Done a fair few flights now testing the Mini 3.
Previous drones Mavic 1 Pro and still use Mavic 2 pro for reference.
A few comments:-
A few issues i've encountered randomly:-
At the moment by only real gripe is with the Fly App. It just removes all the control and fine tuning im used to. I can't see my exactly IMU and compass readouts to determine if they're acceptable, i've lost a lot of my manual control over sharpness, contrast and so on and basically everything is a frustrating dumbing down of Go4.
Still waiting for Fly More to actually exist to buy and proper filters to experiment further. But for a A1 sub250g drone it seems good so far.
Previous drones Mavic 1 Pro and still use Mavic 2 pro for reference.
A few comments:-
- Auto panorama modes ONLY work in landscape format not portrait. This is a shame
- 360 panos don't use anything like the full angle of gimbal so still end up with lots of missing sky
- The 3x3 pano if the gimbal isn't centred produces very slanted side images. These are near impossible to stitch in software without a very curved final image
- Workaround:- centre gimbal before using OR use the 180 degree and crop OR just shoot manually
- Quick Transfer mode works well at about 25MB/sec although it does slow for periods of time and complain about interference even when its literally the only transmitter in several miles
- It does NOT have precision landing
- I've created a proper, accurate colour profile for the drone using a Colour checker. The 12mp and 48mp colour rendition are identical but the new profiles are roughly 2/3 of a stop brighter than the default
- Be very careful with autofocus before starting filming OR use manual and focus peaking - the f/1.7 lens leaves no real room for error in getting sharp focus
- Signal. It seems VERY susceptible to being blocked by foliage than Occusync 2. I've had a few RTHs initiate at 200m distance due to trees. The device is *very* sensitive to keeping the controller directed at it whilst in flight. Far more than my Occusync 2 drones. At 900m i had zero signal RTH vs a full signal simply twisting a few degrees on the RC.
- USB-C charging works fine. It pulls 28.7W initially reducing to about 6 before fully charged. Takes under an hour to go again on my power bank
- Gimbal cover is a pain in the neck to fit
- Severe ND filters will be needed for 180 rule video. ND64s,128 or 256 most likely due to the f/1.7 lens. You wont get away with your 8s or 16s on this drone
- Getting 20-23 minutes flight time for my normal types of shots
- The 48MP bayer filter images significantly lack sharpness compared to the 12mp and exhibit more noise. *HOWEVER* the biggest issue for me are the huge colour shifts likely as an error in the de-bayering. This causes most bright, high contrast details to colour shift towards purple or yellow. Its not chromatic aberration:
A few issues i've encountered randomly:-
- When operating with a bright, low angle sun on RTH ive had it stop due to "upward obstacle detected". Interesting given it hasnt GOT upward sensors. Maybe a Fly app issue.
- On one flight after taking a normal pano the entire screen went red with no image visible (telemetry and control was OK). Had to bring the drone home, land, power cycle and it was fine again.
At the moment by only real gripe is with the Fly App. It just removes all the control and fine tuning im used to. I can't see my exactly IMU and compass readouts to determine if they're acceptable, i've lost a lot of my manual control over sharpness, contrast and so on and basically everything is a frustrating dumbing down of Go4.
Still waiting for Fly More to actually exist to buy and proper filters to experiment further. But for a A1 sub250g drone it seems good so far.