I recently bought a secondhand Original DJI Mavic Pro for chump change. For someone who knew nothing about drones it staggered me. For something so technologically advanced to be considered 'old' tech (manufactured 2017) is just unreal.
It is now my frame of reference for all sorts of technology. Automatically not crashing, auto return to home, insane maneuverability on sport mode and all at a bizarrely low price for something that would have seemed science fiction to many punters 20 years ago.
By commoditizing this kind of consumer tech that interfaces with the real world, DJI has changed my perception of what existing technology could be capable of and changed the way I consider usability in my own work.
I had a similar epiphany except it has driven me to consider a new industry, as I can't possibly hope to solve the state of my current one and frankly don't want to, they made their own bed. The capabilities present when you own the whole stack and make a point of offering safety and robustness really makes the behavior present in other industries almost embarassing.
Drones are science fiction dreams come true. But more than that, they offer a really tangible way to work through software and hardware to as you say, interface with the world.
It's a really exciting space and I was initially really skeptical, but as their practcal uses outside of just a camera in the sky become more achievable it became clear to me that I want to get involved.
This sounds a little dismissive ... a camera in the sky is a tremendously useful tool.
There are of course the art application, the "make memories" application that can be perceived as nice but not that important.
But how about: search and rescue, automated land surveying, 3D reconstruction of buildings and landscape, understanding the impact of new architectural projects on the environment, etc ... ?
Combine the "just a camera in the sky" with ML and that's a lot of new applications (and therefore business opportunities).
Oh I didn't mean to be dismissive, I am extremely impressed with the possibilities said eye in the sky can provide, I guess I meant that it's more useful than a hobby photography tool. I of course think that is really rad too since it's what I do with my drone now. But the commercial side of the industry is getting really exciting with exactly the kind of tools you're talking about, some of which are just new ways of applying the camera like you're pointing out.
Ag spraying, high definition cinematography, industrial inspections, affordable localized LIDAR scanning, even underground mine surveys are all super interesting to me.
And it's incredibly robust! Mine has spent total I think a week on a tree. First time it was climbed down. The second time climbing was not feasible. Luckily a storm blew it down after a week or so. The bad part was it landed on sharp steel debris. But it did not have a dent in it. I presume it landed on it's battery, which was missing, which probably then absorbed most of the energy from the fall.
After all this abuse it's still flying like a champ.
I think DJI probably had some quality control issues on at least on the original batch (first I got had lots of problems) but their service reps simply sent a replacement for no charge. The second one has had no problems.
I have a Mavic Pro from a few years ago. Still runs like a champ.
The biggest draw for me to get a new one at some point would be the flight time per battery. My Mavic Pro gets ~20 minutes and the newer ones seem to get ~30 or more.
Not a huge deal with a bank of batteries, but it will be nice ones my drone eventually kicks the bucket.
Sounds like youre using the wrong tool for the task at hand. However, it also sounds like you've never personally experienced the ~23 minutes of flight time and the amount of ground that can be covered. It's way more impressive than you are dismissing.
You're getting downvoted because your complaint makes it seem like this is a problem with the particular model. 23 minutes is probably even above average for drone flight times. Don't be so kneejerk negative.
Don't, you'll certainly crash pretty soon and you'll basically have to buy a new one. If you want to try FPV, get an FPV quad, which is an open ecosystem and much cheaper (though not nearly as plug-and-play, granted).
DJI and FPV are two different hobbies, IMO. Either you want a slow-and-steady flying camera or you want to feel like you're actually flying an insanely maneuverable aircraft.
And yeah, the FPV ecosystem with interchangeable parts and open source code is eye opening. It's like building a desktop and installing Linux yourself vs buying a tablet. Mind you, your desktop won't fall out of the sky and shatter into pieces. But it's fun!
+1 to that. I started by FPV hobby about a year ago (just regular analog tinywhoop). So it's 30% flying hobby, and 70% tinkering around and learn:
1) how to solder,
2) how how charge and use lipo batteries,
3) how antennas work, polarisation, connectors etc,
4) what all these buzzwords in betaflight means
5) binding, expressLRS setting,
6) 3d printing protection parts,
7) even there are different connectors standards!,
etc
so it's whole umbrella of little hobbies that comes with it. At least for me it's lots of fun, because it takes a few hours of learning time and you get working result. But it's not for everyone for sure.
Drastic different with PnP experience of DJI drones.
