M2P and M2Z Owners

[GadgetGuy]

Ok, if you want it from DJI:

Mavic 2 - Product Information - DJI

The Mavic 2 is DJI's flagship consumer drone built for pros and enthusiasts. Discover more about the Mavic 2 Pro and Mavic 2 Zoom with specs, FAQs, video tutorials, guides, and user manuals. Learn more at DJI.com.

www.dji.com

The Mavic 2 Zoom has a 24-48mm lens so anything beyond that is not lossless because you are losing something, in the case of the 96mm setting you are losing around half the sensor which is why it's 1080p and not 4k. This use of that camera mode should be avoided because you are losing information, if you shoot at the standard 4k mode you can crop it down to 1080p for a digital zoom afterwards if you wish but you still have the freedom to crop and use any other part of the sensor as well.

Unfortunately it's completely normal for marketing departments to boast about digital zooms and other features to promote their products even though it's usually highly misleading to customers.

DJI calls it a 4x Dynamic Zoom, which is a combination of the 2x optical zoom in 4K 30fps and selecting the center 1/4 of the 4K frame, resulting in a 4x output in 10800 at 30fps selected live, using the Zoom wheel to achieve 96mm, rather than cropping from the 4K frame in post. You can stay 4x as far away while flying, and know that you have filled the frame with the skittish subject. It's very useful feature where flying twice as close would otherwise cause the subject to bolt or attack, and can keep you from needing to fly over people, and from needing to cross over NFZ barriers to get the shot.

 

[eke2k6]

What sort of photography do you do? If you normally work with larger format cameras (4/3, APS-C, FF etc.) and process the raw files then i think you may be disappointed with the 1/2.3in sensor in the Mavic 2 Zoom as there's little latitude in its raw files particularly pushing the dynamic range. On the other hand if you primarily work straight out of camera then you're not going to get the same benefit from the 1in sensor in the Mavic 2 Pro, there's a lot that can be squeezed out of its raw files but its automatic jpegs are nothing special.

I use Sony full frame cameras for wedding work. I’m not expecting *that* much latitude. I just don’t really want the footage to fall apart as I apply a LUT or something.

I just bought the M2Z gimbal, so I’ll try the D-Cinelike and -3 contrast setting.

 

[Johnmcl7]

DJI calls it a 4x Dynamic Zoom, which is a combination of the 2x optical zoom in 4K 30fps and selecting the center 1/4 of the 4K frame, resulting in a 4x output in 10800 at 30fps selected live, using the Zoom wheel to achieve 96mm, rather than cropping from the 4K frame in post. You can stay 4x as far away while flying, and know that you have filled the frame with the skittish subject. It's very useful feature where flying twice as close would otherwise cause the subject to bolt or attack, and can keep you from needing to fly over people, and from needing to cross over NFZ barriers to get the shot.

In your example though you wouldn't want to use the digital zoom, if you use the full frame you can stay at the same distance because you're going to have twice the field of view so even if the animal isn't perfectly within the centre of the frame it doesn't matter as you can crop it as you want later. You do not need to be closer to be able to digitally crop it afterwards.

You've said the animal is skittish so if it moves for some other reason you're going to have a much more difficult time keeping it within the far smaller frame and if it moves outwith that small frame but still within the main sensor area you're still going to have unusable footage as that extra information is being discarded. If on the other hand you simply used the full frame and the animal didn't move you've lost nothing, you can still just crop out the centre or adjust the crop to suit the video.

The feature is at best an editing convenience and may be useful for those wanting to use the footage without any editing but that's not what it's seen as which is demonstrated in this thread, instead people are incorrectly seeing it as giving the drone extra capability and that's not the case since it's actually reducing the capability of the drone.

 

[Camino Ken]

I have the M2P and zoom by pushing the right stick forward (ha ha). I have filmed several different types of wildlife (deer, turkeys, squirrels, etc) and found that I get no reaction until I get around a 50 ft distance, especially with a slow gradual approach. Sudden stick/drone movements causes a variable pitch noise that can spook them sooner. If I want to get a closer image I can always edit since I have a lot of pixels to manipulate.