Went flying and shooting with both DJI Mavic Air & DJI Mavic Pro last weekend, and tried to shoot some footages so that I can put them up together side-by-side to have some easier comparisons. Although I have that intention, the thought went away when I was shooting. Therefore the shots were not all so similar (resulting in the needs to slow down some clips which created choppy shots), but still, I hope that you can see the differences in image quality between the 2 drones.

Mavic Air certainly got lots of cool features that we can use and they can make our drone-flying & photos/videos pop, and I loved using them. For instance, the asteroid & the 1080p 120fps slow-mo shot are two things that I liked very much about Mavic Air.

The camera or the processors in the two drones are quite different, Mavic Air gives you much more colorful shots; while the Mavic Pro gives you much more room for post-processing. So I will say, it really depends on how are you going to use your drone in deciding which one is better for you.

Great vid! Thanks for sharing

Very nice.
I must say the Pro seems to deliver sharper footage. Except for some top down shots.
Not sure why that is, but it almost seems as if the Air is softer after some distance.

thx for sharing - again we can see that this infinity focus is (sadly) f...ed on Air
any futher object is way way less sharp then Mpro, to level of almost no detail/sharpness if it's on far horizon (that block houses before hills - @start of movie) middle ones are just bad, and last line is... :/
So IMHO they did mess/broke lenses design from start :/

Nice comparison!

KREMi Posted at 2018-2-24 12:27
thx for sharing - again we can see that this infinity focus is (sadly) f...ed on Air  
any futher object is way way less sharp then Mpro, to level of almost no detail/sharpness if it's on far horizon (that block houses before hills - @start of movie) middle ones are just bad, and last line is... :/
So IMHO they did mess/broke lenses design from start :/

Yes, in fact, MP is doing very well compared to MA because of better optics. However, I would like to have the option of 100 Mb/s on my MP so the camera avoids destroying the image in a shot with many small details.

Regards Leif.

Can I ask what the camera settings were on the MP, did you have sharpness set +1 to turn off the noise reduction ?

KREMi Posted at 2018-2-24 12:27
thx for sharing - again we can see that this infinity focus is (sadly) f...ed on Air  
any futher object is way way less sharp then Mpro, to level of almost no detail/sharpness if it's on far horizon (that block houses before hills - @start of movie) middle ones are just bad, and last line is... :/
So IMHO they did mess/broke lenses design from start :/

I guess that is the limitation around the fixed focus lens of the MA

Very nice idea to do this.  I could see a bit of difference in the videos, but I must say that I could see just about no difference at all in the photos (except for a minor diff in the clouds).  I think this furthers the impression that I have from all the postings that they're both great drones for the majority of folks, while a smaller subgroup has strong preferences.

A CW Posted at 2018-2-24 09:40
Great vid! Thanks for sharing

Thank you A CW

Montfrooij Posted at 2018-2-24 11:53
Very nice.
I must say the Pro seems to deliver sharper footage. Except for some top down shots.
Not sure why that is, but it almost seems as if the Air is softer after some distance.

I had the same feeling too, and I do wonder whether it is some hardware malfunction (a broken camera) from my Mavic Air. But frankly speaking, I do watch other people's comparison and noticed the same thing.

KREMi Posted at 2018-2-24 12:27
thx for sharing - again we can see that this infinity focus is (sadly) f...ed on Air  
any futher object is way way less sharp then Mpro, to level of almost no detail/sharpness if it's on far horizon (that block houses before hills - @start of movie) middle ones are just bad, and last line is... :/
So IMHO they did mess/broke lenses design from start :/

I wonder whether it is a hardware problem or it can be tackled in some firmware updates? some DSLRs give users an option to fine tune focusing for individual lens, I wonder if the camera could adapt to that, if so, maybe DJI can include focus fine-tuning for all fixed focus camera on different drones?

GoldenSun Posted at 2018-2-24 14:43
Nice comparison!

Thanks a lot GoldenSun!

lannes Posted at 2018-2-24 15:46
Can I ask what the camera settings were on the MP, did you have sharpness set +1 to turn off the noise reduction ?

I set the camera at neutral sharpness for the test.
But you do remind me that maybe I can try setting the sharpness on Mavic Air at +1 or +2 to see the result next time.

StanfordWebbie Posted at 2018-2-24 16:04
Very nice idea to do this.  I could see a bit of difference in the videos, but I must say that I could see just about no difference at all in the photos (except for a minor diff in the clouds).  I think this furthers the impression that I have from all the postings that they're both great drones for the majority of folks, while a smaller subgroup has strong preferences.

yes, I agree that majority of the people will see both as great compact drones.  As for the photos, 4K resolution & usage online got very limited difference, but the sharpness problem exists when it came to 100% Crop. I guess slight difference can be seen when they are printed out. (Here is the photo test I had before: https://forum.dji.com/thread-136350-1-1.html)

I am still trying to see whether the 100mbps Mavic Air really gives better dynamic range & details, but so far after around 4 to 5 times of flying, I can tell the difference is hard to be noticed.  If Mavic Pro 2 really got a 1-inch sensor as rumoured, the image quality will be no doubt another level.

LKHPhotography Posted at 2018-2-25 10:16
Thank you A CW

No problem - always appreciate your posts!

LKHPhotography Posted at 2018-2-25 10:24
Thanks a lot GoldenSun!

My pleasure!

LKHPhotography Posted at 2018-2-25 10:17
I had the same feeling too, and I do wonder whether it is some hardware malfunction (a broken camera) from my Mavic Air. But frankly speaking, I do watch other people's comparison and noticed the same thing.

My best guess is that the MA has less decent optics.
But that is just a guess. I am no expert and have not seen pixel peeping comparisons so far.