Hi,
Firstly, thank you to everyone who helped with their thoughts on the transition to a Mavic Air from a Spark. You were correct, it's an excellent drone.
Had the drone just a few hours, so here's my first flight. Every setting on the camera was on auto as I was keen to have flight tonight. The attached panoramic is low res as it's come straight from the Go 4 App.
I find the controller a litte bit of a pain to set up, is the connector cable for the phone on the left hand side meant to be loose, it's hard to connect it in the dark? The pay off is of course there's no waiting for my phone to connect to the handset over wifi like the spark
The Air is much faster than the Spark, even in 'P" mode, in Sports mode it was very fast.
Thanks,

Chris

Hello and good day Chris. Thank you for sharing these information with us today and for the photo you have uploaded. Great work and thank you for your valued support.

Really nice picture! Always wanted to do some night shots, but living in a remote area means there's not much to shoot!

Glad you are happy with the Air. Brilliant little things!

What colour did you get?

Natter_07 Posted at 3-20 01:23
Really nice picture! Always wanted to do some night shots, but living in a remote area means there's not much to shoot!

Glad you are happy with the Air. Brilliant little things!

Thank you, think when I have time to upload the individual images into MICE, the resolution will be better. I got white, was limited because the drone was a refurbished one at Jessops - they had a black and a white;  think that white will be slightly cooler for the internals than the black one in Summer...
Remote area, my other passion is astronomy, so if you've little light pollution at night, you're in a great place to look upwards and enjoy the stars ;-)

Chris

Very nice capture - especially at night

A CW Posted at 3-20 02:02
Very nice capture - especially at night

Thank you, this weekend I hope to set up the camera settings to Raw and adjust the settings to turn off the front nav lights during the time that the shutter is open etc, so am sure there's much more to be done!
Chris

ChrisJG Posted at 3-20 02:15
Thank you, this weekend I hope to set up the camera settings to Raw and adjust the settings to turn off the front nav lights during the time that the shutter is open etc, so am sure there's much more to be done!
Chris

Keep it up and look forward to seeing more of your work.

Very nice pano, great start

Nice pano

Woe Posted at 3-20 05:16
Nice pano

Thank you, stoked to see what this bird will produce!

jacksonnai Posted at 3-20 04:15
Very nice pano, great start

Thank you!

Very nice picture!

Nice picture !!

Happy to hear you got your Mavic Air in the air. The connector cable on the left of the controller has a groove that the cable can sit more snug and flush to the side of the controller and then there are a few rectangular plastic pieces (depending what cable type you are using) that can help hold the cable in place further more, however, I found it easier to skip the plastic piece. I found connecting the cable to the phone and then securing the phone with the brackets easier than aiming inside the left bracket for the cable connector. I agree using the cable makes the connection fairly straightforward and can provide a more robust/stable connection between the phone and the controller. You should be able to connect Spark's controller and a handset the same way over a cable also. Compatibility with different devices may vary though. That is true the Air is significantly faster in normal P mode.

I find the connector on the left pretty annoying as well.  I am really close to giving up on it.  You can connect your phone / tablet to the usb plug on the bottom of the controller as well with a standard usb - whatever your  phone uses.  The manual just warns to not use both the bottom connector AND the left connector to display devices at the same time.  I think It would be easier to just use that bottom plug with a short cord and push the phone plug into the gap on the left phone holder arm.

circuitbird Posted at 3-20 15:01
Happy to hear you got your Mavic Air in the air. The connector cable on the left of the controller has a groove that the cable can sit more snug and flush to the side of the controller and then there are a few rectangular plastic pieces (depending what cable type you are using) that can help hold the cable in place further more, however, I found it easier to skip the plastic piece. I found connecting the cable to the phone and then securing the phone with the brackets easier than aiming inside the left bracket for the cable connector. I agree using the cable makes the connection fairly straightforward and can provide a more robust/stable connection between the phone and the controller. You should be able to connect Spark's controller and a handset the same way over a cable also. Compatibility with different devices may vary though. That is true the Air is significantly faster in normal P mode.

Thank you for the reply and info. I did wonder what the plastic squares were for. Am sure I’ll get used to the connection this way, just in the dark it was not easy or intuitive. Practice I guess.
Thanks,

Alluvian Posted at 3-20 15:47
I find the connector on the left pretty annoying as well.  I am really close to giving up on it.  You can connect your phone / tablet to the usb plug on the bottom of the controller as well with a standard usb - whatever your  phone uses.  The manual just warns to not use both the bottom connector AND the left connector to display devices at the same time.  I think It would be easier to just use that bottom plug with a short cord and push the phone plug into the gap on the left phone holder arm.

Thank you, I’ll bear that in mind.
Cheers

ChrisJG Posted at 3-20 06:06
Thank you, stoked to see what this bird will produce!

Looking forward to seeing more of your work.

Nice! I've been too scared to fly at night. Maybe I'll give it a go.

Iron Drone Posted at 3-20 21:56
Nice! I've been too scared to fly at night. Maybe I'll give it a go.

My first 2/3 night flights were terrifying! Especially the one over water too. Now after 5/6 I’ve more confidence in my drone and ability to land it safely. Am very fortunate that there is a huge field to practice in. Good luck!

great bro -- you can try also the 360~ shot as it rocks!

elberti Posted at 3-21 00:34
great bro -- you can try also the 360~ shot as it rocks!

Thank you, i will, its on my list!

Very nice!!!

Alex1976 Posted at 3-21 03:44
Very nice!!!

Thank you, waiting for better weather now to get out and get some more air time.

Iron Drone Posted at 3-20 21:56
Nice! I've been too scared to fly at night. Maybe I'll give it a go.

The one time I flew at night I took off from a dark area so the vision positioning was disabled which meant the quad was drifting a lot more than normal in a hover.  I was on a dark porch and should have given myself more room.  Instead of the drone acting like a magical airborn tripod it was wandering around over a several foot area because it was just using GPS to position.

Then I took it straight up about 20 feet, started recording (which turns off the two front lights) and the go 4 app prompty crashed.  So I had 2 out of 3 lights out and no camera vision on it.  I wanted to get the two front lights back for better reference, but for some reason the 'record' button on the remote was not stopping the recording.  So I relaunched the app, reconnected and stopped the recording on the app and landed with no more drama.

My takeaway from that was that there is nothing on my property worth fllming at night, what the heck was I doing, lol.  If I go up again at night I will do so with some independent lighting on the drone that does not shut off when filming as some extra visibility.

ChrisJG Posted at 3-20 06:07
Thank you!

You're welcome