DJI has a quad called "FPV" but that doesn't mean it's the FPV hobby. I can replace an arm on my quad for $2 vs some absurd money for DJI Care plus time spent waiting for shipping back and forth. Now let's blow up some ESCs or crack the camera on a rock...
I have both. DJI FPV 2 and many hand built racing drones (lumineer, TBS).
The DJI is an absolute stunner with fantastic range and video transmission. The build quality is far superior than anything I have seen home built.
I would never recommend racing it, as I am ok with sacrificing my own drones because I can repair them easily, but as an introduction the DJI is an amazing platform.
> The DJI is an absolute stunner with fantastic range and video transmission.
Hmm, what's the range like? ELRS solves the RC link range (it's functionally infinite) and analog has longer range than DJI video (though DJI's quality is obviously leagues ahead).
I have the DJI video system in my home-built drones, I definitely recommend it but analog goes farther (though you get much better quality for 13km with DJI).
> The build quality is far superior than anything I have seen home built.
If by "build quality" you mean "it feels good", then yes, of course something factory-built is going to be more sleek than something you build in your garage. If you mean "sturdy", though, the carbon fiber quads will take much, much more punishment.
I'm not an expert flyer and I really have had no issues with it. It isn't that hard to fly at all, even in full manual. The "oh shit button" is a godsend.
It's not so much that it's hard, it's that if you want to learn freestyle or racing, you're going to crash. I guess many people just fly it like I fly my quads, cautiously and away from any obstacles.
Nobody is pretending this is a freestyle or racing drone. It really is for people, like me, who want the freedumb of FPV and have the cash to burn on it, but don't have the time to do all the research and put the effort into a "true" FPV drone that I can race and crash (and repair).
After only flying other DJI's, manual mode was mind blowing for me. The concept of having control over the speed of the props changed everything. It is one thing to just fly upwards with the stick and another to point the drone in a direction and apply more "gas".
I "get" FPV now. It is real flying... but that doesn't mean I have the time or energy to invest in it. =)
DJI FPV is acrobatic, the thing can do flips when it is in full manual mode. It is pretty amazing, but definitely requires some experience flying drones.
I think the real drone market is in the sub 250g area. Flying anything above this is legally a serious pain in most jurisdictions. I spent days researching it, sure you can get away with it, which I hazard a guess many, many people do. You can buy these classes of drone on Amazon with no licence checks. In most of Europe, legally, there is a very, very limited market for this drone IMO. They shouldn’t market it as a hobbyist product, because legally it really isn’t in that category. I’m sure I’ll get downvotes but.. I would love to fly this, but legally I know it would be very very problematic beyond what the slash page sells me. As an example, a friend bought a similar class drone on Amazon and was shocked when I told him that legally he couldn’t fly it anywhere within London, where he lives. Most people don’t read the rules and regulations.
Almost, but not quite. In the US you're legally beholden to fly according to the guidelines of a "community-based organization", which often include generic guidelines like "don't fly wrecklessly" and "don't pose a danger to people, vehicles, animals, or disturb the peace". Should someone call the police on you, it's easier to argue your compliance when your drone is tiny than when it's big. Smaller also tends to be quieter, so you disturb people less and are less likely to get in trouble in the first place.
> In the US you're legally beholden to fly according to the guidelines of a "community-based organization"
Only when flying recreationally under USC 44809. Part 107 is free from CBO requirements (but, of course, has others). There’s also a reckless operation catch-all in 107 too.
For commercial drone pilots, I think you also escape qualifying the drone for certain operations but I'm not sure. I don't have the commercial license yet.
You cannot under Part 107. Any sUAS that requires registration under Part 48 also requires Remote ID once Part 89 takes effect in September 2023. The only escape for Remote ID for Part 107 flights will be to fly in a FRIA (FAA Recognized Identification Area). However, sub 250g drones with prop guards can qualify as Category 1 drones (subpart D) allowing you to fly over open-air assemblies of people (e.g. concerts) once equipped with Remote ID.
"In most of Europe, legally, there is a very, very limited market for this drone IMO."
I'm not sure what the overall EU regulation situation is, but in Finland which follows EU regulations very strictly, the drone flier registration required for above 250g was not really an issue. I've been flying my Mavic Pro legally just fine.
The situation may be different in different jurisdictions of course.
But I think the EU legislation has been crafted so that heavier flyers need to register, but is not so burdensome it would be a problem for hobbuists flying Mavic type drones.
I think this very much depends on where one wants to fly, e.g. cities or nature.
