Hi !

I use Mavic 3 every weeks to shoot aerial footage for French tv shows. When it was released last year, there was so many missing features of the Mavic 2 Pro...

since a few months, it is now a good drone, but it still lack of 4 major features on professional shootings :

-A setting to disable Vision Positioning (the sensors below the drone) : Many of my colleagues kept Phantom 4 Pro because it has this feature, and with this, you can fly very low to shoot very close to the ground. Yesterday i was shooting a car tv show, and tried to do the same shot with the Mavic 3, and because i can't disable Vision Positioning System, the drone was not able to go lower than 0,5M.... Also, when flying over water, i already had the case when the drone think the ground is moving so it think the drone is drifting and try to compensate, leading to almost a flyaway... Please DJI, like on Mavic 2 and Phantom 4, let us disable Vision Positioning System.

-HQ and Full FOV mode like on the Mavic 2 Pro. Every guy i talked with on pro shooting that used Mavic 2 Pro, only shoot in HQ mode. On the Mavic 3, there is no more the choice, it is always the equivalent of "Full FOV", so we don't have the 35mm equivalent of the HQ mode of the Mavic 2 Pro. Of course we can zoom a little bit to have approximately the same thing, but we loose quality as it is using pixel merging in post process. The Mavic 2 Pro was keeping only 3840x2160 in center of the sensor without quality loss, and it was a must.

-A setting to disable Turn Assist. When turning left or right using Yaw movement, the drone add Roll movement like a turn assist. this is a constraint as it is doing that, we don't have full control of it, and almost everytime, it restrict what you want to do. This is a very important feature i would like. Please DJI, this is a professional drone, let us disable assists.

-Autofocus is now broken with the last update, it is always doing focus again when moving and ruin many shots. Please DJI give us back the autofocus behavious of the previous firmware.

that's it. of course, there are also some other features like...


-SDK....
-Dlog for X7 sensor...

Thanks DJI if you read this and add these features, as they were available on older and cheaper drones...

Hi, Fabriziooo. Thank you for reaching out. We appreciate you sharing your experience using the Mavic 3 drone with us. We also hope that the Waypoint Flight, SDK, and other old and new functions that you mentioned can be rolled out as soon as possible. I can see that you are a professional pilot. It takes time to develop and test every new function. Please rest assured that we will send your voice to the related department. Thank you for your patience. If you have more expectations for products and functions, you can leave a message in DJI Forum and communicate with us. Thank you for your concerns and understanding.

Thanks Gamora, happy to see this kind of message !

DJI Gamora Posted at 11-8 09:57
Hi, Fabriziooo. Thank you for reaching out. We appreciate you sharing your experience using the Mavic 3 drone with us. We also hope that the Waypoint Flight, SDK, and other old and new functions that you mentioned can be rolled out as soon as possible. I can see that you are a professional pilot. It takes time to develop and test every new function. Please rest assured that we will send your voice to the related department. Thank you for your patience. If you have more expectations for products and functions, you can leave a message in DJI Forum and communicate with us. Thank you for your concerns and understanding.

DJI Gamora - and all the other DJI folks on here, I just wanted to say, I know it probably gets repetitive, but the requests for the SDK really represent what the user community of this drone want and need, so thank you for being here to listen, and hopefully to truly champion this within DJI.  You are literally the front-line of DJI and you know first hand what we are looking for.  Thank you for telling them SDK, SDK, SDK!!

Fabrizioo - GREAT LIST!

+1.  Great ideas.  

HQ vs Full frame on m2 pro was sort of a crutch.  On the mavic 3 you can crop in to 2x, lossless [i could be wrong on lossless], and it is the same as HQ on m2 pro.  I confirmed this with a football field.  Its basically the same.  HQ was just a crop on the sensor.  All the ideas are good.  Especially SDK, waypoints.  I don't own an X7, so I will take your word for it.  I can add one more.  3x3 pano mode for 7x camera.  It can be done manually an creates a stunning 100 mp photo, but you need software to stitch it.  Even if DJI had it take the photos, an didn't stitch it.  It would beat doing it manually.  

djiuser_EEXtim8SFbZ6 Posted at 11-9 07:52
HQ vs Full frame on m2 pro was sort of a crutch.  On the mavic 3 you can crop in to 2x, lossless , and it is the same as HQ on m2 pro.  I confirmed this with a football field.  Its basically the same.  HQ was just a crop on the sensor.  All the ideas are good.  Especially SDK, waypoints.  I don't own an X7, so I will take your word for it.  I can add one more.  3x3 pano mode for 7x camera.  It can be done manually an creates a stunning 100 mp photo, but you need software to stitch it.  Even if DJI had it take the photos, an didn't stitch it.  It would beat doing it manually.

