For first drone, is Mavic 2 Pro worth twice price of Mavic Pro?

Mainly interested in panoramas, some videos.

Intrigued by M2P hyper lapse but now original Mavic Pro is $749.

Not sure how much Mavic Air goes for and whether it would offer any advantages over the now 2-3 year old Mavic Pro.

I know there are third-party apps. which will do panoramas on the original Mavic Pro.

But what about something like hyper lapse?

If this is your first drone, it is hard to beat all of the features of the Mavic Pro. I don't shoot panos with my drone as of yet so I can't be of any help there! My first drone was(is) the Phantom 3 Pro. I have been looking at the Mavic 2 zoom but haven't seen any compelling features shown by some of the first adopters to make me change. Also the Mavic Pro does have a 2x zoom, just not the zoom of the Mavic Pro Zoom. But I am content! Good Luck in your decision; but DJI is hard to beat. If you opt for the Mavic Pro at that price, make sure you get the Fly More kit! You can't beat the accessories in this kit for the Mavic Pro. To me;(my Opinion) the Mavic Air has less options than the Mavic Pro and it is a little smaller. Good Luck!

You can quite easily do hyperlapses with the Mavic Pro (although they wont be assembled in camera.) Use waypoint mode, set a couple of waypoints, set the drone speed pretty low (c.1.5 kph) and set the camera timer to every 2 or 5 seconds.

wco81 said:

Mainly interested in panoramas, some videos.

Intrigued by M2P hyper lapse but now original Mavic Pro is $749.

Not sure how much Mavic Air goes for and whether it would offer any advantages over the now 2-3 year old Mavic Pro.

I know there are third-party apps. which will do panoramas on the original Mavic Pro.

But what about something like hyper lapse?

Click to expand...

As already said you can do Hyper lapses on the MP, as it stands the MP2 doesn't have waypoints 2.0 so the advertised day / night / multi flight hyperlapse is missing / not implemented.

Have a look on the DJI forum at the number of complaints regarding the MP2 before you buy, IMO you'd be better off going for the mature MP, whilst the MP2 offers a higher pixel output and dynamic range it's not without it's problems.

The advantage of older drones is that you can buy them used, preferably locally and/or even from somebody you know so you can check them out first.

wco81 said:

Mainly interested in panoramas, some videos.

Intrigued by M2P hyper lapse but now original Mavic Pro is $749.

Not sure how much Mavic Air goes for and whether it would offer any advantages over the now 2-3 year old Mavic Pro.

I know there are third-party apps. which will do panoramas on the original Mavic Pro.

But what about something like hyper lapse?

Click to expand...

I still have the Mavic Air but I plan to sell it. The shorter battery life is annoying. I figured it would be OK since I bought the Fly More combo with 2 extra batteries (my first drone).

But it seems like soon after you get up into the air, get in position for your shot, double check your settings, check the exposure on your screen etc, shoot for a few moments, it's nearly time to bring it back down and change batteries. And even with 2 more batteries your session doesn't last very long.

As you gain more experience you can do all of that faster of course, but when you're new to the whole process, setting up the shots takes time.

I bought the Mavic 2 Pro. The 1-inch sensor and longer battery life were the selling points for me. I use it for photos as much as video.

I followed all the discussions about image quality compared to the Phantom 4 Pro, missing features, etc etc. And even with my limited experience I could quickly see the quality was not as good as the Phantom 4 Pro. It's pretty obvious when you see them side by side. In fact, it's very obvious.

For me though, the Mavic 2 Pro is a reasonable compromise between image quality and portability. It fits in a rather small backpack easily along with my iPad that I use with the controller. I wouldn't want to lug around the Phantom 4 Pro in it's case with any extras.

But the Mavic 2 Pro is darn expensive, isn't it? I like the drone but it's a little overpriced. Unless you really want that 1-inch sensor, the original Mavic Pro makes more sense.

The original Mavic Pro has the same good battery life and you can load up on some extra batteries anyway with the savings. Personally I'd recommend that over the Mavic Air.

I would say not. I only use a basic phantom 3 std and while I have found serious limitations (I use it about 75% for stills) in the sensor, the bottom line is that these limitations are really when the light starts to go. Portability on the other hand is a bit of a nightmare compared to the pro/air/2 pro.

I would recommend go for the mavic pro and see how you like it. I have crashed the 3 std and the previous 2+ Vision enough times to be very cautious about spending a lot on a drone. My next one will be either a original pro or air. The bigger sensor and all the other features are nice but just not worth 2 x the price. Bracketing and choosing your light can still produce some magical shots.

Amazing tech for sure though. I was recently helping someone shoot with a mavic pro and then with the edits and I was seriously impressed. The occusync and obstacle avoidance (and tripod mode) was amazing (as was the portability).

How important is portability? How familiar with you with flying things via remote? How familiar are you with video?

For me, the answers were high, low and low...and with that, I ended up going with a Mavic Air, which can be had at times for $600. I liked the super portability of it where I can put it in the same camera backpack with my camera and lenses, or with a small sling.

I haven't tried hyperlapse, but Panos are super easy. Set it with the DJI App and hit the shutter button and it'll automatically take it. Many other pre-programmed photo and video shots as well.

Pros:
portability
price
solid photos and videos (checkout some of the Mavic Air videos on youtube)
if I dumb it into a lake, or somewhere I can't easily get to, it hurts just a little...but 2.5x more would be very painful

Cons:
battery life
range - though some have flown it miles away, I haven't had such luck
photos not to the level of a M2P

I'll likely move up to the M2P when I can find it for under $1k.

