Just received my Fly More Combo kit and flew the Mavic today for the first time. My very first drone. I did a firmware update and calibration of the controller, IMUs and compass. I did not calibrate the gimbal but I'll need to as sometimes the horizon is a bit crooked. I think once I learn to adjust it both on the ground and flight it will be fine.
The first flight was at a huge soccer field complex with nothing around and I totally forgot to hit the record video button but the flight was beyond uneventful. The Mavic was ROCK stable and super easy to control. The video link remained stable although I did only fly 4,000 ft. horizontally away and about 250 ft. vertically at the max. Later I flew a quick photoshoot of my home again it was very, very stable. I did do one return to home attempt to see how it would work (was nervous because of a crash of someone trying to do the same) but it worked for me perfectly.
The image quality is STUNNING. I have a 5k iMac display and the 4k video on screen is as razor sharp as any Phantom 4 video I've ever seen ONCE YOU FOCUSED. I did notice that it misfocused after takeoff and the first minute was fuzzy (its not in my video below I cut it) but then I focused the rest of the video is staggering. I'm not sure if the latest firmware update adjusted the built in sharpening but this had that crazy almost too sharp look that makes Phantom footage look incredible. The leaves and detail on the roof of the home was like you could reach in and touch it.


I did a 4k upload to Youtube and if you have a 4k or better mointor please make sure when you view it you have it set all the way up to 4k quality, you may need to switch it manually by the gears icon. There is no color grading at all. That said the compression with Youtube still doesn't do what I see straight out of the camera justice.

Looking good. Which picture mode did you use?

Jenkins Posted at 2016-11-1 04:00
Looking good. Which picture mode did you use?

No idea didn't pick one, so its the default whatever that is. I was itching to fly it and I learned enough to make sure I could do it safely (firmware / calibration / beginners mode). I have a bunch of time this week so I'll be flying nearly everyday and will focus on features each time. I've already made some adjustments to the gimbal speed etc. I want to try out to continuing getting a smoother look to my flying video.

Would be kinda cool for you to take her up and capture some Halloween night trick or treating madness from above your house tonight.

Is this your first drone? (will be mine).

That's impressive for a first time drone pilot. I live in hope being one myself.

Sweet video! You are right, the image looks super sharp.

(unrelated, but that white thing sticking out of the shingles on the top roof above your back door is driving me nuts lol)

T_A_Rogers Posted at 2016-10-31 21:05
Sweet video! You are right, the image looks super sharp.

(unrelated, but that white thing sticking ...

Great video.
One of the best I've seen from the Mavic. Very smooth and great colours.

Hope to follow you when you do more tests to really make sure you see none of the issues that are being reported here lately.

Yep, I'm a first time drone pilot. The Mavic is so stable if you let go it freezes in place perfectly. For me so far the trick is doing ONE movement at a time: up or down, forward or back, yawing left or right, moving left or right. The dynamic movements of yawing while moving left or right, or descending or climbing while moving forward or back especially when combined with camera gimbal movements can get quite tricky and I can see how when someone is "looking" forward through the vision of the drone but circling an object moving backwards etc. you can risk striking something. For me safety these first few flights is more about planning out my movements in advance then doing them one at a time even if it sacrifices the cinematic look.

Thanks for pointing out the white under the one roof tile... I'll have to check that out!

Also after this video I did recalibrate the gimbal (didn't know you could) then added a tiny touch of manual adjustment to what it calibrated until it looked level to me (drone sitting on a perfectly flat table top looking across a room) and video I have taken since has had a perfectly level horizon.

After following a discussion on fuzzy pictures the past few days it is a real comfort to see one so rock sharp. Very nice color and great detail! So no color grading and I assume no sharpening? (other than what the camera does itself in the default mode). Also, the new firmaware may have added some (more) sharpening. But that would not be a fix for the problem of the falloff of detail on one or more sides that is being reported. Whatever hardware issues some of the cameras have, you are clearly not having them.  
Thanks for posting it and making those of waiting for ours to arrive feel a bit better about what this thing can do.

david@husomandr Posted at 2016-11-1 09:43
After following a discussion on fuzzy pictures the past few days it is a real comfort to see one so  ...

you got it, that is straight out of the camera into iMovie and then exported to youtube. didn't touch sharpening OR color. that said this same flight when i took off it had focused on me standing in front of it and then the first few minutes of my house were a blurry mess. At first I didn't notice it in bright sunlight looking at my iPhone screen but it was so blurry eventually I saw. A quick tap and then you get the tack sharp image you see here.

I wish there was a way to FORCE the drone to focus at infinity unless I tap the screen or "unlock" the focus or something. Someone said the latest firmware did just that but I don't think it does, I am running the latest version and sometimes in particular beginning a new flight it is focused at a short distance (like it focused on the grass / pavement in front of it before takeoff) leaving the image a blurry mess if you don't remember to focus once airborne. For 80-90% of flying heights / distances / subjects a focus at infinity is perfect so to me it makes sense to somehow make that the locked focus UNLESS you manually force it to focus at something closer rather than allowing the drone to focus at something closely and never go to infinity unless you remember to tap.

oh well something to get used to but DJI could make this more user friendly IMHO.