New drone purchase for remote ID compliance on 9/16/23

[scorsesefan]

Would you want to turn sharpening down or up?

Down. Oversharpened images scream "video!" IMO

[alaskacameradude]

Down. Oversharpened images scream "video!" IMO

Got you. Having never used that drone or it’s footage,
I wasn’t sure.

[alaskacameradude]

I think alaskacameradude answered this well already. One thing that is a must for me - as I'm often shooting both video & stills while I'm up in the air - is to be able to control iris with adjustable f stop on the remote controller. Many of the lower price point DJI drones don't have this... which is just unbelievable to me. Yeah, I know I can add ND filters. But most of my shoots I don't have luxury of coming down to swap out ND filter. And I certainly don't like the high shutter speed look of a lot of YT drone videos.

This is a good point. I think the Mavic Pro line lets you
control iris. But yes The Autel Evo ii Pro line lets
you control the fstop (and separately control the shutter
speed and iso) which is very big! Also has a nice set
of ND filters. It will also allow you to switch from ‘stills’
to ‘video’ while in flight which is nice.

[DustinSchmidt]

I've got an Auto Evo ii Pro. It has 360 degree obstacle avoidance which is so good you literally need
to turn it off if you are flying anywhere close to trees or buildings as it will often stop like 10-15 feet
away from a perceived obstacle and refuse to fly any closer. Is that a good safety feature?
I can turn it on and be up in the air in less than a minute. I've personally never had any
problem with the transmission signal but I tend to keep my drone within VLOS so only out a
couple thousand feet most times. I know some Mavic ops who have had their drones out literally
over a mile and had rock solid connection and cannot swear to the Autel's ability to do that
as I just don't do that sort of flying. I think the main downsides are that it doesn't handle
as nicely as the DJI's tend to both in terms of flight characteristics and ability to 'feather' camera moves.
But the quality of the video is seriously amazing, it performs in wind better than the Mavics
(it is quite a bit heavier) and the big one.....there is NO geofencing!

Thanks for that info. It's interesting to see a true competitor to the DJI drones, at least in terms of capabilities. I'm not sure how many units Autel moves, but the specs sure look impressive.

[markfpv]

This is a good point. I think the Mavic Pro line lets you
control iris. But yes The Autel Evo ii Pro line lets
you control the fstop (and separately control the shutter
speed and iso) which is very big! Also has a nice set
of ND filters. It will also allow you to switch from ‘stills’
to ‘video’ while in flight which is nice.

The only reason I haven't pulled the trigger on the Evo II Pro - is that the demo I was sent was the Enterprise version. It did not have a "smooth" option in the flight modes, only standard or ludicrous. As hard as I tried, messing with the EXP settings and sensitivities for the control sticks on the smart controller, I could not accomplish the same smooth, slow parallax moves that I currently do with my P4Pro. So, that's sort of a deal breaker. I do quite a bit of real estate type exteriors, and slow, feathery moves (ie flying to the left while panning right) or even flying up while tilting gimbal down, is way, way, way harder to do on the Evo II Pro V3 I was sent. Major bummer - because the no geofencing really is killer.

I've been told - or read (or maybe both) - that the normal version has a "smooth" or dual stability option. But can't get confirmation from my contact at Autel. So am real close to buying the Mavic 3 Pro instead. Ugh. So so close... and yet so so far...