Air 2S or wait for Mavic 3

[Palerider]

I'm on the fence about whether to buy the Air 2S or "patiently" wait for the Mavic 3. It isn't a money issue. I'm just looking for a drone to film in low light. Any thoughts or advice?

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

The Air 2S is a great drone for the money. But IF there is going to be a Mavic 3, perhaps more costly, you would think it should be highly differentiated from the Air 2S. Otherwise why spend more for essentially the same thing. Besides a fantastic camera, maybe the M3 will offer some functionality applicable to the new regulations… and maybe not. If money doesn’t matter, and you can wait, give it a few months.

 

[StantonZ]

What makes you think the M3 will be any better in low light? Those conditions are difficult for any camera.
I'll repeat what I have said in other (similar posts): if you're always waiting for the "next new thing"...you'll be waiting forever!

 

[Saladshooter]

I have the Air 2S. Its about as good as it gets currently and very good even in low light. The Mavic 3 is virtually guaranteed to leave it in the dust with the rumored larger sensor, longer flight time and will be the choice of the "professional flyer". I think the Air 2S will be enough for me even when the Mavic 3 finally appears but resale value is good enough on DJI drones that it will be an easy change if I feel the need.

If you have a decent drone now..... why not wait. If you don't, the 2S should be more than up to the challenge.

 

[Aerial Edge]

I think we may be waiting longer for the Mavic 3 then we think. And with how quick the they have been coming out its a hard choice. I get to fly all kinds of stuff. As of recently we have been flying the M300 and by far the most amazing drone I have flown to date. My second favorite is the Air 2s. Flown custom drones, Parrot Anafi USA, skydio S2. We are waiting for a couple of the Skydio X2e to come in, I’m excited about those.

Point is the Air 2s is a great little craft, very happy with mine.
I fly full time for a very large company, they have all kind of cool stuff and its nice to be able to take stuff home for “Proficiency Training”.
My own business is part time so I do not have a ton of money to throw around on equipment. I have been selling off a lot of my other equipment and downsizing. Air 2s was one of them. effectively replaced my Inspire 1.
Dave

 

[offtheback]

I have the Air 2S. Its about as good as it gets currently and very good even in low light. The Mavic 3 is virtually guaranteed to leave it in the dust with the rumored larger sensor, longer flight time and will be the choice of the "professional flyer". I think the Air 2S will be enough for me even when the Mavic 3 finally appears but resale value is good enough on DJI drones that it will be an easy change if I feel the need.

If you have a decent drone now..... why not wait. If you don't, the 2S should be more than up to the challenge.

A larger sensor-Micro 4/3 is the next step up in size would be great but the Inspire that has one is massive compared to the Mavic 2 Pro.Not sure any drone with a 4/3 sensor would be able to be compact enough though I am hoping.A fixed 24 or 28 mm F/2.8 might be small enough to be a start.

 

[Brian I]

Buy the Air 2S - you might get run over by a bus while you are waiting and then you'll have missed all the fun. Also, as somebody else has said, if we all wait for the next big thing none of us would ever buy anything.

 

[Macinfo]

If there was some indication that a next gen Mavic was right around the corner, clear obvious leaks of FCC filings, testing, and other things that seem to pop up just before a new drone appears, perhaps waiting would be in order, you might go into sticker shock, or you may not care if the feature list is great.

But Mavic 3 rumblings have been going on for months it seems and while some models have been released in later part of the year, that could be 6 months of flying and if its priced high because of the expected features, you could still sell an MA2S for close to what you paid to upgrade to a new model if you were so inclined.

 

[Palerider]

I think we may be waiting longer for the Mavic 3 then we think. And with how quick the they have been coming out its a hard choice. I get to fly all kinds of stuff. As of recently we have been flying the M300 and by far the most amazing drone I have flown to date. My second favorite is the Air 2s. Flown custom drones, Parrot Anafi USA, skydio S2. We are waiting for a couple of the Skydio X2e to come in, I’m excited about those.

Point is the Air 2s is a great little craft, very happy with mine.
I fly full time for a very large company, they have all kind of cool stuff and its nice to be able to take stuff home for “Proficiency Training”.
My own business is part time so I do not have a ton of money to throw around on equipment. I have been selling off a lot of my other equipment and downsizing. Air 2s was one of them. effectively replaced my Inspire 1.
Dave

M300 looks awesome.

