Mavic 3 vs Mavic 2 pro for photography

[Darkabaz]

Hi guys, yesterday i bought myself a brand new MAVIC 3, together with 5 batteries, case, RC Pro controller and a some filters.
I will thank you guys for your input, i decied to buy one after see a lot of movies (50+) on youtube with comparing and especially lowlight shots. I like sunset shots, so for me that was the point i decied to take one.

And YES, i hope they will update firmware to get total control over the zoom camera. Only JPEG without any parameter options is not enough for a drone like this.

 

[GadgetGuy]

The 1D mk II was APS-H, not APS-C - the APS-H format was a larger one than Canon's APS-C sensor (which was slightly smaller than other manufacturers' APS-C sensors) and a good bit closer to the FF sensor size which is why there wouldn't be a large difference in performance between them.

I was initially keen on the Mavic 3 for photography but as a few above have mentioned while the high iso improvement is more substantial, the dynamic range improvement isn't as great and that's more what I'm looking for when shooting in the day.

Perhaps that is why the article I found referred to it as Full Frame. Appreciate the clarification, which supports insignificant differences in performance, as was reported above.

The similarity in advertised dynamic range between the M3 and the M2P doesn't properly reflect how much better the low light M3 images are, at least in my experience. The high ISO improvement makes all the difference!

 

[Johnmcl7]

Perhaps that is why the article I found referred to it as Full Frame. Appreciate the clarification, which supports insignificant differences in performance, as was reported above.

The similarity in advertised dynamic range between the M3 and the M2P doesn't properly reflect how much better the low light M3 images are, at least in my experience. The high ISO improvement makes all the difference!

For my use the dynamic range is separate to the high iso performance because most of the time I'm shooting in good light (the OP asked specifically about performance in daylight) and don't need higher iso values so it's the dynamic range that's most important to me and the Mavic 3 isn't much better for that. For those that need higher iso I can certainly see the Mavic 3 being a better upgrade.

 

[lorpal]

My bad. Thanks for the correction. I'm a Nikon guy, not a Canon guy. Got some bad info on a brief internet search. Canon 1D MK II was APS-C, just as @vindibona1 postulated. I've deleted my mistaken post.

Are you sure you had a 1D if you’re a Nikon guy? APS-C is not the same as APS-H.

canon APS-C is a 1.6 multiplier and APS-H is a 1.3x. I have both mk II and mk III and there is an obvious difference vs APS-C. Also pixel pitch is nearly identical on the 5d vs the mkII so image quality is likely similar until you go wide where you need less of a wide angle lens for you FOV. A 24mm on the 5d will produce better results than a 17mm will produce on the 1D. On the tele side it’s a wash.

 

[SkywalkerFeng]

Hi guys, yesterday i bought myself a brand new MAVIC 3, together with 5 batteries, case, RC Pro controller and a some filters.
I will thank you guys for your input, i decied to buy one after see a lot of movies (50+) on youtube with comparing and especially lowlight shots. I like sunset shots, so for me that was the point i decied to take one.

And YES, i hope they will update firmware to get total control over the zoom camera. Only JPEG without any parameter options is not enough for a drone like this.

Welcome to the club.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Are you sure you had a 1D if you’re a Nikon guy? APS-C is not the same as APS-H.

canon APS-C is a 1.6 multiplier and APS-H is a 1.3x. I have both mk II and mk III and there is an obvious difference vs APS-C. Also pixel pitch is nearly identical on the 5d vs the mkII so image quality is likely similar until you go wide where you need less of a wide angle lens for you FOV. A 24mm on the 5d will produce better results than a 17mm will produce on the 1D. On the tele side it’s a wash.

If you meant to reply to me, I never had a Canon 1D, and the APS-C multiplier on Nikon is 1.5 rather than 1.6, but I know a lot of Canon shooters. The distinction between APS-C and APS-H was brought to my attention by the poster I was replying to. Nikon never had an APS-H to my knowledge.

 

[KS-6]

But having earned a living as a photographer, 100% digital for the last 20 years.... The LENS is the weak link in the chain. I'm not sure how technology has progressed in the last several years, but for the most part the best lenses supported up to 15mp and the higher megpizels didn't really do much as far as adding detail and resolution once your sensor got higher than 15mp.... maybe 20 if you got the right lens? For the most part the higher mp count didn't really add anything more than additional storage overhead. I'm not sure how that changed in these last few years with mirrorless and all.

What?

