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I’ve resisted and resisted, but have finally caved and bought myself a Mavic Air 2. It was a weird sort of purchase, as I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d do with it. I used to fly radio controlled planes a lot (2-stroke engines, AcroWot, Wot4 etc) and I’ve always been really interested in aerial photography. Eventually, I figured that the Mavic Air 2 is a really good combination of good-enough camera, small form factor, and great tech features including the Occusync comms and automated track and follow.
On my second serious outing today (I got the “Fly More” combo with 3 batteries - highly recommended), I figured it out. Basically it lets you put a camera literally anywhere. Rather than being restricted to where you can walk to and plonk your tripod, now your tripod can be 100 feet in the air, or over the sea, or halfway up a mountain. This is bloody brilliant. The precision with which you can position the camera is amazing. 2 inches to the left, 1 inch higher, no problem. It really is a revelation.
Aside from the obvious video side of things, this drone is a 48mp stills camera platform that you can position highly accurately in 3 dimensions. Today, in fairly strong buffety winds I got lovely sharp flowing water images at 1/10th of a sec using the ND filters that came with the kit, which I’d need to be 15 feet tall and standing in a river, or hanging from a helicopter to achieve without the drone. Obivously you’re not going to get 30 sec ND110 stuff, but everything else is up for grabs.
Also, it’s really handy as you don’t have to squidge through bogs or get stuck at a river crossing. Suddenly photographic creativity is unbounded. Also, you don’t need to climb that hill - just send the drone up there instead. Lazy? Maybe, but it opens up a whole host of locations that would otherwise be rather inaccessible.
I think the Mavic Pro 2 with its Hasselblad camera with larger sensor (and crucially, variable aperture - the Air 2 has a fixed aperture so you need to use ND filters) would be a very good option, albeit more expensive. However, the Air 2 is astonishingly good. Very easy to fly, and the DNGs that come out of it seem really rather good.
Here’s two videos so far. One is scenery focused and the other is mountain bike focused (testing the tracking feature amongst others). Excuse me while I am learning. Editing and “story telling” is a work-in-progress right now. And yes, I passed my online drone test thing with 20/20
On my second serious outing today (I got the “Fly More” combo with 3 batteries - highly recommended), I figured it out. Basically it lets you put a camera literally anywhere. Rather than being restricted to where you can walk to and plonk your tripod, now your tripod can be 100 feet in the air, or over the sea, or halfway up a mountain. This is bloody brilliant. The precision with which you can position the camera is amazing. 2 inches to the left, 1 inch higher, no problem. It really is a revelation.
Aside from the obvious video side of things, this drone is a 48mp stills camera platform that you can position highly accurately in 3 dimensions. Today, in fairly strong buffety winds I got lovely sharp flowing water images at 1/10th of a sec using the ND filters that came with the kit, which I’d need to be 15 feet tall and standing in a river, or hanging from a helicopter to achieve without the drone. Obivously you’re not going to get 30 sec ND110 stuff, but everything else is up for grabs.
Also, it’s really handy as you don’t have to squidge through bogs or get stuck at a river crossing. Suddenly photographic creativity is unbounded. Also, you don’t need to climb that hill - just send the drone up there instead. Lazy? Maybe, but it opens up a whole host of locations that would otherwise be rather inaccessible.
I think the Mavic Pro 2 with its Hasselblad camera with larger sensor (and crucially, variable aperture - the Air 2 has a fixed aperture so you need to use ND filters) would be a very good option, albeit more expensive. However, the Air 2 is astonishingly good. Very easy to fly, and the DNGs that come out of it seem really rather good.
Here’s two videos so far. One is scenery focused and the other is mountain bike focused (testing the tracking feature amongst others). Excuse me while I am learning. Editing and “story telling” is a work-in-progress right now. And yes, I passed my online drone test thing with 20/20