 

[Ron-EP]

What makes you think the M3 will be any better in low light? Those conditions are difficult for any camera.
I'll repeat what I have said in other (similar posts): if you're always waiting for the "next new thing"...you'll be waiting forever!

Exactly! Well said. Never wait. You're alive right now and the only thing that matters is right now. Buy it. Enjoy it. Worry about the next thing when the next thing is here.

 

[wardtom084]

There will always be updates. So you wait for the 3 then the 4 etc. I would let the new buyers smoke test the thing first. Have the air 2 and don't need anything else.

 

[Palerider]

Well I decided that I'm going to wait for the 3 Pro. My reasons are:

1) 2S is missing side sensors
2) You cannot use waypoints or the Litchi app

I want to thank everyone who responded. I really appreciate it.

 

[Saladshooter]

Well I decided that I'm going to wait for the 3 Pro. My reasons are:

1) 2S is missing side sensors
2) You cannot use waypoints or the Litchi app

I want to thank everyone who responded. I really appreciate it.

The lack of side sensors has never been an issue for me but I fly my Air 2S mostly in a forward direction. I carefully craft my shots so that I'm not going to hit anything even when doing orbits and the such. What I find is a bigger issue is the lack of a true upward facing sensor. The top sensors still face forward at all times, not straight up..... I often am navigating my way up out of a tight space and they are of little use.

Waypoints and Litchi are likely coming to the Air 2S once the SDK is released but are also likely to be more weakly implemented using the virtual stick method which relies on a good signal to your remote to operate. This means that it will not be truly autonomous. The Air 2S does have the best range of all of DJI's offerings so this implementation should be enough but it is still less than ideal as the drone will RTH if signal levels drop instead of completing its mission.

 

[CalOldBlue]

My 2 cents (and likely worth less than that). I only recently joined the drone community, but have been an amateur photographer for something like 60 years. I bought my Air 2S for use on a potential Route 66 trip in October... and I needed time to train myself in using a drone so the trigger got pulled 7-10 days ago.

From a photographer's perspective, it looks to me like a wash between the two. Same sensor, upgraded processing/software on the Air 2S, variable aperture on the Mavic 3. In pondering both the choice and the timing of that choice, I remembered my prior (DSLR) upgrade, from a Nikon D700 to a D850.

I waited too long (at least 1-2 years after the D850 was announced).

After getting and using the D850 (yards and yards better than the D700), I came to regret every day of delay in pulling the trigger on the upgrade. Every vacation done with a D700 instead of the D850... the missed low light capabilities, the massive EV range...

If you think the Air 2S is the better choice TODAY, consider the months of lost opportunity of getting it while waiting for a Mavic 3 Pro that may be out of your price range, or has features you don't care about.

If this will be the last drone you intend to buy... you may want to wait to see what the M3 looks like.

Time vs. Money vs. Feature... pick any two (old project management joke).

 

[offtheback]

Well I decided that I'm going to wait for the 3 Pro. My reasons are:

1) 2S is missing side sensors
2) You cannot use waypoints or the Litchi app

I want to thank everyone who responded. I really appreciate it.

Side sensors on M2P only work in tripod mode.

 

[Macinfo]

Well I decided that I'm going to wait for the 3 Pro. My reasons are:

1) 2S is missing side sensors
2) You cannot use waypoints or the Litchi app

I want to thank everyone who responded. I really appreciate it.

Side sensors as I see it depending on what you plan to do, are a limited add on, I am sure there are varying opinions, but would perhaps be helpful in active track situations, and perhaps close quarter flying in tight spots, but how often are you going to do that.

I am not sure you can be guaranteed that a Mavic 3 or what ever it might be named, will have waypoints either when it ships.. More than likely, unless it comes out with a new App again, it will be using Fly, and unless they upgrade it to support that feature, you still won't have them.

And as far as Litchi, most every new drone requires some sort of SDK to be released so that 3rd parties can program for the drone, generally these have been taking months to show up and still may not support certain features..

 

[Johnmcl7]

In pondering both the choice and the timing of that choice, I remembered my prior (DSLR) upgrade, from a Nikon D700 to a D850.

I waited too long (at least 1-2 years after the D850 was announced).

