Mavic 3 / Mavic 3 Cine

[jb.]

1" sensor compared to 4/3 micro.

How is the Evo's controller software? As sophisticated as DJI's?

Yeah, I think it's important to point out that while the 4/3 sensor is probably objectively better... we're definitely well into "marginal improvement" range at this point.

Software-wise so far the SC feels about the same. Sometimes not as polished, but it's getting there.

 

[Grug]

The controller can only record what it gets... which is over compressed 1080P.

Sure, but if you lose the drone, you still have something. You wouldn’t otherwise.

 

[Joshua Milligan]

I got my Mavic 3 Cine in yesterday and I must say, this is hands down the nicest bird I've ever laid my hands on. The controls from the new RC Pro controller are incredible, as is the high-bright screen. The bag that everything comes in is super high end. It feels like Apple made it. It has a soft interior, metal buckles and is cut to hold everything just right. For everyday use, this will be super handy. I also really like the 8 included ND filters and the custom cases that hold them, as well as the new gimbal holder that holds not only the gimbal, but the whole bird together. This allows you to keep props attached while stored which make going from the bag to the air even faster. That's pretty slick.

As far as the IQ goes, the 10-bit ProRes HQ log footage at 5.1K is incredible. Great color, great dynamic range and sharp, but not that DJI "fake sharp". It makes me feel like I'm flying my FX6 or A7SIII. I also love that you can tilt the camera up by 45° as that that gives you the ability to look up during a shot. Think flying under a canopy of trees and tilting the camera up 45° to see the trees from underneath while the sun shines through for example. That’s a nice touch. I have yet to edit raw stills from it, but I did take some. I am sad that the only stills aspect ratios available are 4:3 and 16:9. I wish there was a 3:2 option available like my A1 and A7SIII have as that's the most common size to shoot in.

My thoughts on the separate zoom camera are different than everyone else's. I don't see it as a pro film or photo tool. I see that more as an option for people who are mapping, inspecting, surveying, searching for hiding suspects, etc. To that end it's incredible. I flew the drone above my house and zoomed into the field I archery hunt behind me and was able to look for deer with that lens haha. It's pretty dang cool. Just think of it as an added tool for non-pro photo or video use and more for mapping, surveying and inspecting jobs, then you'll understand why DJI included it. Or at least why I think they included it.

Overall I'm very impressed. It definitely feels like a $5,000 product and will no doubt be a huge improvement over any other consumer drone I've owned. Truly a pro tool without having to step into that $7,500-$15,000 Inspire 2 X5/X7, Astro, Alta or Airpeak S1 price range. I highly recommend it.

 

[David Saraceno]

Truly a pro tool without having to step into that $7,500-$15,000 Inspire 2 X5/X7, Astro, Alta or Airpeak S1 price range

I've heard that download speeds for Pro Res HQ off the on board SSD are quite slow even with the DJI's custom cable. Is that your experience?

 

[Run&Gun]

I got my Mavic 3 Cine in yesterday and I must say, this is hands down the nicest bird I've ever laid my hands on. The controls from the new RC Pro controller are incredible, as is the high-bright screen. The bag that everything comes in is super high end. It feels like Apple made it. It has a soft interior, metal buckles and is cut to hold everything just right. For everyday use, this will be super handy. I also really like the 8 included ND filters and the custom cases that hold them, as well as the new gimbal holder that holds not only the gimbal, but the whole bird together. This allows you to keep props attached while stored which make going from the bag to the air even faster. That's pretty slick.

As far as the IQ goes, the 10-bit ProRes HQ log footage at 5.1K is incredible. Great color, great dynamic range and sharp, but not that DJI "fake sharp". It makes me feel like I'm flying my FX6 or A7SIII. I also love that you can tilt the camera up by 45° as that that gives you the ability to look up during a shot. Think flying under a canopy of trees and tilting the camera up 45° to see the trees from underneath while the sun shines through for example. That’s a nice touch. I have yet to edit raw stills from it, but I did take some. I am sad that the only stills aspect ratios available are 4:3 and 16:9. I wish there was a 3:2 option available like my A1 and A7SIII have as that's the most common size to shoot in.

My thoughts on the separate zoom camera are different than everyone else's. I don't see it as a pro film or photo tool. I see that more as an option for people who are mapping, inspecting, surveying, searching for hiding suspects, etc. To that end it's incredible. I flew the drone above my house and zoomed into the field I archery hunt behind me and was able to look for deer with that lens haha. It's pretty dang cool. Just think of it as an added tool for non-pro photo or video use and more for mapping, surveying and inspecting jobs, then you'll understand why DJI included it. Or at least why I think they included it.

