Early shots

AlanLichty

Moderator
In spite of the endless public forum noise I decided to take the plunge and bought a Mavic 3. I got it last Monday and of course we have had lousy weather every day since so flying time has been limited. I did take advantage of that and took a lot of images in a desktop to get acquainted with the camera and the controls that differ from my Mavic Air 2. Its hard to not be impressed with the camera system compared to the Air 2 which had no useful camera controls to speak of along with its incredibly limited dynamic range and dirty pixels.

I wasn't prepared for what the second camera on the Mavic 3 could really do. The lens on the second camera is 161mm and has 7X magnification compared to the primary camera with a 24mm lens. The jump between the two cameras is huge. The shots below are from directly over my house taken earlier this week when we had snow on the ground. The first is from the primary camera looking south over Vancouver Lake with the crane towers of one of Portland's container ship docks barely visible in the distance just to the left of center.

M3-1X-Port.jpg


This is a shot with the secondary camera from the same hovering location centered on the crane towers at 7X.

M3-7X-Port.jpg


Neither of these images are straight out of the camera - both have been fully processed in LR/PS.

The camera controls have a slider for zoom that is continuous from 1X up to 28X although everything except for 1X and 7X are digital zooms which I will basically ignore and stick to optical zoom only. I could have used the 7X camera last month along the southern Oregon coast around all of the little coves and inlets and fully intend to revisit a lot of those places with the M3.

Running the most recent firmware and using the basic RC-N1 controller I have not had any issues with GPS that leave me concerned about the device at the moment. I don't use or rely on Return to Home to end my flights and don't shoot video so for me it's all about getting the drone out to where I want to shoot still images from. My tests so far have been quite positive for how I intend to use it.
 

AlanLichty

Moderator
Congrats Alan. With being on the road, I didn’t see this one until this afternoon.
Thanks Jim - I haven't gone out of my way to post anything from this device until now since I wanted a better handle on how to best process the outputs. I am still working on presets for each of the sensors on this drone.
 

pepper

Well-Known Member
congrats on the new drone! nice shots. that zoom lens is pretty nice, much better than the internet gives it credit for.
i got my mavic 3 today. i opted to get the rc pro controller since we've had so many connectivity issues with the mavic 3 and ipads at work.
 

AlanLichty

Moderator
congrats on the new drone! nice shots. that zoom lens is pretty nice, much better than the internet gives it credit for.
i got my mavic 3 today. i opted to get the rc pro controller since we've had so many connectivity issues with the mavic 3 and ipads at work.
I'm jealous of your controller. I am hoping that DJI comes through with the upgrades they posted for the Second Q of 2022 where we could get better access to the 7X sensor: RAW output and full camera control :)

I have had some issues with white balance with less than perfect light while using the 162mm lens and it can be hard to correct with jpeg outputs. RAW would help.
 

pepper

Well-Known Member
I'm jealous of your controller. I am hoping that DJI comes through with the upgrades they posted for the Second Q of 2022 where we could get better access to the 7X sensor: RAW output and full camera control :)

I have had some issues with white balance with less than perfect light while using the 162mm lens and it can be hard to correct with jpeg outputs. RAW would help.
raw on the zoom lens would be fantastic. the wb is a bit off on the jpg files. it goes crazy when there's emergency lights flashing on the scene.

i thought the rc pro was an overpriced gimmick. but once i started using it at work i realized it was really nice. i didn't get the cine package, so i bought the rc pro separately and still saved over $1k.

the m 4/3 sensor makes a big difference, especially at night. it's still probably not usable from an artistic standpoint, but at work we don't get a choice of when we're shooting.
 

AlanLichty

Moderator
raw on the zoom lens would be fantastic. the wb is a bit off on the jpg files. it goes crazy when there's emergency lights flashing on the scene.

i thought the rc pro was an overpriced gimmick. but once i started using it at work i realized it was really nice. i didn't get the cine package, so i bought the rc pro separately and still saved over $1k.

the m 4/3 sensor makes a big difference, especially at night. it's still probably not usable from an artistic standpoint, but at work we don't get a choice of when we're shooting.
The 161mm lens has given me some fits in low light but it's still much better than the 1/2" sensor in the Air 2. That sensor is a disaster in low light. I have been very happy with the 4/3 sensor.
 
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