I don't mean to get into a pissing contest or anything but firstly, I have been shooting for a living for over 35 years / 26 in digital, still shoot B&W film up to 8x10 format for fine art and have lenses that pre-date digital in my Hasselblad arsenal that easily make phenomenal use of every last bit of the 50 MP digital back. Leica lenses from 20 years back easily exceeded 24MP and right now I have Z mount lenses that will very easily make good use of up to 100MP in my Nikon mirrorless system.

I can appreciate what you are *trying* to say but my reality in super high end adverting, editorial and fine art has shown me different.

This being said and back on topic, I might be swayed to put up for a M3 now that rumors of the zoom cam being able to do raw are floating about. More airtime with ski talent on the hill, sharper in the corners and more DR and low light are still cheaper than chartering a helicopter and installing a Tyler mount.

 

[Greenflash]

It's all about photography. Assuming all else is equal, which it isn't, the increased flight time alone of a full 10+ minutes per battery is very significant. Low light performance is substantially better, and the 7x telephoto completely changes the perspective of photos for a more engaging view. Automated HiRes 60MB 360° panos every 75 seconds are a game changer. My M2P's are now backup birds only.

We’ll said!

 

[SusieV]

Corner sharpness is better on the M3 as well, just to add one more point.

Really? Against the m2p (Hasselblad) I'm assuming you're referring to. Where is a real side by side comparison where we can see this? Bot a claim, but evidence please.

 

[KS-6]

Really? Against the m2p (Hasselblad) I'm assuming you're referring to. Where is a real side by side comparison where we can see this? Bot a claim, but evidence please.

Agreed…

I don’t doubt the reports but before I plunk down $4500-$5500 on this I need to see at least a couple DNG files to give me an idea.

 

[UAVquadman]

(24mm + 162mm) vs 28mm.

no.... there is no telephoto lens on the Mavic 2... we all know this so the Plus 162mm compares to nothing based on the point I was making.

 

[HigherPerspectives]

I am very curious about the mavic 3 compared to the mavic 2 pro purely for photography.
do you see a difference in daylight, for example? is the m3 much better? Of course I know that the sensor of m3 is much larger and therefore receives more light.
But at the moment I only use my drones for photography so I'm very curious how the Mavic 3 holds up compared to the M2p

I lost my M2P w/Smart Controller in an electromagnetic mishap and replaced it with the M3, Flymore, RC Pro.

I do a lot of roof inspections, agricultural imaging, and residential and commercial real estate shoots. I've done roofs and commercial with the M3 so far.

The GPS issues are real. With my M2P I was flying in as little as 30 seconds. It probably takes 2-3 minutes now, but when you're waiting, the M2P was much better.

The M3 doesn't seem to be as stable or inspire confidence when flying. The M2P 'snapped' into position and maintained it. The M3 seems to wander quite a bit, including corkscrewing on yaw motion. It also seems to be affected more significantly by near structure air currents.

The battery time is fantastic. I usually complete a job with battery left, and in most cases, deplete that battery on the next job if I'm doing a roof, and my RTH distance is under 100'.

It does well in the wind. I've gone up to the ceiling and gotten the dreaded 'wind is too strong for RTH' message, but it always came back.

Precision landing isn't reliable on the M3, on the M2P it was finally working great. It seems with the wandering and the lack of ability to land consistently at the home point, there might be something 'lacking' in whatever tells the drone where it is at any time.

The explore mode uses the lower resolution camera and can zoom to 28x. I've used it a lot for taking video of wildlife, and got a reasonably clear shot of a power plant almost 6 miles away. It would be good for surviellance also.

I'm hopeful the rough edges will eventually be solved with software. I considered grabbing an A2S and using the RC Pro. Maybe I'll try the other controller and the iPad and see if it makes a difference.

 

[KS-6]

Corner sharpness is better on the M3 as well, just to add one more point.

I have had my M3 for a couple days and so far, this is not looking to be the case although it does appear that the lens is centered.

Right now it is appearing that the main camera regardless of aperture or point of focus is well behind my EVO II Pro, a bit behind my M2P and it mostly equal to my Mini 3 Pro.

I really do wish DJI would focus more on hitting good uniform sharpness rather than exact whole F stops or as big as they can fit sensors into these things.

 

[HigherPerspectives]

I lost my M2P w/Smart Controller in an electromagnetic mishap and replaced it with the M3, Flymore, RC Pro.

I do a lot of roof inspections, agricultural imaging, and residential and commercial real estate shoots. I've done roofs and commercial with the M3 so far.

The GPS issues are real. With my M2P I was flying in as little as 30 seconds. It probably takes 2-3 minutes now, but when you're waiting, the M2P was much better.