Overall I'm very impressed. It definitely feels like a $5,000 product and will no doubt be a huge improvement over any other consumer drone I've owned. Truly a pro tool without having to step into that $7,500-$15,000 Inspire 2 X5/X7, Astro, Alta or Airpeak S1 price range. I highly recommend it.

Nice little mini-review. I'm dumping some footage from my 2 Pro right now that I just shot earlier. Had to go back out and re-shoot some footage from a few days ago. The first location I shot, the drone was somehow in auto-exposure and I didn't realize it and when reviewing it that night, you could see the abrupt exposure changes several times, mid shot. And one of the other locations, I couldn't get some of the shots, because of strong interference/signal loss.

What is your initial impression with the signal range between the drone and remote? I was impressed with my original Mavic Pro Platinum, but the 2 Pro has always felt like the RF link was sub-par and easily subject to unwanted interference. Also, how customizable is the remote? I've always wanted to be able to flip the direction of the camera tilt control. It just seems backwards, in my mind. In my brain you should roll(push) it towards the center of the remote to tilt (push)down the camera and pull it out towards the outside of the controller to tilt(pull) up the camera, but it's the opposite.

 

[Clermond]

for what I do I prefer the 28mm of the M2P over the 24mm of the Mavic 3 Cine.
For stills if 28mm is too short you can fly a bit away or stitch two images.
There's no option when 24 has a too widish look. If you fly closer it is still widish.

Also for video when you track and follow a vehicle 24mm is too short.
With the M2P I mostly use the 1:1 pixel crop mode which is an equivalent to 45mm
Does the M3C have that option too?

 

[Liam Hall]

I got my Mavic 3 Cine in yesterday and I must say, this is hands down the nicest bird I've ever laid my hands on. The controls from the new RC Pro controller are incredible, as is the high-bright screen. The bag that everything comes in is super high end. It feels like Apple made it. It has a soft interior, metal buckles and is cut to hold everything just right. For everyday use, this will be super handy. I also really like the 8 included ND filters and the custom cases that hold them, as well as the new gimbal holder that holds not only the gimbal, but the whole bird together. This allows you to keep props attached while stored which make going from the bag to the air even faster. That's pretty slick.

As far as the IQ goes, the 10-bit ProRes HQ log footage at 5.1K is incredible. Great color, great dynamic range and sharp, but not that DJI "fake sharp". It makes me feel like I'm flying my FX6 or A7SIII. I also love that you can tilt the camera up by 45° as that that gives you the ability to look up during a shot. Think flying under a canopy of trees and tilting the camera up 45° to see the trees from underneath while the sun shines through for example. That’s a nice touch. I have yet to edit raw stills from it, but I did take some. I am sad that the only stills aspect ratios available are 4:3 and 16:9. I wish there was a 3:2 option available like my A1 and A7SIII have as that's the most common size to shoot in.

My thoughts on the separate zoom camera are different than everyone else's. I don't see it as a pro film or photo tool. I see that more as an option for people who are mapping, inspecting, surveying, searching for hiding suspects, etc. To that end it's incredible. I flew the drone above my house and zoomed into the field I archery hunt behind me and was able to look for deer with that lens haha. It's pretty dang cool. Just think of it as an added tool for non-pro photo or video use and more for mapping, surveying and inspecting jobs, then you'll understand why DJI included it. Or at least why I think they included it.

Overall I'm very impressed. It definitely feels like a $5,000 product and will no doubt be a huge improvement over any other consumer drone I've owned. Truly a pro tool without having to step into that $7,500-$15,000 Inspire 2 X5/X7, Astro, Alta or Airpeak S1 price range. I highly recommend it.

It maybe the best drone you've ever flown, but what are you comparing it to?

I get the convenience of having ProRes but what does the image quality look like compared to the H265 recorded on the SD card?

 

[Joshua Milligan]

I've heard that download speeds for Pro Res HQ off the on board SSD are quite slow even with the DJI's custom cable. Is that your experience?

Hey David, with DJI's included cable, so long as you're dumping to a relatively fast drive via USB-C, then it's not bad. I find that often people who complain about drive speeds actually have weaknesses in their chain, something like a slow USB port or even a slow spinning disk drive that they are dumping to. Drive speed is only as fast as its weakest link, so that might be what's effecting some of those who are complaining about the speed of the internal SSD drive on the M3C.