I notice there are Youtubers complaining that the M2P image quality is noticeably inferior to the bigger DJI drone with the 1-inch sensor. suggesting that DJI may have rushed out the M2P to have bragging rights about a 1-inch sensor on a foldable drone.

wco81 said:

I notice there are Youtubers complaining that the M2P image quality is noticeably inferior to the bigger DJI drone with the 1-inch sensor. suggesting that DJI may have rushed out the M2P to have bragging rights about a 1-inch sensor on a foldable drone.

Click to expand...

There's load of videos complaining about the MP2 not just what looks to be DJI not using the full sensor size but also distortion (when shooting D-Log RAW) and missing features.

As it stands it looks like it was certainly rushed out and not worth the premium over the MP1

If it was me, I'd go for a cheap MP1 or the Phantom 4 (If you don't need portability).

wco81 said:

Mainly interested in panoramas, some videos.

Intrigued by M2P hyper lapse but now original Mavic Pro is $749.

Not sure how much Mavic Air goes for and whether it would offer any advantages over the now 2-3 year old Mavic Pro.

I know there are third-party apps. which will do panoramas on the original Mavic Pro.

But what about something like hyper lapse?

Click to expand...

I went for the Mavic 2 Zoom it's $250 cheaper than the Pro and doesn't suffer from the issues that have been popping up with the Pro. Also, having a zoom lens on a drone is extremely useful.

Hyperlapse is a really cool feature, but is unfortunately limited to 1080p (though that may change in a future firmware update).

NacMacFeegle said:

wco81 said:

Mainly interested in panoramas, some videos.

Intrigued by M2P hyper lapse but now original Mavic Pro is $749.

Not sure how much Mavic Air goes for and whether it would offer any advantages over the now 2-3 year old Mavic Pro.

I know there are third-party apps. which will do panoramas on the original Mavic Pro.

But what about something like hyper lapse?

Click to expand...

I went for the Mavic 2 Zoom it's $250 cheaper than the Pro and doesn't suffer from the issues that have been popping up with the Pro. Also, having a zoom lens on a drone is extremely useful.

Hyperlapse is a really cool feature, but is unfortunately limited to 1080p (though that may change in a future firmware update).

Click to expand...

Eh I bet they dangle 4k hyper lapses in a future drone product.

Probably would be very processing-intensive.

So maybe when they can capture 4K60, they will offer 4K30 hyper lapses.

I've been seriously thinking about upgrading to the MP2 zoom. The Mavic Pro has a zoom but not nearly as much as the MP2 zoom. And it is not smooth. Just haven't bit the bullet yet. Still looking at reviews from the new MP2 zoom. Please come back and give us some feedback after you get all your testing and settings done.

wco81 said:

NacMacFeegle said:

wco81 said:

Mainly interested in panoramas, some videos.

Intrigued by M2P hyper lapse but now original Mavic Pro is $749.

Not sure how much Mavic Air goes for and whether it would offer any advantages over the now 2-3 year old Mavic Pro.

I know there are third-party apps. which will do panoramas on the original Mavic Pro.

But what about something like hyper lapse?

Click to expand...

I went for the Mavic 2 Zoom it's $250 cheaper than the Pro and doesn't suffer from the issues that have been popping up with the Pro. Also, having a zoom lens on a drone is extremely useful.

Hyperlapse is a really cool feature, but is unfortunately limited to 1080p (though that may change in a future firmware update).

Click to expand...

Eh I bet they dangle 4k hyper lapses in a future drone product.

Probably would be very processing-intensive.

So maybe when they can capture 4K60, they will offer 4K30 hyper lapses.

Click to expand...

How can it be that processing intensive? It's essentially just a very low frame rate video, and should thus be less processing intensive than 4k30. Recently I've just been recording 4k footage and speeding it up - it takes up more storage space but yields much better quality.

JusLookN said:

I've been seriously thinking about upgrading to the MP2 zoom. The Mavic Pro has a zoom but not nearly as much as the MP2 zoom. And it is not smooth. Just haven't bit the bullet yet. Still looking at reviews from the new MP2 zoom. Please come back and give us some feedback after you get all your testing and settings done.

Click to expand...

I put a first impressions video together back in August:





I'm very impressed with it after using it for the past few months. It's very fast, and the obstacle detection system seems to be extremely robust. Video and photo quality is high, and the gimble is rock solid, even in especially windy conditions.

There are a few flaws that have become apparent: the zoom has a variable aperture, so if you are shooting in manual mode your picture will grow darker as you zoom in. It also seems to have a problem with vignetting, which has led to disappointing panorama results. The aforementioned limitation to 1080p in timelapse mode is also frustration - what's worse is that this limitation extends to other automated modes such as dolly zoom.

Overall I'm very happy with it, and they do seem to be ironing out the kinks with firmware updates. It's just too bad that DJI has adopted the dubious policy of beta testing unfinished software with customers in supposedly finished products.

Could simply take still images via time-lapse and create any size video you want from the frames (I assume the drone supports taking a picture every second or two). Create an action/macro in Photoshop to downsize the images to whatever video size you want...that's what I do (DSLR - not with drone images).

junk1 said:

Could simply take still images via time-lapse and create any size video you want from the frames (I assume the drone supports taking a picture every second or two). Create an action/macro in Photoshop to downsize the images to whatever video size you want...that's what I do (DSLR - not with drone images).

Click to expand...

That's always the option that produces the best quality and provides the most flexibility in editing, but I've always found the process to be time consuming and to take up to much storage space.

Probaby less space than shouting a 4k video though...and the stills do not need to be super high quality (other than begin properly exposed), you'll never notice the difference in the final video. If DR is an issue such as shooting into the sun, then shooting RAW to recover highlights is the way to go, have done that too (DSLR).

Thanks for the info . I think I'll wait a while and stay with my MP1 a bit longer! I appreciate your reporting back to us on your experience with yours.