Yeah it would be a good feature for the 3x3 pano, but i don't think DJI will add this as it might be seen as a "bonus"

For the HQ mode, zooming to obtain approximately the same crop won't give the same quality. The Mavic 2 Pro was lossless as it was keeping exactly 3840x2160 pixels in the center of the sensor. If you try with Mavic 3, you won't be able to know which size is your crop, and the drone will apply pixel merging in order to create a file with 3840x2160 pixels.

i saw a video about this with many number charts and the mode with the least processing is 4K 120fps slow motion. The drone crop and give approximately the same crop as HQ mode from Mavic 2 pro, and there is almost no pixel merging, but it is slow motion mode so not made to record everyday videos...

TonyPHX Posted at 11-8 20:00
DJI Gamora - and all the other DJI folks on here, I just wanted to say, I know it probably gets repetitive, but the requests for the SDK really represent what the user community of this drone want and need, so thank you for being here to listen, and hopefully to truly champion this within DJI.  You are literally the front-line of DJI and you know first hand what we are looking for.  Thank you for telling them SDK, SDK, SDK!!

Hi, TonyPHX. You're welcome. Rest assured that all of the suggestions listed by Fabriziooo have already been submitted. All significant suggestions will be implemented after the evaluation of our relevant team. For the latest updates please stay tuned to our DJI official website at ( www.dji.com ). Your kind understanding is appreciated and thank you for your continued support.

I agree with everything the OP poses except the turn assist.

They have to:
- add a sort of (automatic) wide angle photo/panorama mode for the tele lens
- add definitly 2.7K video res to the video!

I made a little gif to explain the trouble with the Mavic 3 turn assist :

Here is a Phantom 4 / Mavic 2 Pro behaviour following a car and looking at it when it pass by :



Now, here is the Mavic 3 behaviour doing the same thing with the rc controller :



With Mavic 3, you won't be able to follow the car and turning the drone while staying in straight line, as the turn assist will add a roll movement to the drone, and while it is doing that, every other movement are skipped, the drone won't continue to follow the straight line even if you try with your sticks. Every time you try to turn the drone on itself only with yaw, it will add a roll movement, and this is a complete mess

GaryDoug Posted at 11-10 20:00
I agree with everything the OP poses except the turn assist.

do you still don't agree turn assist should be a setting that can be turned off ?

Fabriziooo Posted at 11-11 04:01
I made a little gif to explain the trouble with the Mavic 3 turn assist :

Here is a Phantom 4 / Mavic 2 Pro behaviour following a car and looking at it when it pass by :

Well, that's bad...if it can't fly as demonstrated in the first animation! It's a very typical and necessary movement to be able to do.

Fabriziooo Posted at 11-11 04:03
do you still don't agree turn assist should be a setting that can be turned off ?

No I don't agree. It involves safety in quick maneuvers or else it would not be implemented. And, by the way, I have seen the same thing in all my drones....M2P, Ma2, A2s, and M3.
You can clearly see it in this M2P video:

The most important feature the Mavic 3 is missing for me is POI and allow you to rotate taking pictures every 2,3,5, ect seconds. The Mavic 2 Pro can do this no problem. Also the Mavic air 2/S, MM,MM2 because has the SDK. Is very frustrated the Mavic 3 can not do something as simple as that.

I need that feature in order to do 3D objects.

GaryDoug Posted at 11-12 21:55
No I don't agree. It involves safety in quick maneuvers or else it would not be implemented. And, by the way, I have seen the same thing in all my drones....M2P, Ma2, A2s, and M3.
You can clearly see it in this M2P video: https://youtu.be/nMx-I-xuBpg

It seems your video show the Mavic 2 Pro using Active track to follow the boat... we are not talking about the same thing i guess.

On Mavic 2 Pro, when you pilot it in manual, no Activetrack or anything, there is no "Turn assist". you can do this, with the right skills :



On Mavic 3, this is the first DJI drone that use an assist when turning on itself the drone, and it makes the same movement impossible, as the drone will add a roll movement and do this :



i don't talk about Activetrack, i never use this, i talk about manual control, and this is the point, you should be able to do with the drone exactly what you want, and not be limited to a slower behaviour without the possibility to follow a subject at a fixed distance.