That being said, both of my Macs don't have USB-C ports, so I'm having to use my own USB-C to USB-A cable and am dumping to SSD or RAID drives using USB 3.0 as my weak link. Because of that, it does take a bit of time to offload footage, especially because the ProRes HQ files are pretty big. In addition to that, my Macs don't show the internal drive in the Finder window because the SSD drive is formatted to exFAT. Because of this, I have to use a program like Adobe Bridge to find the files in order to copy them.

I see the DJI Mavic 3 Cine as really being 3 tools in one and if you treat it that way, you won't be disappointed in how it's setup.

First, you can run it as typical consumer drone shooting in H.265 to a microSD card (it has a slot for it and you can in the menu change the storage location). This is how you would run any of their other consumer drones, so it's basically a typical consumer drone when used this way, except for that you get the added benefits of 5.1K 60p, 4K 120p, increased bitrates and a larger 4/3 sensor. The camera and lens itself also has way prettier flares than previous consumer drones which when combines with everything else gives you a consumer drone that is their best to date. When shooting in this format, you take up way less hard drive space and you can remove the microSD card to dump footage to a computer just like you would any other DJI consumer product.

The second way to run it is as a professional drone for pro video work. In this mode you switch the recording location to the SSD drive and change your file format to ProRes HQ. In this mode you get the added benefit of going from 10-bit 4:2:0 to 10-bit 4:2:2, plus you get way higher bitrates that can support the 5.1K resolution better than H.265, plus the higher bitrates retain detail better on things like trees leaves, fine details on cityscapes, fields that have complex scenes full of fine lines like grass, etc. So the ProRes HQ gives you better support here for more detail retention, plus you get the added benefit of working in ProRes in post which as we all know is a widely chosen professional format for several reasons. This is a slower way to work because the files are much bigger and the offload times are slower, but for commercial work, doc projects, short films, music videos, etc., you usually are after quality over speed of dumping files, so that won't be an issue for most of those types of jobs.

The third way to run this drone is as a utility tool. Here here use either the 4/3 camera to shoot detail images for mapping, surveying, etc., or you switch to the top camera with the zoom lens to use for inspections, search and rescues, and things of that nature. That's really where the zoom camera comes into play in my opinion.

This is how I see the M3C. A pro video/photo drone, a consumer drone and a utility drone all in one. And when you combine that with the 8 included ND filters, the long battery life, the custom made bag, and everything else you get, the price starts to make a lot of sense.

 

[Joshua Milligan]

What is your initial impression with the signal range between the drone and remote? I was impressed with my original Mavic Pro Platinum, but the 2 Pro has always felt like the RF link was sub-par and easily subject to unwanted interference. Also, how customizable is the remote? I've always wanted to be able to flip the direction of the camera tilt control. It just seems backwards, in my mind. In my brain you should roll(push) it towards the center of the remote to tilt (push)down the camera and pull it out towards the outside of the controller to tilt(pull) up the camera, but it's the opposite.

Good questions. As for signal rage and unwanted interference, I haven't had any issues with either so far. That being said, I haven't had it long enough to really know if those issues are there.

I will say that as a Part 107 pilot I'm not flying my drones a mile away. I often see people complaining about signal issues on drones and they are usually complaining when flying way past line of sight. To me that doesn't matter because if you are flying professionally then you should have your Part 107, and if you have your Part 107 then you should know that flying extreme distances is not how you are legally supposed to fly. You should have line of sight of your drone and if you don't, you are breaking the law. And if you do, then you shouldn't have signal issues.

So to me, I've never had problems here with any drone I've worked with because I play by the rules with my aircrafts in order to not be one of those guys that does something risky that hurts the ability to fly drones for everyone.

 

[Joshua Milligan]

for what I do I prefer the 28mm of the M2P over the 24mm of the Mavic 3 Cine.
For stills if 28mm is too short you can fly a bit away or stitch two images.
There's no option when 24 has a too widish look. If you fly closer it is still widish.

Also for video when you track and follow a vehicle 24mm is too short.
With the M2P I mostly use the 1:1 pixel crop mode which is an equivalent to 45mm
Does the M3C have that option too?

I understand what you're saying here. The width is definitely a personal thing as I myself like the 24mm look a lot, but I get why others may not.

