Upgraded my 1-mo old Spark (jury is still out whether to keep or sell her) to a Flame Red Fly-More Combo MA, finally received the MA last Monday, and so after lots of battery charging & FW update seances I finally got her up in the air for the first flight this past weekend. Flew 3 batteries each day (Saturday and Sunday). She performed like a champ - flying was relatively uneventful (just the way we like it!).

I'm super-impressed. This thing flies like a total dream. Both the stability/performance AND the all-important camera output blow the Spark out of the water, exactly as I hoped it would. Hugely better video, and I think even somewhat better stills.

Flew Saturday with prop guards on and also a brand-new Polar Pro ND-8 filter (Cinema Series, Shutter Collection) fortuitously deliver that very day just in time for flying, and on Sunday with the ND-16 filter and the prop guards off, but with Polar Pro's cool landing gear extensions on to elevate the whole bird on "shock mounts" and also keep the gimbal a good bit higher off the ground. The PP ND filters did a great job both days during the "golden hour" of letting me get those crazy high shutter speeds down closer to and sometimes exactly achieving the otherwise-elusive "rule of 180."

Here she is posed next to her younger sister indoors (I guess I officially have started my drone cave now!):



and outdoors just before the first take-off yesterday (sans prop guards, but feet on):





And man oh man does she ever deliver the goods. That's ultimately all that really matters. Here's a couple of nice stills from Day 1:





I'll spare posting any videos or links thereto for now, as I'm still very much learning the new bird's ropes and experimenting with just what I can get out of the many video shooting options. But what I've seen snagged so far right out of the box with all default settings (other than manually tweaking the camera a bit, which is pretty much always necessary) are absolutely beautiful videos - much crisper, more consistent, better color and with very noticeably better image quality (especially on fine detail) than the Spark ever managed to put out.

Bottom line is that I'm totally impressed with the MA so far, other than one very curious in-flight oddity I experienced while flying on the 3rd battery on Day 1. I'll start a separate thread about that.

DJI, I think you pretty much hit a home run with this drone - THANK YOU! The performance you get with this EXTREMELY portable drone is just amazing. Happy to live in an age when this kind of tech is actually available to the consumer at a relatively affordable price point.

Happy flying all!

Joe

Dagnabbit! - only one pic came through; it's a still from Day 2. I'll try again. P.S. I didn't bother to blur my cell # (on the "Reward if Found" sticker; please don't be tempted to call...).

Congrats and awesome shots too!