Hi,

Pulled the trigger and bought the flaming red fmc.  I graduated from a SYMA (altitude hold), to a Hubsan 501SS and now this mavic air.  I love it so far and just getting used to using a smartphone as the video food since both of my previous drones had a dedicated controller.  Just learning the ropes and want to avoid losing or damaging this $1000 drone.  Regarding APAS, can this be activated upon take off and kept on until RTH or when battery runs out?

Located in the Philippines and either the sun is out full blast or we get rain clouds and gloomy.  Asking advise on the use of ND filters and recommended brand and the ND filter number ND8/16 and others that would be suitable for our climate here.

Thank you for all the advises

APAS can be used in any sittuations, but important thing are: wait for at least 10 GPS satellite, homepoint update, try to  flight in sight and aware of surroundings.
For ND filter, i have PolarPro and Freewell for ND/PL and ND only. I rarely use ND/PL as it must be adjusted to get best result. Have safe flights

Optimus_Prime Posted at 2018-8-28 21:05
APAS can be used in any sittuations, but important thing are: wait for at least 10 GPS satellite, homepoint update, try to  flight in sight and aware of surroundings.
For ND filter, i have PolarPro and Freewell for ND/PL and ND only. I rarely use ND/PL as it must be adjusted to get best result. Have safe flights

thank you for your response

Get that GPS signal and fly on w/ APAS.

I think you made a fine choice and should be quite interesting testing the APAS system as you state.

APAS can be activated and disabled any time.. don’t use it unless you can see the drone as when trying to avoid an obstacle moving side way can crash the drone if it hits anything “no side sensors”

Re filters I have Polar Pro cinematic series and Freewell 64.. regretted buying the Polarised filters as I am not a pro and requires adjustment

I recommend you grab yourself a set of ND filters: 8,16,32.

Special case: video capture:
Especially if you are planning to capture video footage you are more or less nailed down to go for 1/60 shutter to get a smooth cinematic motion blur when recording 30 fps or 1/120 shutter when it's 60fps. This is where the filters come in! With one exception this hasn't much to do with the climate. If the landscape is covered in snow and the sun is shining you will need a ND64 and up. This is partly also true for white sand on beaches and deserts. It really depends on the scenery. But most of the time a ND32 will suffice in bright conditions.

Because you are surrounded by sea I assume you want to capture nice pictures of the beach and the water so a ND/PL filter would be of great use there. As mentioned before by other fellow pilots, these things require you to set them up before take off according to where the sun is relative to the viewing angle of the drone.
Just pick the one you need and hold it in front of your eye and watch as the reflections of the water are disappearing and the sky (if visible, of course) gets more and more deep-blue.
This also means that changing the angle will also diminish the effect of this kind of filter. It's tricky but it's worth the hassle.

FntX Posted at 2018-9-11 21:57
I recommend you grab yourself a set of ND filters: 8,16,32.

Special case: video capture:

thank you all for your reply with the APAS feature and ND filters