving text on the scale of a newspaper generally means good optics and a larger sensor, so more money. That said, most quality drones have decent optics. If you need low-light performance or wide HDR imaging, a better sensor is needed which will affect your budget.
Another consideration: the cheaper the drone, the shittier the gimbal. Most drones use a rolling shutter for the camera, in contrast to the physical leaf shutter on, say, a dSLR. Tiny vibrations will result in distortions in your output, making it difficult to resolve finer details.
Flying your drone outside visual line of sight is illegal in the US. VLOS here means the operator or a visual observer has eyes on the drone at all times. Are the drone police watching for every single moment you don't have VLOS on your drone? Of course not. Just be aware that this is the law.
And finally, as others have mentioned glancingly: if you are in the United States and using your drone is part of your paid work, you absolutely must have an FAA Part 107 license. This is regardless of the size of your drone. The Part 107 license is not hard to get, but there is about a week or two of studying involved (depending on how quickly you absorb material). The exam costs ~$125 to ~$200 at FAA-approved testing centers.
So, all that said... depending on [all the things], I would suggest trying to find a used:
Edit to add: "budget" and "workhorse" are mutually exclusive in sUAS, as is "budget" and "surveying." Now if you just need to photograph rooftop hardware and stitch together some images, there are less expensive sUAS routes. But you're still going to be about $1200 for drone and computing hardware. I'm happy to chat about refining suggestions based on your specific requirements.