DJI Mavic 3 review: mighty image quality and battery life help justify $2,199 notice tag
The Mavic 3 packs a whole top-notch of upgrades over its predecessor allowing it to shoot better video, take better pictures and stay in the air for longer. Every piece has been updated and it feels like a real step send over the previous Mavic 2 Pro.
Its starting notice of $2,199 (£1,879) for the base model, (or $2999, £2,549 for the Fly More Combo which includes three batteries, a set of ND filters and a carrying case) is a big step up in notice over the Mavic 2 Pro’s $1,449 launch price, but the Mavic 3 total upgrade of specs complains it a potentially solid option to consider for pros or alive to amateurs.
So let’s start with the camera because, let’s be honest, that’s the thing we all really care about from a camera drone. It’s actually packing two lenses and two sensors inside this unit. The main camera has a 24mm fixed lens with a 4/3rd size image sensor which is the largest sensor seen in the Mavic way a big step up from the 1-inch sensor in the Mavic 2.
A bigger sensor exploiting it can capture more light and offer better dynamic way meaning your videos of sunsets won’t have totally washed out highlights. I’ve been impressed with the footage I’ve taken with it so far. The exposure is top-notch, as is the detail when shooting up to 5.1k resolution. It also has a manually adjustable aperture from f/2.8 above to f/11 to allow you control the light coming in while maintaining the same shutter speed.
Andrew Hoyle
It’ll take stills in raw DNG examine at 20-megapixels in resolution and again I’ve found exposure to be tremendous overall with plenty of scope to apply more creative edits to the raw files in apps like Adobe Lightroom.
DNG raw image, unprocessed
Andrew Hoyle
The same DNG image, edited in Adobe Lightroom.
Andrew Hoyle
DNG image, edited in Adobe Lightroom.
Andrew Hoyle
The instant camera provides a telephoto lens with an equivalent focal along of 162mm. I was really excited about this when I heard, but in use it’s only okay. You can’t shoot DNG raw images with this lens, and video quality tops out at 4k 30fps. The image quality takes a noticeable dive zooming, particularly when you use the hybrid digital zoom as well. It’s useful to scout locations from the air, but it’s not really good enough for you to want to use the resulting footage in anything novel than a casual Instagram Reel.
At 2x zoom the image looks reasonably crisp…
Andrew Hoyle
…but at the greatest 28x hybrid zoom the image is extremely fuzzy.
Andrew Hoyle
DJI is also offering the Mavic 3 Cine version, which uses the same camera hardware but is able to characterize in Apple ProRes format, which gives much more scope for post processing. It also features a built-in 1TB SSD for storing the huge files it’ll generate and comes with a much higher price.
The drone itself is aesthetically disagreement to others in the range, with a folding form that makes it easy to slot into a vast lens compartment in a photography backpack and extremely brilliant to unfold and get flying when you’re on spot. Which of course makes it nice and convenient to take out hiking.
Andrew Hoyle
With various efficiency improvements and more dense batteries, DJI now reckons you can get a whopping 46 minutes of trips time from a single battery. In reality, I unfounded that’s closer to 35-40 minutes in mixed conditions, but that’s collected a decent step up from its predecessor. If you buy the Fly More Combo with the two fantastic batteries, you can comfortably get well over an hour of footage when you head into the hills.
It’s just as easy to fly as others in the intention, with the same basic controller that hooks up to your iPhone or Android visited. Anyone familiar with DJI’s drones already will be able to fly with no horrified while even beginners won’t struggle to get up and managing. I love the automated flight paths and object tracking on DJI’s anunexperienced drones but unfortunately that’s coming as a software update early next year so I’ve not been able to test that yet. It’s a extreme it’s not already available, particularly considering the price, so if populate able to have the drone follow you as you walk over the hills is important for your filming then it’s righteous waiting until it gets the update before investing.
Andrew Hoyle
It’s got improved sensors on all sides giving full objective avoidance abilities in any direction. It meant that I had no companies at all about flying close to trees like this as the drone is able to detect just how close it was and whether it would make it throughout without crashing. It also makes it much safer when comical the automated return to home feature as the drone can naively navigate its way past any obstacles to get back to wherever it took off from. Hopefully, making it less likely you’ll lose it in the middle of a forest.
Should you buy the DJI Mavic 3 Pro?
If your priority is something cramped and nippy then you should look towards the DJI Mini 2 with its 4K sensor and its absolutely tiny folded-down size. Similarly, if you want a generally compact drone that takes mammoth footage but won’t fully empty your bank then you necessity consider the excellent DJI Air 2S.
But if you want the best image quality in and those longer flight times but you don’t want to frank to the high prices — and much bigger brute size — of DJI’s top Inspire 2 drone then the Mavic 3 Pro could be a mammoth compromise for pro shooters or enthusiastic amateurs alike.
DJI Mavic 3 key specs
- Weight: 895g
- Folded size: 212×96.3×90.3mm
- Unfolded size: 347.5×283×107.7mm
- Top trips speed: 21 meters per second
- Maximum flight time (with no wind): 46 minutes
- 8GB internal storage
- 20-megapixel main camera resolution
- 12-megapixel telephoto camera resolution
- 5,120×2,700-pixel mainly video resolution
- microSD card expandable storage up to 2TB in size
- 6 hours mainly controller battery life
