New DJI Mavic Mini- No FAA registration required

F

firehawk

Veteran
https://www.dji.com/mavic-mini

https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/30/20938530/dji-mavic-mini-price-specs-faa-ultra-light-combo-pack

This is pretty exciting as "The Mavic Mini is DJI’s first drone that doesn’t need FAA registration" since it falls below the weight requirement.
The ever tightening hassle of getting airspace clearance to legally operate a drone in the USA for licensed small UAS pilots makes this little thing very interesting.
1080 60P
2.7K 30P
3 axis gimbal
1/2.3-inch sensor
$399

I wonder how this will affect the industry now putting drones accessible to anyone without need of certification or even registration. This now means any consumer can be a drone pilot and all the real estate companies illegally flying can now just buy this and be legal. It also means all the production companies who didn't have a licensed drone pilot can easily get into the game and be some sort of competition to those with licensed drone pilots.

Or will it make any difference at all?
Many of the companies I know, including the biggest one in town, just fly illegally anyway. And I don't see a Mavic Mini being able to compete with an Inspire Pro or even a Phantom 4 Pro.....but as we have seen in the last decade, clients often now will choose super cheap over better quality and view it as "good enough" so the kid offering cheapo drone work may undercut the production house. Plus now clients can just buy a Mavic Mini and do their own aerial shots legally in-house without need of a Part 107 Pilot.
 
I wish they had made this with just a bit better specs, say 80Mbps at 2.7K and a manually controllable shutter? Even if it was $600-$700.00, I'd get one.
The dealbreaker is the shutter, without controlling it, any horizon near the sun will always be blown out, regardless of the ND you're using.

I'll just keep using our old Mavic Pro, it's okay other than the noise but Neat Video makes it usable.
 
Very interested in the form factor, I think this will be a gen 2 product for me for travelling. The video/IQ specs just aren't there yet. Undoubtedly, current Mavic 2 quality video will come to this as tech evolution allows, and at that point, I think it will be more than "good enough" given what the small size allows for.

That is until all the regulations are updated as a result of this, and it's no longer considered a toy...
 
I love the ratio of footage shot with a real camera vs actual mavic mini footage in the promo video. If that's not a clear sign of what the company itself thinks of the IQ (not great), I don't know what is.

Agree with you guys above, it's so tempting because it can just literally live in your bag or car at all times, but the IQ is just not there. Looking forward to the v2.
 
A falsehood in the original post really really needs correcting.

This drone is sub-250g and as such does not require registration if you are flying under the special rule for model aircraft. That means for pure enjoyment or hobby purposes only.

If you are flying for a commercial purpose or even in the furtherance of a commercial purpose, you are still required to get a Part 107 sUAS Remote Pilot Certificate and register this drone under the requirements of Part 107.

https://twitter.com/FAANews/status/1189976727922982912
 
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I look forward to the day when we have Inspire 2 ProRes or RAW image quality in these small drones. Drones are getting easier and easier to fly without training and skillset, so I'm personally looking forward to not needing to hire drone operators for something that is getting increasingly easy to do on one's own.

As it is right now, I still avoid buying a drone because the good ones are too much money ($10k) for someone who is not a freelance drone op, and the cheap ones don't match the image quality of a high end ground camera.


jbregar said:
A falsehood in the original post really really needs correcting.

This drone is sub-250g and as such does not require registration if you are flying under the special rule for model aircraft. That means for pure enjoyment or hobby purposes only.

If you are flying for a commercial purpose or even in the furtherance of a commercial purpose, you are still required to get a Part 107 sUAS Remote Pilot Certificate and register this drone under the requirements of Part 107.

https://twitter.com/FAANews/status/1189976727922982912
Click to expand...
How could the FAA or the law or whoever is fining or arresting or whatevering someone prove that someone was flying for commercial purposes? Say I'm on some big commercial shoot with a bajillion person crew, I pull out my Mavic Mini, start shooting some footage, then the drone police show up, and I tell them my wife asked me to grab some shots for her hobbyist montage video she's making (I'm not married but who are the FAA to decide what my imaginary wife does or doesn't say?). I'm unclear on how anyone can prove my purpose for a flight was for commercial use.
 
