2022 Plan & DJI Mavic 3 Firmware Update

Baha’i Temple, Wilmette Illinois

As we begin 2022, I have set forth a few ambitious goals,

1. Fly Every Single Day

2. Continue Weekly Blogs with at least 1 how-to blog each month.

So far Goal 1 is off to a great start. Even with the challenges of flying during a blizzard on the 5th of January. Getting out and filming more has helped me generate more content for my social media and portfolio (Instagram @NJH_Aerial). This will also help enhance reviews and articles for the blog as the more time spent in the field flying the better the information on the topice will be. 2022 will definitely be an interesting year for the various NJH enterprises and there is a lot to come from NJH Aerial and NJH Tech.

During late December the DJI Mavic 3 had a firmware release, that included focus track, master shots, and time-lapse/hyper-lapse features. I used both the master shots and hyper-lapse a lot during this past week of flying, here are some examples of each.

Master shots

To use the master shot feature fly the drone select the target, and climb to your minimum obstacle-clearing altitude. From here run the master shot and the aircraft will fly an automated pattern around the target.

RAW master shot

This is the unedited footage of the house after selecting it in the DJI application as the subject

DJI Automated edit

Hyperlapse

A hyper-lapse is a motion time-lapse, I used these for a variety of flights, but this video was one of the most interesting ones. The main flights that I have used it for are where the sun is rising or setting and the ice on Greenbay is moving

2022 should be a big year for NJH Aerial, and we will have a lot of content to come. Some of the topics expected by the end of the month are, Filming the Freezing of Green Bay, Our Print Store! , Mobile workflow, and Fixing/modifying a drone created 3D model.

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DJI Mavic 3 First Impressions

I recently purchased the new DJI Mavic 3and had the opportunity to fly it around Indiana and Chicago. It has impressed me at every single location with its ability to capture unique images. In the first flight where the wind began to gust to over 40 mph yet, the Mavic stayed still in its position. During a drone class flight lab where we were able to use the zoom to capture images of campus and the airport miles away. There is truly something different about this drone.

My favorite feature from the first week of use has to be the redesigned aircraft cover, gone is the finicky plastic dome around the gimbal. The new cover is a quickly attachable protector that not only secures the gimbal but also secures the propellers in place. This redesigned cover also ensures that the obstacle avoidance, optical flow, and lidar sensors are protected as well. The new cover also allows for the aircraft to be set up and ready to shoot quickly with the props remaining on the aircraft in storage.

My other favorite feature is the zoom camera, I really haven’t been a fan of zoom cameras on drones. The ability to zoom in and grab the right shot with the Mavic 3 is fantastic, I usually find myself using around 7x or 14x zoom otherwise the shot ends up too soft at the 28 times zoom. Here are a few examples of what I have done with the zoom feature.

Now for items that could be improved, DJI Fly. The app feels unfinished to me. For example, it only shows the battery percentage and does not allow for the battery voltage to be displayed. I think the redesign menus and simplification have really hurt the application experience. The original DJI Go and DJI Go 4 feel much more complete and customizable in the settings that the user can change.

The standard controller for the Mavic 3, coming from a DJI Inspire 1 and DJI M600 focused pilot, I loved the screen being on top of the controller. This makes the most sense to me as a pilot because you can quickly glance down at the screen without looking across the controller then back up to the drone. I never liked how the Mavic 2’s remote worked with the phone being in the bottom. That’s where the love ends with this controller, the rest feels like they tried to get away with as few buttons and controls as possible. The lack of control for aperture/iso is really inconvenient when flying, and I miss the c1/c2 buttons as I use those all the time when flying any other DJI aircraft. The lack of features on the standard controller feels like an attempt from DJI to upsell most advanced users to the DJI Procontroller.

Below are a variety of photos I have taken with the Mavic 3, they all turned out really well. The second photo received over 300 upvotes in the R/Purdue Reddit!

To summarize although the Mavic 3 feels a little unfinished without SDK and the intelligent features missing until January at the earliest, I am still happy with my purchase.

Next Fridays' blog, 12/10/2021 will be a comparison between the Phantom 4 Pro V2, Mavic 3, Mavic 2, and Mavic Pro when used for mapping with PIX4D. Subscribe to get notified about our weekly blogs