The M3 doesn't seem to be as stable or inspire confidence when flying. The M2P 'snapped' into position and maintained it. The M3 seems to wander quite a bit, including corkscrewing on yaw motion. It also seems to be affected more significantly by near structure air currents.

The battery time is fantastic. I usually complete a job with battery left, and in most cases, deplete that battery on the next job if I'm doing a roof, and my RTH distance is under 100'.

It does well in the wind. I've gone up to the ceiling and gotten the dreaded 'wind is too strong for RTH' message, but it always came back.

Precision landing isn't reliable on the M3, on the M2P it was finally working great. It seems with the wandering and the lack of ability to land consistently at the home point, there might be something 'lacking' in whatever tells the drone where it is at any time.

The explore mode uses the lower resolution camera and can zoom to 28x. I've used it a lot for taking video of wildlife, and got a reasonably clear shot of a power plant almost 6 miles away. It would be good for surviellance also.

I'm hopeful the rough edges will eventually be solved with software. I considered grabbing an A2S and using the RC Pro. Maybe I'll try the other controller and the iPad and see if it makes a difference.

Just a follow up, after a few updates. The Mavic 3 is much better. I love the zoom lens for wildlife and aerial pictures of other sky craft. Satellite find is now reasonable. I miss precision landing, though. Forced obstacle avoidance on RTH would be nice too. I was flying in sport mode, RTH kicked in and it headed straight for a tree. Better, but not perfect.

 

[GadgetGuy]

I have had my M3 for a couple days and so far, this is not looking to be the case although it does appear that the lens is centered.

Right now it is appearing that the main camera regardless of aperture or point of focus is well behind my EVO II Pro, a bit behind my M2P and it mostly equal to my Mini 3 Pro.

I really do wish DJI would focus more on hitting good uniform sharpness rather than exact whole F stops or as big as they can fit sensors into these things.

The newly added Mini 3 Pro compatibility with the RC Pro will greatly enhance your use of your Mini 3 Pro!

 

[KS-6]

For the heck of it I just flew all 4 of my birds. I got it done within 20 minutes because I kept it all at F4 aside from the Mini 3's F1.7 and of the same shot at exactly 200' feet AGL, trace breeze at launch. There were 3 focus points equally left to right across the middle height.

I have provided the top left 25% of the frame on a straight down shot on each bird, the angle that seems to mess with the cameras the most. It's pretty darn telling.

In order of best to worst, EVO II



M2P


M3P


M3


On both the Mini 3 and the M3 it looks like the lens is not square to the sensor as the in-focus portions change as one moves the points of focus from one side to the other. The Mini-3 beat the M3 overall though when I looked at both 90 degree and 45 degree shots. The M2P had pretty consistent focus across the image but did suffer the same way a bit worse when shooting the straight down image. The EVO was basically unflinching and near flawless across the frame with only a bit smearing in the very corners.

I think I got a bunk M3...:-(

 

[GadgetGuy]

I think I got a bunk M3...:-(

Certainly possible. There is always some variation between identical lenses. Yours might just be on the edge of the tolerance used by DJI for being acceptable. Some users are more discriminating than others. If it bothers you, open a repair ticket and see what they say, or try and exchange it with the seller, if recently purchased.

 

[KS-6]

Certainly possible. There is always some variation between identical lenses. Yours might just be on the edge of the tolerance used by DJI for being acceptable. Some users are more discriminating than others. If it bothers you, open a repair ticket and see what they say, or try and exchange it with the seller, if recently purchased.

Oh, it more than bothers me, lol. I just can’t use it for anything, I can’t even cut a square out of the file that DXO Pure Raw attempts to fix.

I have an exchange ticket with DJI as of this morning, will give it one more try as I leave for Iceland in a month and I am not sure I want to play image quality whack a mole beyond two tries.

 

[KS-6]

Got the replacement Mavic 3 Cine yesterday, looks much better, cleans up pretty good by F4 and takes full advantage of the profile in DXO.

I'm off and running!

 

[Filmarik]

Got the replacement Mavic 3 Cine yesterday, looks much better, cleans up pretty good by F4 and takes full advantage of the profile in DXO.

I'm off and running!

Please post a link to a few well exposed daytime DNG samples from the 24mm camera at f4 and f5.6, ISO100 for all of us to see a decently sharp photos from corner to corner with well centered 24mm lens, so we can keep them as a benchmark. So far, I have to sadly say, I am yet to see a one corner to corner sharp photo from this M3 24mm camera