So I have been meaning to get a Mavic 3 Pro to be coupled with a RC Pro as an upgrade from my beloved Air 2S. But ever since the 3 Pro came out, I have been reading a lot of posts / comments on those posts centered on the same issue - main camera softness / loss of focus.  

The country where I live has no official presence of DJI, which essentially means everything I buy from DJI is a one off purchase with zero possibility to send it back or get support. Now I have my Air 2S, knowing well about this drawback, and fortunately, there have been no issues with that unit whatsoever. But the posts and other users' experiences scared me to the point of holding off for this long with no meaningful efforts from DJI to show that the current batches are largely free of these anomalies, as seen from the first of the following links below.

Do you think this is normal and I am overthinking? Or is it really starting to be annoying to see this many feedbacks on the same issue from users at this price point? Please cast your vote.

Here are some of the reported issues on it, taken from the DJI forum and mavicpilots forum:

1. https://forum.dji.com/forum.php? ... 6orderby%3Ddateline

2. https://forum.dji.com/forum.php? ... 6orderby%3Ddateline

3. https://mavicpilots.com/threads/ ... main-sensor.138225/

Not sure what the point is here.  Of course there are people that have issues.  Either defects, or self-inflicted, or sometimes even lack of understanding.  Are you really basing a buying decision off of a poll??  

So  a couple of people have complained.
The important question is:  What proportion of users are affected by these issues?

There's a website called SKYPIXEL where you can look at user submitted photos and videos of Mavic 3 Pro.  
https://www.skypixel.com/

Most of the people who complain about these issues don't have too much mechanical, photography and optical knowledge as I observed. Of course, a quite big sensor (4/3) mounted on a small optical system is not going to be perfect (look at the size of professional 24mm lenses for Olympus and Panasonic, because these systems are also using 4/3 sensors). Count in motors vibration, wind, sun and not so much of photography knowledge of most of the people around here and you have your answer already.

Take. a gamble? Can't wait forever

I went through 7 units in total to get a decent one. Some people got it right first time, some required few replacements.
So in my case it wasn't a very happy path. You've got to make your own decisions here though.
There are enough posts about this issue on both forums.

iFlylikeafridge Posted at 7-27 00:32
Most of the people who complain about these issues don't have too much mechanical, photography and optical knowledge as I observed. Of course, a quite big sensor (4/3) mounted on a small optical system is not going to be perfect (look at the size of professional 24mm lenses for Olympus and Panasonic, because these systems are also using 4/3 sensors). Count in motors vibration, wind, sun and not so much of photography knowledge of most of the people around here and you have your answer already.

Wow, that is really not accurate at all and quite dismissive of a sizable portion of those who purchase and use these drones.  

I have almost 4 decades of professional photo experience including shooting aerials from all kinds of aircraft and when I took to the task last year of going through 3 Mavic 3 Cine's to get to the one I have right now, this was based on sound testing that includes all the criteria you mention above plus something you don't: A baseline example of what the drone should be doing if in spec.

Before making my purcahse, I spent over a month seeking out samples until I located what I found to be a well calibrated sample from a Mavic 3 from a guy in Australia. With those DNG's in hand, I had ample tools to show DJI what I was expecting and eventually got it. I got in time for job in Iceland that spanned almost three weeks and put the drone through all kinds of conditions and it held its spec in terms of image quality the entire time.

So when I found earlier this year that my Mavic 3 Pro was of the same caliber as my Cine, I knew to keep it and then get on with work.

My advice to the OP is to keep returning the drone if you find you get one with a badly de-centered lens or one that the often and odd asymmetric zones of softness that are not curable by stopping down.  

I can't return mine at this point but did get to share some sample images with DJI engineering and they came back with this.

"1. The problem of image blur does not exist, because the shooting distance is far away, the current clarity meets expectations, and it belongs to the better category
2. Lightroom color configuration problem, because our photo format is the latest, currently Lightroom does not do color configuration for such photos, we are communicating with Lightroom company, and will add the color configuration of Mavic 3 pro in the future"

Here are the sample images I shared - https://drive.google.com/drive/f ... LJxkBKp?usp=sharing

ddubluw Posted at 8-10 09:20
I can't return mine at this point but did get to share some sample images with DJI engineering and they came back with this.

"1. The problem of image blur does not exist, because the shooting distance is far away, the current clarity meets expectations, and it belongs to the better category

It's exactly the same problem I had ( as well as some other people here ).
I'm really sorry that DJI says everything is fine. Exactly what happened to me too.
I can see this area of blur on your images in the same place where I had it.
The main lens is not uniformly sharp in a place where you would not expect to see such a drop in detail.

Crio Posted at 8-11 01:54
It's exactly the same problem I had ( as well as some other people here ).
I'm really sorry that DJI says everything is fine. Exactly what happened to me too.
I can see this area of blur on your images in the same place where I had it.

Crazy. I understand that they can't just replace every aircraft that someone has an issue with but these problems are pretty glaring.

ddubluw Posted at 8-14 13:19
Crazy. I understand that they can't just replace every aircraft that someone has an issue with but these problems are pretty glaring.

I went through 7 units in total to finally get a decent one