An amazing thing has happened in the last few months. The compact camera that used to live in my coat pocket has been replaced, with a drone!!! Small drones have been around for a little while now, but nothing quite like the new DJI Mavic Air. This thing packs a serious punch, not only in its size, but the quality of the images it produces. In the past few month, DoubleXAir have travelled half way around the world with this little drone and it has become a valuable part of our kit. Its shoots really lovely 12mp RAW still images and also 4k video at 100mbps. In some instances we have got better footage from the Mavic Air than the inspire 1PRO. Add that to the compact size of the drone and you really are onto a winner. But are there any catches, yes, there are a few things that let the drone down. On a few occasions I have been flying the drone and the controller has lost signal with the drone. I would understand this if the drone was a long distance away but not 100meters. The Main then enters return to home mode which is very frustrating and time consuming. Also due to the size of the controller and the mobile phone live view, getting complex shots is very hard. Simple push or pull shots are easy, but when you introduce more complex manoeuvres they can end up looking a little jerky. The Mavic Air has an obstacle avoidence mechanism built in to the drone. To be honest I always turn this off. When its on, the drone is continually beeping and I personally find that more distracting than avoiding obstacles the old fashioned way. From a footage point of view, the 4k 100mbps is really usable and mixes in perfectly well with the GH5 footage. Having Cinelike D in the Mavic Air really helps with getting a good flat profile for grading. Low light performance is non existent but what would you expect from such a small sensor. Here are some pics we shot of Brighton Pier at sunset.xAll in all the DJI Mavic Air gets a big thumbs up from the DoubleXAir team. It will definitely live in my pocket over the summer. What a long way we have come in the last 4 years. I wonder where we will be in 4 years from now. Jon. DoubleXAir
