By Yadira B. Arnold 
At its launch last year, the DJI Mavic 3 made headlines with features such as a Big Four Thirds sensor and a second 7X telephoto lens. but it was also maul because it went on sale with important features such as ActiveTrack and Quick strikes, which are not yet available. This meant that I and others could not evaluate these features in our early reviews of the Mavic 3. For this reason, potential buyers could not get a complete picture of the drone before paying up to 5,000 for.
After three major firmware updates in December, January and May, all the promised features and more are finally here. Now I’m going to test them with exactly the same drone to see how well they work. At the same time, I will discuss this trend of selling products before important functions are available – is this good or bad?
Last year I tested the Consumer Mavic 3 (not the Cine model) in the Fly More combo package with my drone pilot friend Samuel Dejours. Back then, we rated it highly for things like video quality, obstacle avoidance, long battery life, etc.However, the most interesting AI features were nowhere to be seen.
This time we have three firmware updates, the last of which was at the end of May. Most of the AI features like Quickstrikes, ActiveTrack 5, Masterstrikes and others are coming in January. We will also look at the” Nifty ” update that arrived in May, which allows the Mavic 3 to fly closer to obstacles with a smoother trajectory.
Before Nifty, we tested the Mavic 3’s ActiveTrack and APAS 5.0 obstacle avoidance and found that it can’t compete with the smaller, inexpensive DJI Mini 3 pro. Part of this has to do with the Mini 3 Pro’s size and agility, but the Mavic 3 also felt conservative when approaching obstacles.
In normal mode, we found that ActiveTrack works well as long as it didn’t have to deal with a lot of obstacles. It usually flew at the set angle and distance, giving us stable and predictable strikes. So it was already a decent tool for solo developers–but it didn’t do what DJI showed in its Mavic 3 launch video, like driving around trees like lightning while filming a man on a set upain bike.
However, with the clever mode, he loses this shyness. When used with ActiveTrack, it is ready to approach obstacles very closely and at the same time follow your topic. This makes it possible to film in more difficult situations and get much more dramatic strikes when going behind, under and over obstacles.
Of course, this makes things more unpredictable. You can never tell which way he will take to avoid obstacles, and sometimes he literally gets lost in the forest. It also deviates from your pre-selected trajectory, as expected, but then remains there at a new height or at a new camera angle. However, this often leads to interesting and unexpected cliches.
However, the additional artificial intelligence can put the Mavic 3 at peril, as you will be notified when you activate the Smart Mode – not ideal for a drone worth 2,000 to 5,000. It might be a good idea to take out DJI’s 239 DJI Care Refresh accident insurance if you use it frequently. An earlier version of the DJI app warned that “you are responsible for all adverse consequences” if you use the feature, but this is no longer stated in the recent version.
Where Clever is most useful is the manual control, which we found out. The intervention allowed Samuel to fly in a confined space without emptying the drone, and still received basic protection from obstacles. This allowed him to focus on the subject while the drone turned around and narrowly reached obstacles, resulting in some pretty exciting pictures.
The January update also introduced Quickstrikes, which allow you to perform pre-programmed camera movements such as drone, propeller, rocket, circle, boomerang and asteroid. In addition, the may update allows you to get Log or HLG while using Quickstrikes, with the exception of asteroid mode.
These features are great for taking selfies on social media and are actually pretty good for taking some quick strikes. For example, if you want a perfect orbit, you don’t need perfect piloting abillity – just let the drone and obstacle detection do the work. Just make sure that you are in a relatively open area.
Masterstrikes is a similar function that allows you to capture a series of pre-programmed movements. Then he puts these recordings together to create a small music video. It was updated in January with 4K striking at 60 fps, manual exposure adjustment and more.
Panorama offers wide-angle, 180-degree and lead modes, a nice but slightly cheesy functionality for occasional use. Finally, the recent version of Hyperlapse performs a flight time lapse with some cropping to reduce jerking and jitter. It can create spectacular strikes, especially for urban landscapes with cloud cover and other dynamic situations. The recent version optimizes stability and allows for smoother striking, but it is not perfectly smooth in strong winds.
Camera and GPS updates
Next, we will deal with most of the updates that arrived at the end of May, focusing mainly on camera improvements. Many changes are designed to make the 7X telephoto lens more useful.
The biggest change is the addition of 50 frames per second for 4K and 1080p striking, compared to 30 frames per second before. Manual controls are also introduced that allow you to set ISO and shutter speeds. DJI has also introduced continuous striking and RAW striking. These things make the TV camera more useful and allow for more options in the post. However, they do not deal with the relatively low resolution and poor optics.
At the same time, the main camera received some important updates, such as 200 fps slow motion at 1080p (with significant cropping), HLG for HDR striking in the camera and triple digital zoom. The latter is a welcome update, as it offers higher quality and more options (HLG, log, slow motion at 120 fps) than TELEC.
In combination with previous updates that have added improved color accuracy and more, you can take full advantage of the larger sensor. It is now enough to replace much larger drones, which in some matters contain body cameras, at a much lower cost. And although the telecamera does not offer the best quality for content creation, it is ideal for bird watching, industrial work and more.
Finally, it should be noted that DJI seems to have fixed the GPS issue that caused slow house locking at startup–a problem that has plagued users since launch.