And even if some people find this assist useful, well, i don't want it to be removed, i want it as a setting that can be on, or off.

;lkhlkjguighjuhg oop

djiuser_EEXtim8SFbZ6 Posted at 11-13 07:11
;lkhlkjguighjuhg oop

i saw this on my email notification : "the first thing i did is compare hq..." but i don't see your message here

Fabriziooo Posted at 11-13 02:39
It seems your video show the Mavic 2 Pro using Active track to follow the boat... we are not talking about the same thing i guess.

On Mavic 2 Pro, when you pilot it in manual, no Activetrack or anything, there is no "Turn assist". you can do this, with the right skills :

Active track uses the same algorithms as manual control. I have also seen this in manual control with the M2p.

GaryDoug Posted at 11-15 20:49
Active track uses the same algorithms as manual control. I have also seen this in manual control with the M2p.

What are you talking about... i am not talking about algorithm or active track, just pure manual control, and as many noticed when the drone came out, there is a turn assist that was not on previous drones, and it should be an option, not permanent.

And even if you like it, why don't you want others have the ability to disable it ? this is what i don't understand. I saw many people complaining about it when the drone came out

Fabriziooo Posted at 11-11 04:01
I made a little gif to explain the trouble with the Mavic 3 turn assist :

Here is a Phantom 4 / Mavic 2 Pro behaviour following a car and looking at it when it pass by :

Absolutely PERFECT description to show how this new control stick mapping RUINS a lot of shots.

I've complained about this from the first day of flying this drone, why did DJI decide that the stick input needed to change from what everyone is used to.

Happy to see this is a shared issue… with time I notice less, but when I had a Phantom last week on a shoot, i realised again what was a true manual control…

Fabriziooo Posted at 11-18 00:37
Happy to see this is a shared issue… with time I notice less, but when I had a Phantom last week on a shoot, i realised again what was a true manual control…

Another example is if you're chasing a car flying backwards and if it drives too fast and overtakes the drone. Previously you could make the drone do a quick 180 and the inertia of the drone would allow a full speed spin, no loss in speed, allowing for a rear shot of the car.

With the M3 this is impossible, the drone's yaw is locked to the forward speed, so it slows all the way down and turns off to the side.

Exactly… it happened to me two weeks ago during the shoot of « Automoto », a pretty famous car tv show in France and trust me, an option to disable turn assist on Mavic 3 is now on top of my list of changes

CloudVisual Posted at 11-18 02:49
Another example is if you're chasing a car flying backwards and if it drives too fast and overtakes the drone. Previously you could make the drone do a quick 180 and the inertia of the drone would allow a full speed spin, no loss in speed, allowing for a rear shot of the car.

With the M3 this is impossible, the drone's yaw is locked to the forward speed, so it slows all the way down and turns off to the side.

"if you're chasing a car flying backwards" I presume you didn’t mean the car was flying backwards, it reads that way ;+)

If the car out paces the drone, it won’t matter about turning around the drone flys at exactly the same speed backwards forwards and sidewards

ZeuS-FL Posted at 11-13 02:04
The most important feature the Mavic 3 is missing for me is POI and allow you to rotate taking pictures every 2,3,5, ect seconds. The Mavic 2 Pro can do this no problem. Also the Mavic air 2/S, MM,MM2 because has the SDK. Is very frustrated the Mavic 3 can not do something as simple as that.

I need that feature in order to do 3D objects.

This can be done with active track also very easy to set up with cruise control. In active track you can set it up auto or set it up and fly manually . Its also much quicker to set up POI in AT directly from the main screen.

Fabriziooo Posted at 11-11 04:03
do you still don't agree turn assist should be a setting that can be turned off ?

I think it can be done in AT but speed is obviously the issue. In fact what you really need is ATTI mode. I once watched a guy flying an old inspire 1 similar car chase but this was complete manual not gps assist.

For what you want and if speed is an issue then FPV even AVATA drone will out preform M2 M3 P4 P4pro etc. I think if a hack for atti mode could be made happen. But you would almost certainly need SOP + you could be flying illegally.

Think of a jet fighter flying approach and then flying past you , but you have a problem with your neck so you cannot turn your head fast enough to keep it in sight. I don't think Fabriziooo is ever expecting himself to keep up with the jet fighter by running behind it.