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Eric Coughlin said:
How could the FAA or the law or whoever is fining or arresting or whatevering someone prove that someone was flying for commercial purposes? Say I'm on some big commercial shoot with a bajillion person crew, I pull out my Mavic Mini, start shooting some footage, then the drone police show up, and I tell them my wife asked me to grab some shots for her hobbyist montage video she's making (I'm not married but who are the FAA to decide what my imaginary wife does or doesn't say?). I'm unclear on how anyone can prove my purpose for a flight was for commercial use.
Click to expand...

*Disclaimer* I am not the ‘law’ or the ‘FAA or whoever is fining or
arresting or whatever.’ I am merely someone who decided to get
my 107 as I mostly do ‘one man band’ productions for my clients
and wanted to be able to include drone footage. Our local
FAA office held a sort of ‘drone symposium’ which I attended.
This very question was asked of the FAA several times ie how
could you prove *commercial intent*. First, he acknowledged
that intent at the time of flight was the determining factor....
which sounds like a huge loophole. ‘I was just flying for
personal enjoyment but later decided to sell the images/footage’
type idea. But he then used a certain phrase about 10
times....unfortunately I forget the exact phrasing, despite
his repetition. But it was something to the effect of ‘if a
reasonable person would conclude that this was probably
commercially intended activity’ that they would go after
the offender. Maybe the ‘reasonable person’ he was talking
about was a judge, or maybe it was him. I’m not sure.
When pressed on this point (and he was repeatedly asked
to clarify) he simply repeated his phrasing. Which to me
indicated a certain willingness (if not preference) to leaving
it somewhat ambiguous so as to give themselves some
flexibility in prosecuting these cases. I went away from
the meeting happy that I had decided to go ahead and
get the 107 just so I wouldn’t have to deal with this murky,
uncertain issue.
 
Drones are pretty much useless here in NYC. I think there's, like, two parks that allow them here and even then there are some strict laws that you have to adhere to...
 
The FAA preferred action so far is to educate rather than prosecute*. There has been a small number of actions against operators. In the three year period from 2015-18 - "Of the 98 completed actions, 51 involved the assessment of civil penalties, 44 resulted in administrative actions, and 3 resulted in the suspension or revocation of UAS remote pilots’ certificates, according to the data FAA provided. During this time frame, FAA levied civil penalties ranging from $250 to $55,000.". They depend mostly on local law enforcement to deal with drones. https://www.gao.gov/reports/GAO-20-29/

*"In 2015, FAA shifted the agency’s compliance focus from legal enforcement to education and introduced an approach referred to as the Compliance Philosophy. Rather than taking legal enforcement action as an automatic first step to address noncompliance, FAA now educates offenders and allows them to take steps to redress a noncompliance finding in certain situations. As of October 2018, FAA began using the term “Compliance Program” to describe this approach."
 
I think I'm in the market for someone who would buy a drone like this. I've never used one before for some reason, so I just think it'd be fun. I'm not so concerned about image quality.
 
scorsesefan said:
Drones are pretty much useless here in NYC. I think there's, like, two parks that allow them here and even then there are some strict laws that you have to adhere to...
Click to expand...

Same here in Spain: from where I live, I'd have to drive at least 50 km to get to a spot where I could fly a drone legally, even if it is under 250g and for recreational purposes. That's insane: drones are not THAT dangerous. And if avoiding accidents was actually the point, we would ban cars first, since they actually kill a lot of people every year.

If it wasn't for these stupid rules, I would definitely buy one.
 
jbregar said:
A falsehood in the original post really really needs correcting.

This drone is sub-250g and as such does not require registration if you are flying under the special rule for model aircraft. That means for pure enjoyment or hobby purposes only.

If you are flying for a commercial purpose or even in the furtherance of a commercial purpose, you are still required to get a Part 107 sUAS Remote Pilot Certificate and register this drone under the requirements of Part 107.

https://twitter.com/FAANews/status/1189976727922982912
Click to expand...

Being a pessimist, and seeing what other countries are already revising, this will eventually need to be registered and the user will need to complete the flight training that all hobby fliers are now required to complete (unless I'm not up to date on the FAA rules from this summer). The situation is such that I haven't even flown (for hobby) in a long time, too many paranoid people out there calling the police.
 
firehawk said:
I wonder how this will affect the industry now putting drones accessible to anyone without need of certification or even registration. This now means any consumer can be a drone pilot and all the real estate companies illegally flying can now just buy this and be legal.
Click to expand...

No, it doesn't. They still have to have a Part 107 license to fly commercially, though if the drone isn't registered it would be easier to skirt that regulation.
 