For a drone weighing 734g (Mavic Pro), under EASA rule one either
- has to fly 150m away from residential, commercial or industrial areas (subcategory A3); or
- is required to hold an A2 Certificate of Competence (which would allow flying close to uninvolved people but, at this weight, not over them).
Qualifying for an A2 Certificate of Competence is not hard (I've done it both in the EU and the UK) but it is significantly more involved than punching a few details into a Web form.
The base regulations aren't really the problem. It's the no-fly zones which make owning a hobby drone basically worthless. Granted, I've only looked at the maps of Germany and Spain, but any area near civilization is marked as a prohibited zone for one reason or another.
This is a incidental comment about illegal drone flights that I thought some may find interesting.
I live near Joe Biden's house. His neighborhood is off of a major road. Near the entrance to his neighborhood, there are LED road signs that say something like "Drone flights prohibited".
I think drone flights are only prohibited while he is in town, which is semi-often.
Not that you'd really want to fly a drone in his neighborhood, it's full of trees.
I don't know about "favorite," but every time I mess around with my Mavic Mini, one thought keeps coming to my mind with absolute certainty: The people who built this are going to win.
It's like 1970 all over again, only China is now the new Japan.
With drones we have this odd period of time where people are manually flying them, but the ultimate goal is autonomous flight. Basically we never wanted humans controlling drones in the first place, but it was needed while sensors / AI+ML improved.
Skydio IMO has a big jump on DJI in this space while DJI does have an overall more polished package. Will be interesting to see how the next decade plays out.
Her Twitter account was one of the most interesting ones I followed. Unfortunately, even though I had never interacted with her, she blocked me out of the blue some months ago. I was entirely confused at first. From what little I could find out, she did a mass block of her followers who were also following another person she was having some major Twitter drama with. I never quite figured out exactly who or why though.
Sorry that you got blocked by her. However I can only imagine the level of online abuse she is getting daily. Her stuff is interesting, the tech stuff is real and so are the videos of daily life in Shenzen but the soft-porn and silly drama quickly gets too much for me.
This is so important. As an European I would rather that the EU encourage Shenzen like technology hubs in Europe than continuing the cliché of naming a new "Silicon Valley of Europe" every year.
The only thing coming out of Silicon Valley nowadays is more AdTech hell.
My personal favorite is Xiaomi with their IOT everyday appliances. Huawei is still doing good inside the consumer space though hurt badly by the US sanctions. Plus lots of smaller companies.
I've had good luck with Neewer stuff, to the point that I'd treat it like a trusted brand and expect things that I got under that name to be decent solid pieces of kit. Lights, backdrops, even a 'portable vocal booth'.
Interested in opinions from other drone operators in picking a Mavic 3. I already have a Mavic 1, two Mavic 2s and a Mini 2. I photograph and film mostly tourism content. I'm interested in getting 50fps+ at 4K but with good stability in the wind (which I'm not sure the Air2S has).
There's a solid jump from the base to flymore - $800. I need the batteries, need filters, need the charger but don't care about the bag. Batteries are $420 for two. Charging hub is $90. Filters $180.
Cine is $5k. For the $2k jump, it gives more filters (never used higher than ND16), pro controller, SSD and ProRes. SSD would be handy, but I fly over the ocean a bit and frequently change microSDs to "bank" good footage I don't want to lose if the drone drops or hits a bird. I'd be keen to get the smart controller. Does ProRes give enough to justify the cost (editing and grading performance, etc)?
Currently leaning towards the base, filters, charging options, smart controller and then a few batteries. Alternatively, I already have two iPad minis I use now, so I could stick with the default controller and keep using those. The new RC Pro is US$1,200!
Plus the cost of a pretty high end desktop to grade the footage. And the cost of a pretty high end NAS to store the footage, sending it around to cloud services isn't feasible due to the file sizes. Hint: ZFS is your friend here. If you can't back up data you have to make the medium bulletproof (as much as possible).
(I have no film production background personally but I did spec out a NAS setup for someone who does, just for them to cost analyze what it would look like to take RAW filming on the road with them to out of the way places, so I've seen the numbers once)
My M1 MBP is coping far better than my previous MBP. Worst case, I switch off the grade when I'm checking pacing/flow/timeline stuff, and I'm less concerned with those things if I'm doing the grade itself. Will get worse if 5K is the norm. I was mostly filming 2.7K@50, now 4K@25. Would ideally pick at least 4K@50.
I bought 25TB in portable drives this week for a multi-month project. I have 3x 4-bay NAS boxes that I archive to, and then day-to-day I am connected directly to 7 external drives (3x 2-4TB standard drives, and 4x 0.5-1TB SSDs to work from). Sick of the cables and ejecting drives each time I move between home and office!
