Anyone use an Air 2S for wildlife? (Whales, sharks, birds, deer, etc?)

[dronerat]

Curious if anyone out there uses the Air 2S for wildlife, especially whales, sharks, schools of fish, flocks of birds, deer, etc.

If you've done this kind of photography, do you find the Air 2S to be adequate?

I'm especially interested in if you feel the need for a telephoto model like the Mavic 3 or if animals just kind of ignore drones. Also, do you find the color and detail the Air 2S captures to be adequate? Does it produce nice photos for you?

 

[Capt KO]

One of the best..imo. Doesn't seem to attract much attention.

 

[karlblessing]

Curious if anyone out there uses the Air 2S for wildlife, especially whales, sharks, schools of fish, flocks of birds, deer, etc.

If you've done this kind of photography, do you find the Air 2S to be adequate?

I'm especially interested in if you feel the need for a telephoto model like the Mavic 3 or if animals just kind of ignore drones. Also, do you find the color and detail the Air 2S captures to be adequate? Does it produce nice photos for you?

I feel like you'll probably want to zoom in post regardless depending on just how close you plan on getting (especially since in some places that can be considered harassing wildlife). The Air 2S doesn't have an optical zoom capability.

The Mavic 3 while it does have a 7x zoom, the sensor on that is the same size as the sensor on the DJI Mini 2, so it's not nearly as good a quality as the Micro-4/3 sensor on the main camera.

Even though there is an older Mavic 2 Zoom with a 2x optical zoom, you'll likely get a better picture from the Air 2S's 1-inch sensor even if you crop it down. Likewise on the video size, you could shoot 5.4K @ 24fps and just do a 1:1 crop to either 4K or 1080p (or super sample it by reducing the entire frame to a smaller resolution to get a crisper looking video).

Far as disturbances, you can swap the props on the Air 2S for Master Airscrew stealth props which while they are close to the same decibel, they exhibit a lower pitch so they don't sound like a bag of angry hornets.

PS: Some birds especially geese/etc, definitely do not ignore drones, you don't even have to be within 100 feet and they'll scatter or attack (especially if you're flying around a nesting site).