I just ordered a Mavic 3. Great product but I have one MAJOR suggestion. We all know (including DJI) that the "zoom" lens is not what it was supposed to be. My suggestion: instead of offering a 7x telephoto lens, have a 4x telephoto lens instead. The advantages:
1) No double digital zoom levels (now 2x and 4x) before getting to the optical zoom.
You can then have 1x native, 2x digital, 4x native, 8x digital ALL AT GOOD QUALITY on a 5.1K / 4K sensor...and then 16x digital for exploring.

2) Better quality: a 4x telephoto lens is easier to make sharp and reduce aberrations than 7x

3) Much more usable: Flying with 7x (or more) zoom is a recipe for shaky / hard to frame footage. 4x is much more usable for example for parallax effects

4) More light to the sensor: a 4x lens would likely do better in terms of max aperture than the F4.4 the 7x lens has

PLEASE PLEASE pass this to your engineeers. It would make the Mavic 3 the best drone in the market by far. Right now that 7x is totally useless.

Thanks!

Giacomo

Hello there Giacomo. Good day and thank you for sharing these information and your valued insights with regards to this matter. I will cascade these information to the designated DJI department for further attention. Thank you and keep flying.

From the reviews the zoom seems very useable unto 7x.  Reserve judgment until you have tested yours.

DAFlys Posted at 11-11 01:46
From the reviews the zoom seems very useable unto 7x.  Reserve judgment until you have tested yours.

I have also watched a lot of reviews but not just that: I saw the quality of the footage. It's obvious that DJI did not think the zoom turned out what they wanted it to be, so they renamed the whole thing "EXPLORE MODE."

I just think a 4x optical may be a lot more useful and higher quality. Anyway, it's just my opinion, you don't have to subscribe to that.

djiuser_VU9CoJgfOVyE Posted at 11-11 01:49
I have also watched a lot of reviews but not just that: I saw the quality of the footage. It's obvious that DJI did not think the zoom turned out what they wanted it to be, so they renamed the whole thing "EXPLORE MODE."

I just think a 4x optical may be a lot more useful and higher quality. Anyway, it's just my opinion, you don't have to subscribe to that.

Have you seen this review -

DAFlys Posted at 11-11 01:53
Have you seen this review -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=H94oAA5znUg&feature=emb_logo

Look, that 7x footage has very bad quality in my opinion. I don't buy a Mavic 3 to have footage that looks considerably worse than a cheap drone. But again: if you like that and find it useful, it's fine. Just allow me to also have my opinion.

djiuser_VU9CoJgfOVyE Posted at 11-11 01:57
Look, that 7x footage has very bad quality in my opinion. I don't buy a Mavic 3 to have footage that looks considerably worse than a cheap drone. But again: if you like that and find it useful, it's fine. Just allow me to also have my opinion.

With the 150m rule in Europe the zoom is going to be needed.

Yes it might help, but a lot messing changing lens setting up etc, drones can do a lot of moving without the need for lens. They have a wider lens coming maybe add an anamorphic  also I’m sure other third party companies may offer what you’re looking for.

They should also enable raw image capture on the tele camera.

Well said! Have been waiting years for this and am so disappointed in the 7x zoom...what professional drone has a focal length anywhere in that range? Also, no option to continue shooting D-Log footage or control manual settings as soon as you switch to any type of zoom. A 24mm and 50mm lens, both with full manual controls, would be a million times better.

Yeah Drone Valley turns out some good reviews.  The zoom into the church on the hill showed me what I needed to see.  I doubt I'm using "Explore Mode" for anything other than looking down range to see which way I'd like to fly in order to train the 4/3 camera on the new subject.

Maybe we can get a firmware upgrade to make it better but for now, it's nice but not all that useful.  I wonder if they could have fit an APC sized sensor with 24 MP in there if they skipped the zoom portion.  That would be valuable to me.

djiuser_FficrgsTftRF Posted at 11-12 16:29
Well said! Have been waiting years for this and am so disappointed in the 7x zoom...what professional drone has a focal length anywhere in that range? Also, no option to continue shooting D-Log footage or control manual settings as soon as you switch to any type of zoom. A 24mm and 50mm lens, both with full manual controls, would be a million times better.

I finally have the drone and have been flying with it yesterday. Good news is that its nothing short of amazing: super stable, virtually crash proof, and churning out truly incredible quality from the main lens.

Unfortinately, I can confirm what written above: yes the UX with this zoom is dismal and so are the restrictions while using it. But even if DJI fixes that with a firmware update, it wont matter. The video quality at 7x is useless for anything but a curiousity you will soon get tired of. What a pity they didnt think this through.

In addition I would like to add that it would be nice if the zoom levels can be operated through the function buttons. Right now its a little bit annoying to switch through all the zoom levels and even better would be if there is a possibility to select the function button to switch directly between 1x and 7x. Hope u can pass this on and we can see this in one of the next firmware updates.

Thanks

Kind regards,
Philipp

Even better would be a thermal camera option as a second.