As for the 1:1 pixel crop mode, I have not seen that option in the M3C. But, because ProRes HQ retains detail so well, I find that this is the first DJI drone that I feel comfortable cropping into. In the past I would never crop into my drone footage because the shots just looked mushy. This was usually a combination of digital over-sharpness from DJI mixed with lower bitrates and poor quality glass. WIth ProRes HQ's massive bitrates and what is in my opinion a better handling of sharpness and better glass on the M3C, cropping in on the footage actually looks good. Because of that, if you wanted to have a tighter shot on say a vehicle, I would have zero issues cropping in post to achieve that, especially when shooting at 5.1K.

There's a great example of this on YouTube in DJI's Mavic 3 launch video starting at 0:54 seconds. Here's that link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dnqGrSKudM

Higher resolution doesn't always mean you can get away with cropping as resolution is only half the battle. Recording formats, bitrates, how the camera handles footage, lens sharpness, etc., all play a factor on whether cropping looks good or not. But in this case I feel the 5.1K plus the camera, lens and format all play together nicely making cropping in post a non-issue with the M3C.

 

[Joshua Milligan]

It maybe the best drone you've ever flown, but what are you comparing it to?

I get the convenience of having ProRes but what does the image quality look like compared to the H265 recorded on the SD card?

I have personally owned a Phantom 4, a Phantom 4 Pro+, an Air 2S and now the Mavic 3 Cine. I've also worked with an Inspire, an Inspire 2 with a Zenmuse X5 camera, and a Mavic 2 Pro. Those are what I'm comparing my experience of the M3C to.

To answer your second question, the ProRes HQ to me retains more detail thanks to its higher bitrates. That's the thing that stands out to me the most.

When you are shooting a static scene, or maybe a scene that's not very complex, I don't think you would really notice the difference between H.265 or ProRes HQ in the M3C. But when you start adding a lot of movement to a shot or when you are shooting a scene that's complex and full of fine details, that's where the ProRes HQ starts to edge out the H.265.

Think about shooting an interview with a Sony FX6 with say a 50mm lens shot at f/2 where the subject is really the only thing in focus. That scene isn't going to be very complex and as such it wouldn't really matter if you shot in XAVC-I, XAVC-L or even some sort of H.265 format (if the FX6 had that as an option). Outside of possibly wanting 10-bit color to push a grade, you really don't need a thick codec for a shallow depth of field interview, nor do you need high bitrates. You can even export that interview to a small file when you're finished with the edit because it doesn't require a lot of information to retain what's there.

On the other hand when you are sending a drone into the sky and are shooting complex scenes that are rich in detail, say a field filled with grass and trees that are full of leaves, or maybe a cityscape where there's buildings, windows, bridges, cars, and fine edges everywhere, that scene is going to require a thicker and richer codec to handle everything that's being captured, especially because you're using a wide lens with a deep depth of field that's focusing really on everything.

Previous DJI consumer drones often looked mushy in these circumstances, especially when adding fast drone flights or a lot of camera movement. This is because they capped out at smaller bitrates shooting to H.264, then eventually to H.265 when that was eventually added. Now when you bring ProRes HQ to the mix, that changes things. ProRes HQ is so thick and has such a high bitrate that it can handle those details and complex scenes way better. You may not notice this as much on YouTube where files are compressed or where people are showing off side by side examples of static drone shots. But if you're actually working with the file yourself in post and are using an everyday shot with movement and complex or detailed scenes, you will start to notice the difference.

Perhaps that difference isn't with $5,000 to everyone and I totally get that, but at that point it comes down to you, your preference, your clients and the types of projects you're shooting. For me it was worth it, especially once you add everything else that it comes with, not to mention the easier to edit experience you get when working with ProRes files.

 

[Liam Hall]

I have personally owned a Phantom 4, a Phantom 4 Pro+, an Air 2S and now the Mavic 3 Cine. I've also worked with an Inspire, an Inspire 2 with a Zenmuse X5 camera, and a Mavic 2 Pro. Those are what I'm comparing my experience of the M3C to.

To answer your second question, the ProRes HQ to me retains more detail thanks to its higher bitrates. That's the thing that stands out to me the most.

When you are shooting a static scene, or maybe a scene that's not very complex, I don't think you would really notice the difference between H.265 or ProRes HQ in the M3C. But when you start adding a lot of movement to a shot or when you are shooting a scene that's complex and full of fine details, that's where the ProRes HQ starts to edge out the H.265.