Well, yes ATTI mode would be a great feature, but it should not be necessary to do these moves… Mavic 2 Pro was free from every restriction in manual piloting, in GPS mode.

GPS is not the issue here, it is like in modern cars, some assists are sometimes a good feature, but we can disable them… not on Mavic 3

Monkey007 Posted at 11-18 07:04
Think of a jet fighter flying approach and then flying past you , but you have a problem with your neck so you cannot turn your head fast enough to keep it in sight. I don't think Fabriziooo is ever expecting himself to keep up with the jet fighter by running behind it.

To be honest, to understand this it would need someone to post a video showing exactly what is being discussed. Turning off “TURN ASSIST” is not something I’m familiar with, at least the term “TURN ASSIST” it certainly was not a feature on my M2P or Z called that.
From what I read above and the OP agreed was that you could be tracing a car from the front until it out paces you, you can then basically flip the drone around and continue to follow the car from the rear. But unless the car drastically slows down this is almost impossible . So I think if it has been part of their work its best to post something that shows the difference.

hallmark007 Posted at 11-18 05:55
"if you're chasing a car flying backwards" I presume you didn’t mean the car was flying backwards, it reads that way ;+)

If the car out paces the drone, it won’t matter about turning around the drone flys at exactly the same speed backwards forwards and sidewards

If the car out paces the drone then when you spin around you get a shot of it going off into the distance. The benefit to being able to turn as quickly as possible without losing momentum is that you get more of the car close up and the drone doesn't lose pace or the line it was flying.

A lot of people are struggling to understand how this drone flies differently when yaw is inputted and probably haven't experienced this. I feel that you've not encountered this issue due to the way you fly drones, so it's hard to describe or might not be something you ever need to do.

CloudVisual Posted at 11-19 02:32
If the car out paces the drone then when you spin around you get a shot of it going off into the distance. The benefit to being able to turn as quickly as possible without losing momentum is that you get more of the car close up and the drone doesn't lose pace or the line it was flying.

A lot of people are struggling to understand how this drone flies differently when yaw is inputted and probably haven't experienced this. I feel that you've not encountered this issue due to the way you fly drones, so it's hard to describe or might not be something you ever need to do.

Your right the description is slightly confusing and thats why I asked for a video or demo to be posted, also I the OP had said that turning of ASSIST with M2 enabled pilot to do this. I’m not familiar with this there was no assist mode on my M2P or Z. But the kind of movement you’re talking about is something an AVATA in manual mode is a lot more capable of .

hallmark007 Posted at 11-19 02:53
Your right the description is slightly confusing and thats why I asked for a video or demo to be posted, also I the OP had said that turning of ASSIST with M2 enabled pilot to do this. I’m not familiar with this there was no assist mode on my M2P or Z. But the kind of movement you’re talking about is something an AVATA in manual mode is a lot more capable of .

You are mixing up what we said. On Mavic 2 Pro, there is NO turn assist, the drone flies in full manual control and the drone do exactly what you do on your sticks.

Mavic 3 is the first DJI drone to introduce an assist when you turn the drone on itself using yaw movement. It add a roll movement to it, even if you didn't touched the roll axis.

i will try to make a video about it, or a gif. but i'm sure there are already videos about it

Fabriziooo Posted at 11-19 03:36
You are mixing up what we said. On Mavic 2 Pro, there is NO turn assist, the drone flies in full manual control and the drone do exactly what you do on your sticks.

Mavic 3 is the first DJI drone to introduce an assist when you turn the drone on itself using yaw movement. It add a roll movement to it, even if you didn't touched the roll axis.

Ok but I’m sure the Air2s was similar to M2 and it also turned similar to M3. I may have some old video of this also I will dig it out and see.
Much of this type of footage you speak of is much cleaner filmed with two drones or two takes. I have tried looking for one take videos but cannot see any posted except very slow moving which is very possible with M3 and speeding up footage is also a viable option. I have seen it done on inspire but its not possible with phantom because fast 180 turning will show legs in footage where as inspire has legs above the camera.

Fabriziooo Posted at 11-19 03:36
You are mixing up what we said. On Mavic 2 Pro, there is NO turn assist, the drone flies in full manual control and the drone do exactly what you do on your sticks.