Mine is a Fractal Design case, it's designed for 6 mechanical drives but you can double up if you're using 2.5" SSDs, of course. There's room in the back for one PCI-e card, so you get one extra controller in the box that way to double up the number of drive connectors.
It seems there were a lot more case options years ago before there was a cloud service datacenter on every other street corner. Not nearly as many being made today as there were 10 years ago.
I'd love to get a drone but there's no way in hell I can fly it in NYC airspace. Also, when people travel with a drone, do they actually look up the laws for each place they visit? Do they just wing it? How often do people get caught illegally flying drones? All of that seems like a headache.
AirMap mobile app [1] has a very comprehensive database of no fly zones, airports/airfields, and summaries of national rules. It works well in US/Canada and lots of countries in Europe too.
I find it often misses local city or park-level rules so I'd always use it in conjunction with a local jurisdiction's app (if available), as well as checking council websites etc.
I’m sure there are other people here they can provide more detail but in my experience with DJI products, they are generally aware of any FAA mandated restrictions on flight based on the gps coordinates of the drone and will attempt to enforce and/or notify the user while flying.
They seem to be less up to speed on local restrictions. I have a DJI Mavic Air 2 and flew it last year in Colorado with no issues from the software. However I was in complete violation of some local regulations that I wasn’t aware of.
As others have mentioned, there are apps to do a better job of being complete, it’s not really that difficult to deal with but it’s disappointing at times.
Local regulations for drone are a mess, any authority can put a sentence on their website that restricts drone usage. The one good news is that local authorities cannot restrict flying the drone within their area (but can restrict take off and landing / controlling within the area).
There are numerous apps that try to bridge the gap between the FAA rules (which the dji app does integrate) and the rest.
It's not as easy to understand as I'd like. Is the issue noise? Maybe, hard to tell? If it's not noise, a ban in parks seems very excessive. If it is noise, why is there no threshold you could try to be under?
From talking to a ranger here the issue in Boulder's parks (I don't know about elsewhere) is that they disturb nesting raptors. And that seems consistent with the fact that you are allowed to fly drones in the more urban parks just not the mountain ones.
As far as I’m aware while it’s illegal to fly a drone from open space (either OSMP or BoCo), it’s legal from Boulder Parks and Rec. So any of the more urban parks are fine. And most (but not all) of the national forest land is ok as well.
I bought a drone for a trip to the Azores, and it's a pain to get correct information in English. Despite what multiple blogs claimed, in Portugal you need to submit a signed letter ( either electronically with a compatible electronic certificate or via post) to be allowed to ask for permission for flying in specific areas, which you have to define ( like coordinates, height, etc.). Some areas are completely off limits ( military bases, airports, cities, etc.). If the area includes the seaside, you need an extra authorisation from the coast guard/marine something. That's on top of registering in a site as a drone operator ( the authorisations are asked on another site, and the first one says that "soon" you should be able to ask for authorisation there as well). Fines were severe IIRC.
So, in my brief experience, it's a complicated thing.
Lots of mentions of Hasselblad. DJI bought the company and are now branding small 4/3 sensors as Hasselblad, a brand associated with medium format sensors and optics.
Yes, it’s very awkward to see the Hasselblad (digital) logo on a drone. Of course a medium format sensor would be entirely counter-intuitive in such a use case.
So sad watching the photography industry crumble like so.
Hasselblad has its roots in military optics and space-constrained imaging solutions. They have made many professional surveillance systems over the years with smaller sensors. Hopefully this is not just a slapped logo.
True, but Hasselblad is a bit of a unique situation, especially compared with Zeiss. Also, Sony and Panasonic do not disconfigure their lens hoods to accommodate the Zeiss/Leica logos.
They sold a few lines of digital cameras for a while there that were beasts with large sensors like their analog ancestors, but it just didn’t make much practical sense aside from the fact that the old lenses could be used on the new cameras, and of course that only has limited value since old lenses lack modern focusing mechanisms.
I inherited a Hasselblad, shot it for a few years before succumbing to the inertia of digital. Still makes me a little sad that such a beautiful camera is just languishing on a shelf in my basement.
Hit me up. I’d love to talk about buying it from you. I shoot film, primarily 120 and large format. I’d give your Hasselblad a good home. Email is in my profile.
The color off the sensor is amazing. I rented one for my son’s birth because I needed an autofocus for non-manual friends and family to shoot with and I almost bought it after.