The only thing that will stop the real estate brokers from flying illegally will be cheap rates from legal pilots, and I mean really cheap rates for most of the common person properties. Big commercial and million dollar estates can still have enough room for regular rates (but why if the rate has dropped or they haven't been heavily fined yet?). The cost of decent machines has been low enough for several years that realty people could buy something "good enough" for $400 refurbished or used. I bought my Yuneec Q500 4k for around $350 "refurbished" a couple years ago, it would be more than good enough for realty photos/video. And with the "easy mode" pretty much anyone can fly it and get some kinds of results, especially if you only need stills for a basic listing.

Also, not sure if everyone knows this, but a lot of colleges are offering drone classes now (in the USA), expect the first big set of graduating classes of licensed people this spring. The market will soon be flooded by people that are happy to take $25 or $30 and hour for this type of work with the Mavic or Q500. Also some 9-12 schools are offering classes for the same thing.
 
Greg_E said:
The only thing that will stop the real estate brokers from flying illegally will be cheap rates from legal pilots, and I mean really cheap rates for most of the common person properties. Big commercial and million dollar estates can still have enough room for regular rates (but why if the rate has dropped or they haven't been heavily fined yet?). The cost of decent machines has been low enough for several years that realty people could buy something "good enough" for $400 refurbished or used. I bought my Yuneec Q500 4k for around $350 "refurbished" a couple years ago, it would be more than good enough for realty photos/video. And with the "easy mode" pretty much anyone can fly it and get some kinds of results, especially if you only need stills for a basic listing.

Also, not sure if everyone knows this, but a lot of colleges are offering drone classes now (in the USA), expect the first big set of graduating classes of licensed people this spring. The market will soon be flooded by people that are happy to take $25 or $30 and hour for this type of work with the Mavic or Q500. Also some 9-12 schools are offering classes for the same thing.
Click to expand...

So basically exactly like has already happened with the video industry in general. Any hack has access to cheap cameras, computers and free software these days. So any and everybody is a video producer or DP.

People who used to be video clients in several sides of the industry, now just buy their own gear and do it themselves. Youtube is full of tutorials teaching you how to be a cookie cutter video maker too.

I never did weddings but I know that with cell phones, many are just getting the guests to shoot they own video and supply to the party or have their uncle use his DSLR to shoot. And who can blame them? I have seen some horrible hacked cookie cutter wedding videos, which didn't look any better than if filmed by the uncle.

Cheap gear has brought the whole industry down. It has brought the quality of the work down. It has brought prices down. There is no turning back and it will only get worse. Soon this won't be a sustainable way of making a living anymore.
 
Sttratos said:
Cheap gear has brought the whole industry down. It has brought the quality of the work down. It has brought prices down. There is no turning back and it will only get worse. Soon this won't be a sustainable way of making a living anymore.
Click to expand...

The entire creative digital industry has been responsible for this quality downgrade. I used to be a graphic designer and typesetter back in the day when it would take days or even weeks to produce a 4-color ad at a high cost and decent profit margin. Gone, or largely gone, are press proofs, A-color printing, 4x5 color transparencies, high quality scans, keylines, overlays, progs, etc... Now a 4-color ad can be produced in minutes with a cheap laptop and a low-cost digital camera that is of "acceptable" quality, especially vis-a-vis the price savings. The industry fallout over the decades has been huge and has forced a lot of photographers, film houses, typesetting shops, printers and creative agencies out of business as the margins just aren't there to sustain a stand-alone business. Hell, most mid-size and larger companies have in-house capabilities that render most agencies and video production houses obsolete.

Conversely, there are quality improvements that keep coming in the digital arena and it's been fascinating to witness these breakthroughs. With specific regard to video, we like to complain about "poor" dynamic range, 30-minute recording limits and lack of bit-depth, but the vast majority of today's cameras are absolutely phenomenal compared with the old beta-cams we used to use back in the 80's and, IMHO, this is often true even in the hands of those with little experience.

Interesting times! As one who has gone through many of these changes over the years, one immutable law seems prevalent to me: Remaining relevant as an Indy will become increasingly difficult over time.
 
Firstbase said:
Conversely, there are quality improvements that keep coming in the digital arena and it's been fascinating to witness these breakthroughs.
Click to expand...

Particularly since the quality of the end product has, if anything, gotten worse overall.

As the technology has improved, the standards have degraded...
 
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