After getting and using the D850 (yards and yards better than the D700), I came to regret every day of delay in pulling the trigger on the upgrade. Every vacation done with a D700 instead of the D850... the missed low light capabilities, the massive EV range...

I very much agree with you here and I've had regrets holding out for too long to buy new equipment and just wish I'd bought it sooner. I remember way back in the early days of the D700 I was using the Olympus 4/3 system with their 'pro' E-3 flagship which I'd been having a lot of AF problems with and been falling out with unhelpful Olympus diehards and unhelpful Olympus support but changing systems was going to be expensive as I had some of the top range Olympus lenses. The arrival of a new puppy and the Olympus mucking me about brought an end to 18 months of deliberation and pulled the trigger on a new Nikon D700 setup which just blew the Olympus out of the water. Its AF was miles ahead of the Olympus even at its very best with much better DR and high ISO.

With regards to the Mavic 3 I think it's important to remember how wrong the rumour sites have been so far, there's been rumours about this drone since not long after the initial release in of the Mavic 2 and I remember in 2019 when people were holding off buying a Mavic 2 because the rumour sites claimed it was highly likely the Mavic 3 was going to be released in January 2020. Of course it wasn't and they still continue to be wrong about this drone and until there's something definite (FCC registration or actual photos) I wouldn't trust anything from a rumour site.

Beyond that there's the question of whether a Mavic 3 could even offer much better low light performance and I'm not so sure. If it sticks with a 1in sensor then I can't see it being any better low light as Sony only offer one newer version of this sensor which is faster as it's a stacked sensor but low light performance is similar, also they don't appear to sell this or the larger stacked sensors to anyone else. There's been talk about going up to a 4/3 sensor which would offer better high iso but I think that would be difficult to fit while keeping a Mavic size and even it was implemented it may end up with a slower lens to keep the size down which neutralises the high iso advantage of the sensor.

If my M2P was destroyed tomorrow I would be straight out to buy another, I'm not confident there's a Mavic 3 soon and the M2P works well for me plus I don't think a Mavic 3 could offer me anything that would make me regret it. I bought the original Mavic Pro and although I was frustrated by the small sensor and immediately upgraded to the M2P when it came out but I don't regret the original Mavic. I had a lot of fun with it and wouldn't have wanted to miss out.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

After seeing the other post for the MAS prop test, I'd say the 2s -available right now- with MAS props

 

[RicGPDX]

My guess is that that the next Mavic will be more of a pro drone with a pro price. The new sensor brought the 2S's price up, I would expect to see something similar with the Mavic 2 Pro.

What the Pro really needs is a raw video sensor. What I would REALLY like to see is a Blackmagic Raw sensor or R3D raw sensor. (A raw sensor requires its own unique codec and it's doubtful DJI would want to get into that business.) However, those guys are 1" sensors, as well.

When it comes to video (as well as photography) raw format, where you have access to all the raw data the sensor records, giving you far more exposure latitude and access to more shadow and highlight detail. It means that you can use all your desktop/laptop computing power to interpret and adjust the data and that those adjustments will never degrade the original image.

Now the current Air 2S lets you shoot 10-bit video with D-log and HLG codecs, which have some of the benefits of raw for color grading and in my experience putting the footage through DaVinci Resolve for color grading, it makes a big difference if you're willing to do the work. If the next Pro would have the new Blackmagic sensor (up to 12K), the difference would be huge.

Now if you're not one to spend time seriously color grading video or processing raw photos in a specialized application like Adobe Lightroom, all that won't make a bit of difference to you. In fact, you shouldn't be using the the Air 2S's new codecs because they need to be graded to look "right." (D-log fudges things a bit so it looks a bit more normal to the eye, but there's a lot more shadow and highlight detail in the image that you'll find if you know how to bring it out.)

Bottom line is that if the next Pro has a raw sensor and supports a pro-level raw codec it will be a true pro device with footage that can be seamlessly intercut with all but Hollywood level footage (Arri, Panavision, etc.), especially if they partner with someone for the optics.

If you're just looking for better-looking pictures without any extra work, the 2S will be just fine. Detail and gradation with a 1"sensor are an immense improvement as is its low-light performance.

My $02. (and change)

 

[DARKSeifer]

For photography the Air2S is all you need right now, but for serious cinematography better pick something with a diaphragm I'd say.