The UX is perfect. Simple, direct, if you shot a manual film camera you instantly understand it. Lenses are great, but big and heavy.
To be clear, they are excellent cameras! But with a very small market. They were built like workhorse cameras but they did’t have nearly enough of a competitive ecosystem to actually be workhorse cameras. It’s not surprising that they met their fate.
Yowzers. I guess I’m not surprised. I shot one once just being curious. It felt like driving a Cadillac, but the owner seemed to be struggling to find an actual purpose for it that his film Hasselblad wasn’t a better fit for.
Photography itself changed. Not many photographers are shooting for fashion magazines and you could probably get the job done with a Canon 5D which cost a fraction of what a Hasselblad did. Canon and Nikon were still kind of slow adopting new tech like mirrorless cameras and lost matket share to Sony. Leica instead concentrated on selling cameras to dentists and other well off types, making lenses for other camera systems and mobile phones. They're still here today.
Mirrorless isn't always a good thing. 5d can probably take 3x as many pictures on a battery since it doesn't have to power a live view feed for you to compose pictures.
Well, that's what most photographers and videographers want: a big articulated screen, maybe streaming to a phone or tablet instead of peeking into a tiny viewfinder. Power? If I were in Patagonia, I'd care, but otherwise anywhere in the developed world with power outlets, cables and chargers around, no. Most people want a light camera that can could suprpass what a smartphone can do in terms of quality and ergonomics. For most of them it's the GoPro.
I know people who shoot weddings. That's all day work from breakfast till the end of the reception. They all use DSLRs with battery grips. They are already hauling in many extra batteries and charger arrays into the venue, an entire pelican case worth. For them to switch to mirrorless would mean 3 pelican cases to haul from where the bride and groom are getting ready, to the chapel, to a photoshoot location, then to the venue. That would mean a second vehicle for them. And lets consider the number of shots too vs the absolute time. A mirrorless camera in terms of shots might be good for 400 exposures at best. Shooting something like a wedding ceremony is a one take thing. You gotta get the shot, there is no asking the priest to back up again and repeat the vows, so your camera is shooting off like a machine gun and you hope one of those moments you have everyone in the frame with their eyes open without a funny look on anyones face. 400 exposures would go by in no time at all when you can take a twelve exposure burst in a few seconds.
There is a reason why when you see any big sporting event or anything with professional photographers these days, you still see a sea of DSLRs despite mirrorless cameras like the A7 having excellent sensors on the market for 10 years now.
I fidn many mirrorless cameras don't have anywhere near as good physical handling characteristics. I am a Canon guy and I'd rather deal with my full size dslr over my tiny canon mirrorless...and it's not like the mirrorless is small once you add a 17-40. Or 24-70 on to it. They're just not as ergonomic and convenient to stabilize - I use a shoulder stabilized style when using a 70-200 and just can't pull it off with a mirrorless camera.
The mirrorless cam tends to just be a travel camera and only sees the 14mm pancake lens on it most of the time.
I own a 5D4 and an R5. I haven't really used the R5 more than a few times, but I'm already having a hard time going back to my 5D4, between features and everything. Battery is less of an issue for me because I've typically used the battery grip, on either.
For more compact travel stuff, I bought a Leica Q a few years ago, that has a fixed 28mm.
I wish DJI would make their products more repairable. The gimbal mount on my Mavic Air 2 broke partially, and I can easily see how to fix it myself if I had a replacement. I had hobby drones in the past where you could order (or even go to a hobby shop) and get spare parts, and DIY repair was a huge part of owning it. Turns out the only way to repair the mount is to send it in to an authorized repair center for them to replace the entire gimbal and camera at a high cost. I resorted to using super glue for now.
Ouch $4,999 is quite the price for the Cine. That’s not a cheap drone. Wonder what they’re going to do with pricepoint for the future releases in the Inspire line.
For that kind of price one almost needs to use the drone to make some money. Definitely out of my range. But for less then $50 I bought a basic drone from walmart that was awesome to fly. It could take pictures mind you the camera was fixed so you had to turn the drone the way you wanted to shoot. It was a hell of a lot of fun and I am thinking of getting another one some time to fly around the yard.
Having used one, and then upgraded to a Mavic Mini, $50 drones terrify me now. They're a safety hazard, both to you, and to anyone around you at the point you're flying them.
A proper drone with GPS, an IMU, and visual position keeping is going to hold its position in really quite strong winds. $50 drones are going to get whisked off in the first stiff breeze, and then to top that as soon as they lose signal from the controller they'll either kill the rotors straight away and fall out of the sky, or they'll continue flying in whatever direction they're going until the batteries go flat, and then fall out of the sky. Possibly onto someone's head.
