Mavic 2 Pro Drone

[rexboggs5]

I have recently put down a deposit for a Mavic 2 Pro drone, and was wondering if anyone here has used one, and has any tips (or photos).

The Mavic 2 Pro has two features that made me take the plunge and buy one - it is quite compact so easy to carry, and it has the same 1" Hasselblad sensor as the much larger DJI Phantom 4 Pro drone. The reviews of this drone are all very positive.

Maybe there should be new forum devoted to drone photography? How many of you are doing some drone photography?

Here is a link to the winning photos in a 2018 drone competition - https://droneawards.photo/gallery/

Cheers, Rex

[Hawthy]

My wife surprised me by buying me a Phantom 3 Standard for Christmas last year. It has been a busy year and I have only used it a few times. To be totally honest, it scares me a bit to have a few hundred bucks of camera gear hanging in the air. Plus, it is hard to find places to use it without infringing people's privacy. I would have loved to have taken it to Tasmania recently but you can't fly them in National Parks down there and it is quite bulky for air travel. I understand that the Mavic is somewhat smaller.

I guess that I just need more practice with it - and I need to buy a mount for my iPad because I have no hope of seeing anything useful on my iPhone screen. I still struggle with the slightly anti-social image that they have though. It would be awesome to take on a trip around Australia when you can use it when no one else is around.

Good luck with yours. I hope that you enjoy it.

[swifty]

If you haven't already seen it, have a look at Ming Thein's blog.
There are two entries on the Mavic 2 Pro already.
https://blog.mingthein.com/2018/08/24/2018-dji-mavic-2-pro-review/
https://blog.mingthein.com/2018/08/26/drone-diaries-slices-of-green-more-from-the-mavic-2-pro/
Bear in mind however, Ming works for Hasselblad.

[rexboggs5]

Thanks Swifty, I hadn't come across those reviews. Very informative.

Rex

[flashc]

I have recently put down a deposit for a Mavic 2 Pro drone, and was wondering if anyone here has used one, and has any tips (or photos).

Maybe there should be new forum devoted to drone photography? How many of you are doing some drone photography?

Cheers, Rex

Yesterday, I was intending to look on here for some posts about drones, but due to my not being active for some time, I had to reactivate myself.
Searching today, I found this thread...

I always wanted a camera that could fly to get a higher viewpoint, but the cost to get a DSLR up in the sky some years ago was in the thousands and not an amount I wanted to outlay just to see if it was something that I wanted to do
Probably cheaper to hire a helicopter back then...

I bought a DJI Mavic Pro drone in July 2017, and have taken over 3000 photos and quite a few videos too

One of the best features in a "quality" consumer drone is that video is 4K and stills on the original Mavic were 12MP
The still output is a noisy 12MP compressed .jpg (compared to a DSLR) but also, a .DNG raw file is produced too
With the 12 MP, I can crop 50% and get a good photo from the RAW file
I've grabbed individual frames from the 1080 video that are acceptable as well

Recently I bought a Mavic 2 Pro, but it's still waiting to do the first flight as I live in South East Queensland and can't fly in the unpredictable stormy weather

I know some photographers say to me they don't like the modern drones for photography and aren't interested at all
However , some photographers didn't like digital cameras either and preferred to stick with film and darkrooms

I'm on several facebook sites with drone content, but posts from some Members there are seriously annoying and if I was an Admin would warn and then boot them off if the misinformation continued...

A drone forum for drone photographers and intending purchasers here on Australian Photography would be a place where sensible conversations could take place and good advice given on camera settings and techniques

After all, it's just another camera where the shutter is fired by the photographer using a wireless remote trigger...

[rexboggs5]

Flashc - thanks for your comprehensive and interesting post. I now have my drone and am learning all about it before taking it for a first fly. The controller seems to be as complex as a DSLR camera, with lots of menus and mysterious icons, so there is much to learn. I prefer to take it slowly and reduce the chance of damaging or losing the drone. I watched a Beginners video on the Mavic 2 Pro and ended up with 5 pages of typed notes!

I agree that a thread devoted to drone photography would be valuable.

Cheers, Rex

[phild]

I have a Mavic 2 Pro as well, yet to see it's first flight. I've seen some impressive landscape stills from some of the other variants. I've opted for the DJI care refresh plan, just in case.