Think about shooting an interview with a Sony FX6 with say a 50mm lens shot at f/2 where the subject is really the only thing in focus. That scene isn't going to be very complex and as such it wouldn't really matter if you shot in XAVC-I, XAVC-L or even some sort of H.265 format (if the FX6 had that as an option). Outside of possibly wanting 10-bit color to push a grade, you really don't need a thick codec for a shallow depth of field interview, nor do you need high bitrates. You can even export that interview to a small file when you're finished with the edit because it doesn't require a lot of information to retain what's there.

On the other hand when you are sending a drone into the sky and are shooting complex scenes that are rich in detail, say a field filled with grass and trees that are full of leaves, or maybe a cityscape where there's buildings, windows, bridges, cars, and fine edges everywhere, that scene is going to require a thicker and richer codec to handle everything that's being captured, especially because you're using a wide lens with a deep depth of field that's focusing really on everything.

Previous DJI consumer drones often looked mushy in these circumstances, especially when adding fast drone flights or a lot of camera movement. This is because they capped out at smaller bitrates shooting to H.264, then eventually to H.265 when that was eventually added. Now when you bring ProRes HQ to the mix, that changes things. ProRes HQ is so thick and has such a high bitrate that it can handle those details and complex scenes way better. You may not notice this as much on YouTube where files are compressed or where people are showing off side by side examples of static drone shots. But if you're actually working with the file yourself in post and are using an everyday shot with movement and complex or detailed scenes, you will start to notice the difference.

Perhaps that difference isn't with $5,000 to everyone and I totally get that, but at that point it comes down to you, your preference, your clients and the types of projects you're shooting. For me it was worth it, especially once you add everything else that it comes with, not to mention the easier to edit experience you get when working with ProRes files.

Thanks Joshua. Great reply.

 

[David Saraceno]

Thanks for the continuing updates Josh. They are appreciated.

 

[ozmorphasis]

I have personally owned a Phantom 4, a Phantom 4 Pro+, an Air 2S and now the Mavic 3 Cine. I've also worked with an Inspire, an Inspire 2 with a Zenmuse X5 camera, and a Mavic 2 Pro. Those are what I'm comparing my experience of the M3C to.

To answer your second question, the ProRes HQ to me retains more detail thanks to its higher bitrates. That's the thing that stands out to me the most.

When you are shooting a static scene, or maybe a scene that's not very complex, I don't think you would really notice the difference between H.265 or ProRes HQ in the M3C. But when you start adding a lot of movement to a shot or when you are shooting a scene that's complex and full of fine details, that's where the ProRes HQ starts to edge out the H.265.

Think about shooting an interview with a Sony FX6 with say a 50mm lens shot at f/2 where the subject is really the only thing in focus. That scene isn't going to be very complex and as such it wouldn't really matter if you shot in XAVC-I, XAVC-L or even some sort of H.265 format (if the FX6 had that as an option). Outside of possibly wanting 10-bit color to push a grade, you really don't need a thick codec for a shallow depth of field interview, nor do you need high bitrates. You can even export that interview to a small file when you're finished with the edit because it doesn't require a lot of information to retain what's there.

On the other hand when you are sending a drone into the sky and are shooting complex scenes that are rich in detail, say a field filled with grass and trees that are full of leaves, or maybe a cityscape where there's buildings, windows, bridges, cars, and fine edges everywhere, that scene is going to require a thicker and richer codec to handle everything that's being captured, especially because you're using a wide lens with a deep depth of field that's focusing really on everything.

Previous DJI consumer drones often looked mushy in these circumstances, especially when adding fast drone flights or a lot of camera movement. This is because they capped out at smaller bitrates shooting to H.264, then eventually to H.265 when that was eventually added. Now when you bring ProRes HQ to the mix, that changes things. ProRes HQ is so thick and has such a high bitrate that it can handle those details and complex scenes way better. You may not notice this as much on YouTube where files are compressed or where people are showing off side by side examples of static drone shots. But if you're actually working with the file yourself in post and are using an everyday shot with movement and complex or detailed scenes, you will start to notice the difference.

Perhaps that difference isn't with $5,000 to everyone and I totally get that, but at that point it comes down to you, your preference, your clients and the types of projects you're shooting. For me it was worth it, especially once you add everything else that it comes with, not to mention the easier to edit experience you get when working with ProRes files.

Hi Josh,

Thanks for all of these posts.