Can't speak to the validity of the explanation, but they claim there's a bug in their SDK that is keeping them from distributing the app in the newly required .aab format (as opposed to the .apk they had previously been updating).
Then there's also the possibility that they either don't feel like being beholden to an app store or there's some part of the app that wouldn't pass muster on the Play Store. No idea, really. I don't have any DJI products, but it would be interesting if the reason has something to do with app functionality (as opposed to just being too cheap/lazy to update the SDK or wanting to bypass the approval process).
Let's be realistic: those specs are more in the realm of professional photographers/videographers. For most people, a DJI mini 2 is far more than sufficient(which is what I have and just came back from shooting a few pictures and videos actually). Even a small one like this punches way above it's weight category, literally and figuratively.
Or if you want to photograph remotely. The Mavic 2 has a practical range limit of a few km, and essentially ignores wind; this means I can use it in mountainous terrain where the mini would be far outside its usable range.
Avid hiker, amateur photographer. Most people wouldn’t be able to legally do that; the majority of Europe has people everywhere. An out-of-sight drone license isn’t super difficult to get, but you do need to invest some time.
> 46 Minutes Extended Flight Time
> 15 km Video Transmission Range
> 1080p/60fps FHD High-Framerate Live Feed
> Extreme-Precision Positioning Technology
Love how the localization accuracy isn’t quantified, just “extreme”. Looks very cool though.
Nah, that’s pretty standard. I too would also like to know about how much more precise their “positioning system” is which works in combination of GPS + downward facing cameras to correct for GPS drift.
Few months ago my brand-new DJI FPS drone was stolen from my room, together with an iPad, a wallet, a few important documents.
As you might know, all drones heavier than 250g have a transponder. DJI could have helped me find where the drone was, and more importantly, where the other stuff was.
I reported the theft to the local police, then reached out to DJI multiple times, using multiple channels. You can guess where the story goes: NOTHING from them.
Some thieves are walking freely because these a*holes don't want to help me recover my drone.
I feel powerless: the law should force them to collaborate with the police in matters like these, but it only (maybe) happens for very violent crimes.
If anyone from DJI is reading this: your company sucks.
Sorry, but I think you got this wrong, there's (currently) no transponder on DJI drones that enables remote tracking for them. In the future (2023?), FAA Remote ID will be mandatory, but even then, this is only a short range tracking system (like license plates on cars). If you think otherwise, please provide a source that there is a trackable transponder on current DJI drones.
DJI Drones after January 1, 2020 have ADS-B In (they can receive transponder signals). They do not broadcast location. Therefore, they can read transponder signals from nearby aircraft for collision avoidance, but they do not transmit.
Just because a drone has a tracker does not mean that the company is obligated to give the location to the owner.
You did not purchase this service. Besides, giving you the drone's location indirectly means that their company is collecting drone information in real time, which is not permitted.
I know nothing about DJI beyond what's in your comment, but the fact that there is a transponder on the drone doesn't imply that DJI knows where it is.
You are wrong. DJI has the ability to read transponder data whenever they want. It's actually built this way to allow law enforcement to get access to drone info and location if needed.
How does that work then? The transponder is transmitting at such high power that DJI can read it from anywhere on the planet? Or is there something else other than the transponder?
PSRs identify the transponder when the drone flies close enough to them.
DJI should implement a black list of transponder IDs so that owners of stolen drones could easily identify the latest flying location. But DJI doesn't, because it doesn't care.
You do realize the drone needs to be powered on and 'armed'/flying while tethered to their software that's running on an internet connected device for any location data to be available?
I wouldn't expect DJI to provide any kind of sensitive information about a drone's location to me simply because I sent a request through customer service..
If anything you would need a court order to compel any kind of information.
To use DJI drones you have to internet activate them AFAIK. If we are going to have restrictive apple-style activation locks for hardware, at least give us the fucking anti-theft benefits of it too.
This problem is so severe, that Tunisia recently required all "imported" phones to be registered [0] with the state within 3 months or they can't use the phone network.
I guess that moved the incentives towards iWatches and iPads and such.
If the drone ended up in Tunisia as well, there is a very good chance that it was confiscated by the police, since drone usage is very restricted all over the country.
I'm calling it, we're never going to have flying cars.
You're probably right about the drone part, though. You drive your car to a parking lot outside of the city and wait on a drone to drop you at work in the city.
