Hi guys,

Very infrequent reader of the forum but felt it was the best place to get some advice or help. I am a semi pro photographer, owned a couple of drones now, the M2Pro and the Mini 3 Pro, I really like the Mini, but the camera is just OK. In high contrast the highlights clip easily and theres some janky processing even in 48mp RAW due to the tiny pixels. However its still great for the size...

I am debating buying the Mavic 3 Pro or the Air 3. Both appeal for slight different reasons and I have a couple of concerns with both too.

My use case is below:

• I do a lot of photographic trips, campervan trips to nice locations and want the best quality, I might sell or might keep the Mini 3 Pro, not sure yet
• Weight, price, size is a factor here, however not the deciding one, those are second to Quality of the image / video (mostly image)
• I sell work via getty / etsy / local art shows (planned) - so quality is important
• I plan on using the 3x Tele camera a lot to stitch wider angle higher res images.
  

Concerns:

• I see a lot of comments about the lens on the Mavic 3 Pro (24mm) being soft, on top of this, some sameples that I have seen are also soft, which is a bit concerning. Most samples though, i have only seen on the DPReview website, so could be a sample issue. What do you guys think about this?
• The selectable aperture is a massive plus for video work and photographic too. - Less need for ND changes constantly
• The Air 3 does have a new sensor, stacked, back illuminated sensor, so it might be significantly better at interpolating the data vs the previous one.. Cannot find any samples at all though. Any thoughts on this?
• The perceived softness of the 24mm M3Pro lens is my biggest concern
• Will the Mavic 3 Pro be replaced this year by something else? Even thought just released?
• C1 vs C2 in the UK seems to mean pretty much nothing, Europe too. Just slight differences in distance.
  

What would you buy in my position?

Some of my images are here - https://www.instagram.com/shootingstills.co.uk/

Cheers, Chris

Based on your photos, I would go Mavic 3 Classic...

Hello there. Thank you for reaching out. You can also refer to the following link to see the overall specs of each drone and compare it: https://www.dji.com/ch/products/comparison-consumer-drones. Have a great day ahead.

i didn't see any money concerns or any budget comments so to me it's a no-brainer:  dji air 3

I am selling my Mavic 3 pro with extras get back with me if interested

Photographer here too. Air 3 was tempting. But it limits bracketed exposure to 3-shot only at higher resolution, as compared to 5-shot on the M3P. This was a deciding factor for me.
Other factors are lack of aperture control as you noted.

Also no issues with my M3P camera. Maybe I haven't pixel peeped hard enough.

I use the long tele on my 3Pro all the time creating panoramas of distant mountains.  They aren't auto created by DJI but Lightroom creates HDR panos wonderfully.  If the long tele is not appealing the Air3 may be the best choice but for wildlife and many other uses that long tele is really something. check out my youtube page for quite a few examples you may be able to discern. find quite a few vids with long tele use at      https://www.youtube.com/@digibud/videos