Mavic 3 is the first DJI drone to introduce an assist when you turn the drone on itself using yaw movement. It add a roll movement to it, even if you didn't touched the roll axis.

Mavic 3 is the first DJI drone to introduce an assist when you turn the drone on itself using yaw movement. It add a roll movement to it, even if you didn't touched the roll axis.

Perhaps 'Turn Assist' is the term DJI is using, but in conventional model helicopter flying this is known as the 'banked turns'. To turn a helicopter smoothly, some 'aileron (roll)' input is needed in addition to the 'rudder (yaw)' input, so that the helicopter will lean into a turn. My very first camera drone is a Phantom 4, and I am 100% sure there is NO banked turns programmed to its flight characteristics, which makes perfect sense for a camera drone with a self stabilizing air frame and a self stabilizing camera gimbal. However, coming from conventional helicopters, flying DJI camera drones has always been 'unnatural' to me; simply because the self stabilizing of the drone's air frame is constantly conteracting my aileron (roll) input when I'm turning (yawing). I can confirm that the Mavic3 DOES have a small amount of 'Turn Assist' or 'banked turns' in its flight characteristics, and strictly for filming I agree that the operator should have the option to disable it.

hallmark007 Posted at 11-19 04:39
Ok but I’m sure the Air2s was similar to M2 and it also turned similar to M3. I may have some old video of this also I will dig it out and see.
Much of this type of footage you speak of is much cleaner filmed with two drones or two takes. I have tried looking for one take videos but cannot see any posted except very slow moving which is very possible with M3 and speeding up footage is also a viable option. I have seen it done on inspire but its not possible with phantom because fast 180 turning will show legs in footage where as inspire has legs above the camera.

The Air 2s doesn't have this 'turn assist'/'banked turn' or whatever it's called.

I will need to fly the M3 and older drones and upload the flight logs to show how two identical stick inputs cause the drones to fly vastly different.

The animation that Fabriziooo created perfectly demonstrates how the M3 flies differently to older ones. The turn assist feature needs removing.

If you want to easily see the 'turn assist' in action. Hover your M3 and yaw 100% left or right. Once the drone is spinning, try flying forwards. It will just circle the same size circle no matter if you input 10% or 100% forward stick. Any of the older drones will fly in an increasingly larger circle as the percentage of forward input increases.

Whilst this isn't a normal flying style that would ever be used, it helps people see how the yaw affects the forward input.

Every guy i talked with on pro shooting that used Mavic 2 Pro, only shoot in HQ mode. On the Mavic 3, there is no more the choice

m2p has bad 4k full fov realizatioin (pixel binning, real resolution is 2.7k) thats why only 4k hq can bring real 4k resolution
so funny you asks for hq mode not knowing why m2p users use it

manowar_gub Posted at 11-20 03:58
Every guy i talked with on pro shooting that used Mavic 2 Pro, only shoot in HQ mode. On the Mavic 3, there is no more the choice

m2p has bad 4k full fov realizatioin (pixel binning, real resolution is 2.7k) thats why only 4k hq can bring real 4k resolution

Of course i know it, a 20mp sensor shooting full frame at 4K, there must be pixel binning.

On Mavic 3, yes the image quality is very good on 4K as well as 5.1k, that’s not the point. I really miss this 35mm equivalent without quality loss. On Mavic 3 you can try to simulate it by using digital zoom, but the issue is the exact opposite as what you said about Mavic 2: i avoid this digital zoom on M3 as it has a bad pixel binning effect.. so i only use 1.0x mode, even if I prefer the 35mm equivalent with that cinematic effect. if only there was a mode keeping exactly 3840x2160 in the center of the sensor, without post processing, pixel binning or anything…

Fabriziooo Posted at 11-20 11:55
Of course i know it, a 20mp sensor shooting full frame at 4K, there must be pixel binning.

On Mavic 3, yes the image quality is very good on 4K as well as 5.1k, that’s not the point. I really miss this 35mm equivalent without quality loss. On Mavic 3 you can try to simulate it by using digital zoom, but the issue is the exact opposite as what you said about Mavic 2: i avoid this digital zoom on M3 as it has a bad pixel binning effect.. so i only use 1.0x mode, even if I prefer the 35mm equivalent with that cinematic effect. if only there was a mode keeping exactly 3840x2160 in the center of the sensor, without post processing, pixel binning or anything…

Got your point! Yep, it can be very useful, hope DJI will fix it.