Mavic 3 - Minimum fly/hover altitude

[Abedin Abedin]

Hello all,

I am new to the forum and would like to thank the admin for allowing me to join the community.
I am planning on getting the Mavic 3 classic for some aerial photography. I am also planning to do low level photography with it, which brings me to the question:
Does anyone know what is the minimum altitude you can fly the drone at before landing kicks in? That is, can you fly/hover 10cm or 20cm above ground or will it land past some altitude (say 50cm) if you push back on the left stick? Or more to the point, can you fly/hover 10-20cm above water? I've checked the manual but I couldn't find that information anywhere, not even on the web. Anyone knows the answer?
Your help will be very much appreciated.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

This may answer your question, but if you stop for to long , you may get the drone to start landing.

This goes for both the Mavic 2 and Mavic 3 you can fly extremely low.

Gear to fly in the Rain, Land on the Water.
Phantomrain.org

 

[Abedin Abedin]

Thank you so much for your quick reply and for sending that video! Do you know if there is a setting in the DJY Fly app for it to be able to fly that low? I thought with all the safety measures, DJI wouldn't allow you fly that low by default. The lowest I have see a Mivic to fly is about a foot or two above ground. Was just curious if one could fly lower than that. It is difficult to judge the altitude from the video but I'll take your word on that

 

[Phantomrain.org]

No setting needed, , the Rescue Jacket allows me a much better Visual .

Meaning I would never be able to fly as low to the ground without the visual aid of the Rescue Jacket .

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain. Land on the Water.

 

[Meta4]

Does anyone know what is the minimum altitude you can fly the drone at before landing kicks in?

If you go into the settings, you can disable the downward sensors.
When you do that, the drone won't know how close you are to whatever is below it.

Or more to the point, can you fly/hover 10-20cm above water?

You can, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to or that it's safe to do it.
Flying close to obstacles is risky and the ground or water is a big obstacle.
If you switch off the downward sensors, the drone cannot maintain height precisely.
According to the specs Vertical Hovering Accuracy Range without the downward sensors is ±0.5 m.

Other factors that could contribute to the risks associated with what you are asking about:
If the water surface is not flat, calm, you would need to allow for waves catching the drone.
If you rely on the view from the camera to maintain distance above the water, beware that the wideangle lens makes objects appear further away than they actually are.
You would think the drone is at a safer distance from the water than it really is.The drone

 

[Abedin Abedin]

@Meta4 Thank you so much for the thorough explanation. Yes, it sounds like disabling the downward sensors is not a good idea if flying very close to the ground, given the Vertical Hovering Accuracy +/- 0.5 m. For example, if I am planning to hover 15 cm above ground (not water), the drone could be bouncing up and down by 0.5 m and eventually hit the surface. I've been reading on the topic and it turns out if downward sensors are disabled, the drone will only rely on GNSS for positioning. And I believe the GNSS vertical positioning is not as precise as the lateral.
Anyways, thank you so much for all your help and advice!

 

[Infide1]

Out of curiosity, what kind of photos are you trying to take so close to the ground?

 

[Abedin Abedin]

@Infide1 Thank you for your message. I do landscape photography, but sometimes I need to shoot really very low to use the lens distortion in my advantage. Take the following example: I shot this image with a DSLR but I had to get in the water to get really close to the waves. That water was freezing I thought perhaps I can achieve this with a drone, without having to get in the freezing cold water. In this example my lens is about 15 cm from the surface of the water

 

[Meta4]

it turns out if downward sensors are disabled, the drone will only rely on GNSS for positioning.

Your drone uses GNSS for horizontal position holding, but uses a barometric sensor for height.

 

[Zbip57]

Does anyone know what is the minimum altitude you can fly the drone at before landing kicks in? That is, can you fly/hover 10cm or 20cm above ground or will it land past some altitude (say 50cm) if you push back on the left stick?

I don't have a Mavic 3, but I did a little video with my Mini demonstrating the difference when the downward IR sensors are turned off.

With the sensors on, the Mini will not descend closer than ~0.5m to the ground or any obstacle detected below it. If you hold only slightly down stick, the Mini will descend until getting to 0.5m of the ground, but no closer. Once that close, if you then hold the throttle stick fully down (or more than 85% down), that triggers auto-landing and the Mini will smoothly land itself.

The DJI Fly app for the Mini does not provide an option for disabling the downward sensors, but it can be done via the Litchi app.

With the InfraRed downward sensors disabled (Landing Protection off), nothing prevents you from flying the Mini into the ground (or into the water). It will descend as low as you want it to go. At that point, altitude is controlled only by the barometric altimeter, and by your reflexes working the throttle stick.

A note of caution. If you're used to holding the throttle full down to initiate auto-landing, DON'T do that whenever the IR sensors are disabled. Full down on the throttle shuts the motors to idle and the drone will drop like a stone! With the IR sensors disabled you need to manually land the drone using gentle throttle inputs.

 

[Abedin Abedin]

@Zbip57 Thank you so much for sending this video. Not only is this video the best explanation to my question by far but also the best demonstration. I really do appreciate your help! Thank you once again!