DJI Mavic, Air and Mini Drones
Friendly, Helpful & Knowledgeable Community
Join Us Now

Anyone have a comparison of the Air 2 vs Air 2S camera dynamic range?

WildcatDave

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 14, 2020
Messages
101
Reactions
101
Age
52
Location
Arizona, USA
For note: I shoot professionally; commercial and residential properties. I always shoot RAW (and ISO 100). I am struggling in the Arizona sun with my Air 2. I often have to underexpose to save the clouds from blowing out and then heavily boost the shadows to get a decent looking image (here comes the noise, another bane of small sensors). I will likely get an Air 2S as it is well priced and batteries carry over, etc. I am hoping that the 4x large sensor has ~2 stops of better dynamic range. If not, I may grab the Air 3 with its 4/3 sensor. Its a chunk more change, but it the images are that much better than I would rather do it now rather than make an incremental upgrade to the 2S and find myself doing it all over again next year.

Has anyone that has both (or has upgraded, etc.) done any dynamic range comparison? Sadly all the "reviews" online are mostly going over the "cool' features of the drones and not the actual camera performance. Or they state: "the camera is so much better!", without even posting side-by-side images or any empirical data.

Thanks for your opinions and feedback. I trust you all much more than Interweb reviewers...
 
If you haven't already, I'd recommend downloading some raw sample files and have a play with them yourself so you can see for yourself how much you have to work with:


I don't have an Air 2 or Air 2S but did upgrade from the original Mavic Pro (1/2.3in sensor, slightly smaller than the Mavic Air 2 sensor) to a Mavic 2 Pro (same 1in sensor size) and I found it a huge improvement for dynamic range. With the Mavic Pro I found there wasn't really much to work with in the raw file whereas with the M2P raw files you can do quite a bit with them to improve the shadow and highlight areas.

The Mavic 3 is obviously better again, it's not a big step up in dynamic range so I decided for my use it wasn't worth the cost although it does offer some other big improvements particularly the better batterylife.
 
For note: I shoot professionally; commercial and residential properties. I always shoot RAW (and ISO 100). I am struggling in the Arizona sun with my Air 2. I often have to underexpose to save the clouds from blowing out and then heavily boost the shadows to get a decent looking image (here comes the noise, another bane of small sensors). I will likely get an Air 2S as it is well priced and batteries carry over, etc. I am hoping that the 4x large sensor has ~2 stops of better dynamic range. If not, I may grab the Air 3 with its 4/3 sensor. Its a chunk more change, but it the images are that much better than I would rather do it now rather than make an incremental upgrade to the 2S and find myself doing it all over again next year.

Has anyone that has both (or has upgraded, etc.) done any dynamic range comparison? Sadly all the "reviews" online are mostly going over the "cool' features of the drones and not the actual camera performance. Or they state: "the camera is so much better!", without even posting side-by-side images or any empirical data.

Thanks for your opinions and feedback. I trust you all much more than Interweb reviewers...
I have the Air 2S. And, I had the Mavic 3 for a month. It's hard to tell the difference in the pictures in good light. But, if I was making a living with the drone, I would go for the Mavic 3 as it's better in bad lighting situations. And, it has a few other advantages such as longer flight times. And, it is much quieter which I would want in populated areas.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mereflyer and Dbez1
For note: I shoot professionally; commercial and residential properties. I always shoot RAW (and ISO 100). I am struggling in the Arizona sun with my Air 2. I often have to underexpose to save the clouds from blowing out and then heavily boost the shadows to get a decent looking image (here comes the noise, another bane of small sensors). I will likely get an Air 2S as it is well priced and batteries carry over, etc. I am hoping that the 4x large sensor has ~2 stops of better dynamic range. If not, I may grab the Air 3 with its 4/3 sensor. Its a chunk more change, but it the images are that much better than I would rather do it now rather than make an incremental upgrade to the 2S and find myself doing it all over again next year.

Has anyone that has both (or has upgraded, etc.) done any dynamic range comparison? Sadly all the "reviews" online are mostly going over the "cool' features of the drones and not the actual camera performance. Or they state: "the camera is so much better!", without even posting side-by-side images or any empirical data.

Thanks for your opinions and feedback. I trust you all much more than Interweb reviewers...
I have both just been backpacking round the Canaries with the air 2 s ie
and the air 2 s is a bit better than the air 2 although I only really take video at 1080 p in order to upload it in slow hostel wifi in about an hour and also storage, the air 2 lasts about 5 minutes longer on battery and its a bit lighter...
 
Lycus Tech Mavic Air 3 Case

DJI Drone Deals

New Threads

Forum statistics

Threads
130,586
Messages
1,554,123
Members
159,586
Latest member
DoubleBarS