Totally off-topic, but where did the idea come from that landing sites are supposed to look like that? How am I even supposed to navigate this fucking thing? It's so frustrating when I try to scroll and objects start flying around frantically in random directions, then there are about 5 screens with literally no information, then a fading label appears that requires trying really hard to bring it into focus. Did they sell me Mavic 3? No fucking way, I (quite literally) didn't even find it on their page.
And it's not like DJI have especially bad landing page for Mavic, it's no less that every third landing site looks like that nowadays. So, how do they all come up with the same nonsense? And when will this stop?
If I go to the site and only hit the space or page down key, it's not really any worse than a series of slides. A couple of them are transitional but the vast majority have information on them.
If I do any kind of normal scrolling, then all the animations work as intended and it's better than a series of slides.
I can't find anywhere where it's "5 screens with literally no information". Can you be more specific about what part of the page you were at? Maybe it has something to do with screen size? Mine is 1080p and it seems to act the same regardless of browser width.
Good golly, you're right about the space and page down keys. I've seen quite a few websites with this scroll-dependent content, and always found it pretty annoying to have to strain my middle finger to keep scrolling. Scrolling by page makes the site much more accessible. I feel pretty foolish now.
On the other hand, I still think it's a bit silly to make a site that you have to navigate using such a unique way (relative to other websites).
Well I'm glad that helped! I wonder why normal scrolling seems to be fine for me but is messy and slow for you. I know there's a lot of things that can affect it, especially mouse wheel drivers.
Before I visited that website I thought "DJI is a Chinese company that produces cutting edge consumer drones". After visiting that page I think "DJI are morons who don't know how to design landing page, don't buy anything from them".
It's marketed at the slightly-adventurous enthusiastic middle-aged middle-manager. As such, they are probably quite receptive to a bit of showmanship along the lines of Q (as in Bond, not Star Trek).
That segment is, indeed, also the most likely to consider themselves to be extremely rational people who despise appeals to emotions and will always opine that advertising doesn't work on them, and they would prefer just the tech specs, black on white.
And yet they are buying something that, for the vast majority, will be used as a toy.[0]
Good marketing manages to bridge this contradiction with an assortment of terms like "10-Bit D-Log" set in action movie fonts and colors. Who doesn't want the D-Log?
0: That's not an insult. There's nothing wrong with fun. Indeed, it's the only real purpose life may have. But still, accusations of being interested in a toy would offend them, if being offended didn't happen to also be something they leave to lesser people.
Don't know about you but I absolutely love these pages and trying to find an easy way to make our product's landing page like this. Not like it? Sure, there's always the specs link at the top which basically links to a traditional page listing specs.
You can safely consider them an arm of PLA. Their main recruitment event is https://www.robomaster.com with over 100 Chinese universities participating. Its about building and programming little aimbotting war machines :-).
If you think DJI Mavic 3 is impressive just imagine what they are supplying army with.
It's on the Apple App Store, but not on the Google Play Store (since November 2020). The officially stated reason is something about a change in file formats, but that seems like a flimsy excuse for being unavailable in the most popular app store in the world for an entire year.
I also installed it on an unused spare phone, and consider that device tainted forever.
It has “red scare” vibes to me, not that you intended as such. It was a decent point, but I think the contagion word especially so soon after Covid is perhaps a poor word choice. I don’t think caution is unwarranted when dealing with products made in China, like nearly every cell phone ever made, or this camera drone.
I’m also skeptical of other products made in other countries, but there are vastly more consumer electronics products sold in America made in China than any other country, along with open hostility to some Western companies who want to sell in China without undue government influence.
I’m skeptical of all my purchases independent of where they were manufactured, but threat assessment isn’t context blind. I’d be more suspicious of a Saudi-made iPhone than a Chinese one, but less suspicious of an Indian iPhone than either. I’m sure my own unconscious biases are feeding into these suspicions, but I honestly don’t have reasonable alternatives to most of my electronics made in any particular country. The news tells us to fear Huawei, which makes me wonder what other warnings we may not be hearing. Do other countries warn against using American products and services?
I’d be curious about reliability and quality control variance between countries of manufacture, but I suspect that timely data on this would be hard to gather.
I quite like the vast majority of my products, wherever they are made. I just want trustworthy products made safely by willing employees paid fair wages for reasonable working hours. In that regard, it’s hard to find anything I know to meet these criteria, even when it’s made in USA.
Buying better isn’t always buying less, but they can be complementary goals.