This is a big ask, so just ignore if you're not interested:

I'd love to be able to compare the two files (H265/prores HQ) with a similar moving shot. Someone posted footage for download that I was able to compare and it was useful, but they were more or less static shots. I pixel peeped the hell out of those files and pushed the grade around. The Prores had a noticeable magenta bias compared to the H265 (or could say the reverse), but detail was not noticeably better in the Prores footage. HOWEVER, these were very static shots. I totally I agree with what you've said about trees and such turning to mush during movement on previous DJI Prosumer/consumer drones and that low data rates are the main culprit for those moving shot issues, whether because of camera movement or movement in the scene (water ripples, rivers, etc).

I'm sure someone will post this type of comparison soon, so no worries if you don't have the time/interest to do it. Your early posts have been helpful to read nonetheless.

Cheers,
O

 

[David Saraceno]

Love to see this as well. The Billy Kyle and The Verge footage which compares h.265 and pro res are static video shots and the moving footage is shot at night. Haven't seen anything available that has demonstrable movement and in the daytime.

 

[Clermond]

I understand what you're saying here. The width is definitely a personal thing as I myself like the 24mm look a lot, but I get why others may not.

As for the 1:1 pixel crop mode, I have not seen that option in the M3C. But, because ProRes HQ retains detail so well, I find that this is the first DJI drone that I feel comfortable cropping into.
.
.

the difference of 24mm and 28mm is big. It sounds only 4mm but it's 74 degree vs 65 degree horizontal angle.

At the M2P the crop isn't just a crop. DJI calls it HQ mode which means it's 1:1 of 3840 x 2160 pixels crop while the 4K full sensor is a downsampled mode. The HQ mode is fantastic not only because the image quality but also as the angle of about 42 degrees is very close to the human eye.

And for stills 28mm is already too short

 

[jb.]

So, I've had my Mavic 3 (non-Cine) for about a week. I also have a colleague who bought the Cine version, so we did a little comparison. I need to get his permission to post his footage, but I have to say... the ProRes footage doesn't have much more detail over the H.265 footage. To my eye, on my monitors, it looks roughly the same (hard to tell 100% because we're not dealing with 1:1 comparisons of the same footage recorded differently). We couldn't figure out how to record both H.265 and ProRes at the same time.

ProRes footage is obviously much much larger and faster to edit (though my M1 Max MacBook Pro has zero problems cutting H.265 smoothly in Final Cut Pro)... but the workflow is comically bad. Even with the DJI cable downloading to the internal SSD on my MacBook Pro (which writes at like 6GB/s) it took a long time to download even the limited amount of footage we shot. I can't imagine how miserable it'd be to download a nearly full Mavic 3 in the field. The drone also has to be on and runs off of battery power... so make sure you keep at least one battery in reserve to download footage at the end of the day.

I don't think the Cine is super overpriced, but it definitely has its warts... and unless you need the editing speed (which is somewhat negated by the slow downloads) the ProRes isn't exactly a smooth experience for what appeared to me to be negligible quality increase.

I figure if someone wants ProRes from me, they'll be paying me enough to buy a Cine... so I'll just buy it then.

 

[ahalpert]

ProRes footage is obviously much much larger and faster to edit (though my M1 Max MacBook Pro has zero problems cutting H.265 smoothly in Final Cut Pro)... but the workflow is comically bad. Even with the DJI cable downloading to the internal SSD on my MacBook Pro (which writes at like 6GB/s) it took a long time to download even the limited amount of footage we shot. I can't imagine how miserable it'd be to download a nearly full Mavic 3 in the field. The drone also has to be on and runs off of battery power... so make sure you keep at least one battery in reserve to download footage at the end of the day.

that's insanely stupid. medieval even

 

[David Saraceno]

It would be interesting if someone compared the value among the Mavic Air 2S (10-bit D-Log, 5K, one inch sensor, but fixed aperture) at $1,000.00 versus the Mavic 3 Basic ($2199.00), and Mavic 3 Cine ($4999.00). Different demographic to be sure, and it depends what the intended use is.

 

[jb.]

I had an Air 2s and have an Autel EVO II Pro 6K. For a lot of people, the Air 2s is going to be a killer package that gets great footage. The Mavic 3 and Autel are both superior though.

I'd give the M3 the edge over the EVO in raw image quality, but right now the Autel flies better and the footage is really close to the M3. I'm hoping they smooth out some of the rough spots on the M3 with the January firmware update that'll bring all the promised features.