This is my first post but I have been reading for a while and thought I'd introduce myself and tell my story having bought a Mavic Air around 3 weeks ago. Sorry if it is a bit long, I didn't expect it to be when I started!
I have been toying with the idea of buying a drone for some time, initially having ruled out the Mavic Air in favour of the Mavic Pro or possibly the upcoming Mavic Pro 2. However, I decided to revisit the Mavic Air having read a lot of positive reviews and watched hours and hours of YouTube videos about it! The main reason that I initially discounted the Mavic Air was due to the possible range issues with the Enhanced Wifi but what sold me in the end was the compact form factor. I'm pleased to say that range isn't a problem for me and is well within anything that I ever expect to use it for as I'll be sticking to the current UK drone rules of line of sight and 400ft etc. Another slight concern was the battery life but I went for the fly more combo and with the three batteries I am confident that I'll have enough to capture what I want in a day's hike or cycle ride. I can always buy a 4th battery if I wanted but I don't think that'll be necessary. I'd definitely recommend the fly more combo, if only for the batteries alone and the charging hub. I also bought the official car charging adapter for added flexibility. Now onto the main reason for this post...
As you will be aware, there is a vast amount of information and videos about the Mavic Air and other DJI drones. I was able to sift through that and make a balanced decision about which drone to get, whether to get the fly more combo or not and all of the accessories that I'd buy. Having done lots of testing over the past few weeks, I am more than happy with the decisions that I made so I thought it would be useful to consolidate everything that I ended up buying in the hope that it is helpful for other prospective Mavic Air owners.
Before I bought the drone I just assumed that I'd use my iPhone 7 to control it - it is one of the supported devices and should be more than capable of handling the DJI GO 4 app (I'd read that it is a very intensive app and needs a powerful device to handle it). However, the first thing is that my phone is in quite a thick notebook style case (I like this as it protects the phone when it is in my pocket and in case I drop it) that doesn't fit very well in the controller. I thought about getting a slimmer case or taking it out of the case but these were just compromises that I didn't want to make. I also considered that the app would run down my phone's battery so started looking for cheap phones on eBay etc. I also thought that a tablet would be a better option to give me more screen space. Having read lots of forum posts I decided that the Acer Iconia One (B1-790) 7 inch tablet was the one for me. I didn't really know how it would perform until I could test it myself as the only video that I could find was from last year and was with a Spark:
However, taking everything into account I decided to buy a refurbished one (when I say refurbished it looks brand new and is less than a year old). I chose to uninstall / disable all apps that came with the tablet to leave as much RAM as possible for the DJI GO 4 app. I can say that I am more than happy with it and I have been able to fly the drone confidently with it.
The next question was how was I going to attach it to the controller. As it is a 7 inch tablet, it will fit in the controller legs with a squeeze but I wasn't 100% happy with that and instead ended up going for a mount that folds up into a package the size of a phone and fits into the built-in mount on the controller with the tablet elevated above. This seemed like the best configuration for me. It is easy to assemble and take apart but I just leave it assembled in the top of my rucksack so that it is quicker to get setup when I want to shoot.
I got a 30cm micro USB cable and it is just the perfect length to reach from the tablet to the normal USB socket on bottom of the controller - the mount has a nice hole that I can route the cable through, keeping it out of the way from the joysticks. The tablet does charge from the remote which was a bit of a surprise to me but there is nothing that can be done about that without "rooting" the tablet which I didn't want to do. That being said I understand that it is only a trickle charge that it takes from the bottom socket and it hasn't left me short of battery in all of my tests. The 3 drone batteries will be depleted long before the controller and tablet are and I always keep everything topped up once I'm finished so not a problem.
One concern that I had about the tablet was how it would perform in daylight. It is obviously not going to be as bright as I'm used to with my iPhone 7 but I hope this photo shows that it is definitely usable outdoors. If brightness did become an issue then I'm sure some sort of hood could be used to help with that but I've not felt it necessary so far.
The next thing to consider was filters. One of my hopes is that I can capture "cinematic" and professional looking footage that I can share with friends and family. We have a lot of nice scenery in Scotland that I look forward to exploring with my drone. Again, I watched countless videos and and read reviews of filters. I did look at cheaper filters but in the end I opted for the Polar Pro Vivid collection which are a trio of ND4, ND8 and ND16 filters. I wasn't sure if this was going to be enough but thought that I could always add an ND32 if I needed it later. So far I've not felt the need and have been impressed with the results that I've had with the ND16 on sunny days. The ND4 and ND8 have been useful for darker days and I expect will be used more in the winter months. There was a choice between the Shutter collection and Vivid collection, the difference being that the Vivid ones are polarised (this can be enabled by rotating the filter to get the desired effect). I liked the fact that the polarised ones reduce glare on water and I thought that it would be the most flexible option because I can enable or disable it depending on the position of the adjustment ring. One other reason that I went for the Polar Pro was that I'd heard that some of the cheaper filters are not compatible with the gimble auto adjustment sequence and need to be added after this has completed. I don't know if this is true or not but I didn't want to take the risk as that would have been a bit of a hassle.
When I first got the drone, I was taking off and landing on grass but I knew that there would be situations where I would want to take off or land on rougher surfaces. For this eventuality I wanted something to protect the propellers from any stones being blown up into them. I opted for a cheap foldable landing mat from eBay but they are available from lots of places. The one that I got is 54cm and only 20cm when folded (requires a bit of a knack to start with!) and I feel that this is a perfect fit for the Mavic Air and stores nicely in the rucksack.
Although the fly more combo comes with a carrying case, it really wasn't much use to me. I wanted something that would take the drone and all of my accessories so went for a rucksack. I went for this one from Amazon and it does the job for me. Plenty room for the drone down below, the controller above and all of the batteries, spare propellers and charging cables. I've had it on my back for a few hours when hiking and when cycling and it is very comfy. There are more expensive options worth considering but I felt that this one was very good value and I'm glad I chose it.
I have some travels coming up and want to make good use of the drone. One of the things that I wanted to get sorted out first was the best style settings to use. I've read mixed views about this, whether to leave everything at 0 or different variations on the contrast and saturation. I don't mind having to post process and I've been playing with Davinci Resolve for this purpose. In the end I liked the results in this video:
I bought his LUT and used the suggested 0 sharpness, 3 contrast and 2 saturation values on the D-Cinelike colour profile. This combined with my Polar Pro filters shooting 25fps and 1/50th shutter speed gives me the results that I was looking for. Some people might not want to post process and the style settings of 0 are probably fine for that. I recommend experimenting with this, finding a setting that you like and sticking with it.
Finally, I thought I'd share some stills that I took yesterday. These were taken in RAW mode (apart from the panorama) and post processed. Originally I thought I'd be taking mostly video with the drone but I think stills will be a big part of my usage too.
I hope this post has been interesting, if a bit long... I'll try to keep any future posts to a shorter length
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