Questions before purchase ( 1080p/60FPS ... )

[Nerwesta]

Hello guys , this is my first message on this forum since I just registered after being on PhantomPilots for a while now.

So I'm looking forward to buy a new drone , I really enjoyed my first one which was a small Phantom 3.
However I was not completely happy about it , the bird was my first attempt to join the wonderful realm of the drone pilots and to do so I choosed the Standard edition.

What a mess , the RC was using a simple Wifi signal with a lot of interfences and loss of signals , which was very stressful at first, and completely boring after that, like I was flying a **** toy.
I think DJI stopped to sell the P3S and launched the P3 SE because of those RC issues.
I was not completely happy about the camera and the footage quality either , but I was excepting that so it wasnt a surprise here.

After hesitating between the P4 Advanced and the Mavic Pro ( Platinum or Not ) I finally choosed to stick on the seconde choice.

Why that ? Mainly because of the portability , I'm a motorcycle driver and managed to buy on Amazon a bag for my P3S , but it was very big and not very suitable while driving.
It was just OK.
I really like the portability in the case I would travel and bring the drone with me to take some footages, it suits on a backpack so it's awesome.


In the other hand , I don't want to buy something blindly like I did with the P3S and notice after a couple of days that I'm terribly dissapointed on some features or what.

I noticed that the Mavic isnt managing correctly the 60fps or above feature.
The problem is all the topics i've read are pretty old now , so I really don't know if DJI updated the firmware or managed to fix the issue with the Mavic Platinum, any toughts on that ?

I've read on some topics ( it's been like 4 days I'm reading the topics here like a god **** detective ) that you guys don't need a drone to capture on 60FPS because the main goal is to capture pretty good landscapes footages.

Excuse me ? As far as I know when I was capturing with my P3S the coasts and beaches with some waves and a couple of surfers there , I was far from being happy to be blocked on 1080p/30fps ( If I wanted to take smooth action footages , I was forced to switch on 720p/60fps or above )
So I can't imagine how it would look if I was attempting to capture some motorcycles on a ride , or something like that.
No no .. the 60FPS are very important for me, for slow-motion , smoothless and stuff.


To conclude that ,I'm seriously hesitating now , the P4 Advanced is a good aircraft but I was excepting the Mavic to at least do very well what I couldnt have with my P3Standard ( 1080p / 60 FPS and good RC Signal )
Since I don't have any 4k devices at home, I'm mainly looking forward to make some FULL HD footages, nothing fancy but with some requirements.

Thanks for reading and sorry for my bad english


Nerwesta

 

[Mr. Salty]

It's my understanding the camera hardware that was a problem for 1080p 60fps has been corrected on the Mavic Pro Platinum.

That said, the Phantom 4 Advanced has a much better camera, with a 1-inch imaging sensor.

 

[Plawa]

I use my Mavic mostly for motorcycle videos, I shoot all my GoPro videos in 1080p/60fps so I was pretty disappointed when I saw the aliasing that the Mavic suffers from.. but I can also tell you that I would not have any of my bike videos if I bought the Phantom because I would never carry it with me..

So for me the portability of the Mavic is a more important feature than the 60fps. I have not seen any hard evidence of this being fixed in the Platinum version (doesn't mean it wasn't)

A couple examples:

 

[Anthony]

The Mavic is a fantastic drone however the camera does let it down IMO as it's just not quite as good as it should be ... I am sure Mavic V2 will improve on this.

Having said that the current Mavic images are good enough for me but I am not looking for perfection nor do I pixel peep.

 

[netfolks2000]

You didn't say whether you would do any post editing of any photos or video. I'm assuming if you're on the road with the bike a lot you just want to be able to use your first copies. This is where you'll miss the Phantom 3 Standard as it did a pretty good job on AUTO. You will need to watch numerous YouTube videos on camera and other settings to get the quality that you want on your new Mavic. It is quite extensive, with lots of options. The portability is what you will really like. You'll be able to "whip it out" at a whim and fly it, even for a few minutes, one shoot, it is so easy to fly and then put away. Make sure you study well the type of case. The ones suggested aren't always the best. Mine is like a small half back-pack with one strap, pretty small but still holds what I need.

 

[MadValley]

According to DJI all current Mavic cameras are the same and capable at shooting 1080p at 96fps. But given the platform (airborne, mechanical gimble, control software response lag, etc) I'm not sure that you will be able to capture long-length video at that frame rate without noticeable skips and bobbles not necessarily related to the camera.