That’s just inflammatory. There are indeed reasons to be skeptical and careful about Chinese imports because of the actions and politics of the state among other reasons… but there you’re just name calling. Do you have actual reasons for your doubts or are they just “bad guys” to you?
I typed a reasonable reply to this but it got flagged. It shouldn’t have been flagged, it was reasonable and didn’t label anyone as “bad guys.” I don’t like that we can’t talk about DJI being bad, because they are a Chinese company, despite it being obviously true.
DJI also sends data to US GOVT agencies as required by law. To label any company "bad" simply because of their compliance to law is a rather self-limiting view.
Most tech stuff is made in China. Why does is matter so much if the capitalists harvesting the fruits of the Chinese workers are American rather than fellow Chinese?
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If “imaging above everything” then why does the lens casing/hood have 5 wacky-shaped lopsided panels?
I don’t know much about drones, but it wasn’t very long ago that even consumer level camera equipment came with some degree of dignity and sincerity with respect to their purpose and their users. This could be the greatest camera ever made and that silly mess on the front would just be that much more of an insult. I just don’t understand.
That's polygon modelers' job. They start from basic geometry like a cube or a sphere, and add details by subdividing, extruding, beveling, working on surfaces and edges. The end result often shows lots of angled parallel lines.
Other two major types of 3D modeling are parametric CAD modeling and sculpt polygon modeling. Sculpt is a relatively new method suited for modeling natural objects like an animal bone, and parametric CAD is extension to good ol' hand drawn mechanical schematics.
If you know what to look, you might notice that polygon-modeled models often has an origin _point_ at its center of gravity towards which cross section of the model and density of surface details increases, and that parametric models has an origin _plane_ at an "end" where it extends from which tends to define average cross sectional area of a part. This drone is a mix of those two methods.
... And the real reason why I'm writing this comment is because sometimes I don't like when modelers do general aesthetics first and add internal structure as mere flavoring, making it "boneless", like all those Star Wars ships. Everything mechanical are "added details" in Star Wars mechs.
I think your complaints come from something similar to what I have problems with. Photography cameras were always machined so they are always drawn in CAD with mechanical principles first and surface details to follow.
>Do the flourishes impact the image quality somehow?
Why undergo the research to find out? Why on Earth should that be necessary?
Clearly this is more a symptom than anything, but the reason it doesn’t matter is not that the “flourish” does not affect image quality; it’s that the equipment is clearly trash anyhow. This kind of thing speaks for itself, just like the ridiculous idea that anyone should even want a Hasselblad mounted on a drone. It’s all a sad joke.
For the record of nearly a century and a half, lens hoods are symmetrical with few exceptions, “flourishes” not being one of them. I don’t see changing this as a progression of any sort. It’s something closer to decadence.
I don’t know anything about the Mavic 3, but their products overall are actually pretty good and for $1000-2500 you get some pretty amazing capability. Their cameras and optics (Hasselblad clout abuse notwithstanding) are decent for the size, the flight controls and automation are good, the stabilization is unbelievable and the overall quality and fit and finish is really good.
I think if you tried one out for a month you would find use for it.
I only suspect the camera is trash. I know nothing about drones.
I know that with these new digital toys the more traditional rules of photography are no longer embraced as rules to be broken but rather they are treated as a grab bag of techniques with no rhyme or reason. The equipment tends to reflect this. These cameras are hot rods rather than tools, which benefits nobody. These things are designed to be used one single way and that’s it. It should be unsurprising that they produce such repetitive results. They are not designed for creative endeavors but rather for some type of extreme performance. They are not modular. They are not repairable. They don’t even have a symmetrical lens hood lol. The drone stuff is the worst of it I’m sure, and I just find it sad.
> These cameras are hot rods rather than tools, which benefits nobody
For what it's worth, I was thinking about getting this. I'm not a photographer, but I'd really like to try flying this around and trying my darndest to take cool pictures. I don't necessarily care about modularity or repairability. I don't have the expertise anyhow. It seems like it might be beneficial to my demographic.
If you're just mucking around, get a Mini or the Air 2S. I know people doing commercial work with both. Air 2S gives you more room to move if you end up operating commercially, selling prints, etc.
It is now my frame of reference for all sorts of technology. Automatically not crashing, auto return to home, insane maneuverability on sport mode and all at a bizarrely low price for something that would have seemed science fiction to many punters 20 years ago.
By commoditizing this kind of consumer tech that interfaces with the real world, DJI has changed my perception of what existing technology could be capable of and changed the way I consider usability in my own work.