I'm still very low on the experience curve and am planning on filming mostly in 4K to get the added data for framing in post but what I've seen so far leads me to believe that the aircraft is a much bigger component of a successful video than DJI is letting on. If you are at a distance - like 30m - it's pretty easy to get smooth footage at a reasonable flight speed. However, when you drop that down to the <10m range a modestly fast aircraft (like 8km/hr) causes the video quality to degrade quickly. I ran some tests using a Drone Harmony pre-programmed flight path at speeds ranging from about 5km/hr to about 12km/hour and at the slow speed the capture quality was amazing. Faster than that it just looked horrible like the 30fps wasn't fast enough for what I was trying to do from that close.

So FHD at 96fps - should be fast enough to do what you want to do assuming you're not trying to do image something really fast from not that far away. The camera itself is awesome (as you can see from a lot of the vids available) the 1x2.3 sensor is pretty standard for mid-range cameras and action cams. My take is that it comes down to 1) tuning the camera for what you're shooting and 2) managing the platform to maximize your chance of getting usable footage.

 

[Nerwesta]

Hello guys and thanks for all your replies !


Mr. Salty ->

Yeah me too, but since we don't have any official confirmation yet from Dji , it's still a rumor for me. Checking Youtube to see any comparison between the two AC didn't help that much.
If it's really true, I would understand that Dji doesn't confirm that, it would perfectly leak that the first Mavic Pro was not really designed as it was advertised.
The GoPro Karma didn't help them I guess ...

I agree for the P4 A, but since the portability is very important for me, I'm much more attracted by the Mavic.


Plawa -> Thanks for your feedback, your videos are very nice , it's beautiful ! Nice landscapes too.
So if I'm right it was captured in 30 FPS right ? It looks smooth , I didn't have that smoothless with my P3 Standard.

Anthony -> Yeah you're probably right , talking about Mavic V2 I just hope they wont announce one in January 2018 as I would just buy one drone before :O
Thanks for your photo, but here I'm much more talking about the videos it can capture , I'm sure the photos you can get are awesome with that drone =)

netfolks2000 -> Yes you're right , I want to do post on photos and videos.

You will need to watch numerous YouTube videos on camera and other settings to get the quality that you want on your new Mavic.

That's not a problem for me , I like to learn if it's interesting =)
In fact , you're right I didn't learn that much when I was flying my P3S because the Auto mode was fair enough, and since I was not completely happy about the sensor and the overall quality of my videos, I didn't make any post-editing , I was just flying for fun and taking some shots until I really got bored about that pitty RC ...

So yes I'm willing to make some post-editing with the Mavic for sure.

Make sure you study well the type of case. The ones suggested aren't always the best. Mine is like a small half back-pack with one strap, pretty small but still holds what I need.

Do you have any image or links to show ? Because I'm willing to get the lighter and smaller case I could find , if I don't , the portability I was talking is not even interesting then.


MadValley -> Thanks for your informations aswell , much appreciated !
You're talking about Drone Harmony, is it an app like Litchi ? I just used the standard Dji GO app with my P3S , I think that's a thing I will reconsider with my new drone !


To conclude that, your posts and some of my research convinced me a bit to go for the Mavic , as I said above I really like it's portability which will help me a lot in the future , bringing the big case with me for my P3S is currently a bit boring , at least I know how boring can be a Phantom on that case regardless on how powerful the sensor can be.

I'm looking forward to go for a bundle when I will be really decided , is it worth the price ? Or should I go for the Platinum ?
The thing is I really don't care about quieter and 2 or 3 minutes longer flights.
The bundle with the original MP has 3 batteries , 5 pairs of props and a sleeve with it, which is in my opinion far more interesting than only a MP Platinum - for quite the same price.


Thanks a lot !

EDIT : Some quick photos of my actual case , yeah that's pretty big.

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View media item 1472

 

[MadValley]

Yes. Drone Harmony is a mission based app similar to Litchi. It's still in Beta so the features are being firmed up. I've run it through some tests though and have had no issues. Push the button and off it goes (althouh I haven't trusted it to land... yet.)

I was impaled upon the same dilemma and went with the Mavic Pro. I figured that $250 buys a lot of accessories (including a set of quieter props).

 

[Haloweenhamster]

60fps has been fixed even with the standard mavic pro
You need a mavic manufactured may onwards with firmware 01.03.1000 onwards

 

[Nerwesta]

Ok it's good to know , so i'll consider buying this right after Christmas, thanks guys
Happy Christmas to all of you , I'm a bit early tho.

I figured that $250 buys a lot of accessories (including a set of quieter props).

Yeah absolutely, I think I would do the same. =)