DJI Mavic 2 Pro after six months of use
This article is devoted to the DJI Mavic 2 Pro drone, which I have owned for more than six months and contains both a subjective description of the advantages and problems, and a bunch of photos in spoilers. All images in order to save traffic are passed through the mozjpeg optimizer .
My first drone in childhood was like that
I had three of them. The first one did not take off, because I opened the box on the bus on the way home and lost the gadget that holds the upper triangular yellow plate holding the blades. At the second, the trigger was rubbed with kapron thread and the gum inside burst, which twisted this thread back. The third lived the longest, but he was blown away by the wind.
Then there was this helicopter that I played with at home, then it was the same, but with a camera, followed by the Syma x5 and x8 pro drones, in the remote controls of which I re-soldered their miserable antennas to normal from wi-fi routers and it worked great. Then there was the Walkera QR X350Pro with a separate suspension for the camera and the Chinese analogue of GoPro, and finally I rented the Mavic 1 Pro for a day and realized that all this time I was doing the wrong thing. Of course, I bought it later and flew with pleasure for a year, but the announcement of the Mavic 2 Pro deprived me of peace, and my budget - more than two thousand Australian dollars.
Mavic 2 normally flies faster than the first. So fast that I had to get used to it separately and if I press full throttle forward with a small headwind - the forward angle of the hull makes the front obstacle sensors useless, as the application on the phone tells us.
The propellers in the kit immediately come with a reduced noiseasbestos content , while at the first Mavik they were simpler.
At the remote control, the sticks are now unscrewed, which on the one hand reduces the chance of damage to the remote control when carrying it, on the other hand, they can be dropped and lost. Below is an additional USB connector, (like the first Mavik) where you can connect a tablet or phone or something else, but this port only works if you pull out the side cable, even if it is not connected anywhere. This at one time made me think that my remote control was defective and it helped only by accident, when after charging the remote control I again connected a tablet to it without a side wire and it worked.
Obstacle sensors
In advertising, there is an emphasis on the fact that the drone is hung from all sides with sensors and will not crash anywhere. In fact, all sensors work in only two modes - Active Track and Tripod. In normal mode, the side sensors do not work, and in sports mode, none at all. In addition, Active Track has “slow” and “fast” modes; in the second, a warning is also displayed that the sensors will be disabled.
Personally, in Active Track, the drone is stupid on side obstacles because it has only one camera on its sides, which determines the presence of an obstacle, but not the distance to it, so when flying a meter away from a tree, the drone just stops and complains about the obstacle from the side, although it does not bother him at all.
Separately, it is worth mentioning Tripod mode (tripod).
Initially, the first Mavik and before a certain firmware update for the second, it was a mode in which the drone barely moves if you try to control it, but at the same time it spends all its efforts to remain motionless despite the wind. Great mode for photos.
After updating in this mode, you can now set the speed of movement horizontally, vertically and turns, so you can use it to shoot video. A separate bonus is the work of all sensors.
That for which everything was started.
The first problem with the camera is the plastic cover. She scratches the camera on top every time I put on and take off this cover.
The solution is to stick tape on a surface rubbing against the camera. If you look closely, you can see two slightly diverging strips. Unfortunately, I found out about this too late and the presentation is already spoiled.
The second problem is incomprehensible changes in the video settings when changing flight modes.
In normal mode, there are video options - 2.7K 60fps and 1080p 120fps.
But you should switch to Active Track mode and these options disappear somewhere.
So if I had a video of 2.7K 60fps - when I switch to Active Track there will be 2.7K 30 fps. Moreover, the frame rate changes spontaneously and without any notifications. When you return from the Active track to normal mode, it does not change back and remains the same - 30 fps. I have no idea why this happens and how the drone’s flight mode in general can affect the camera’s settings, but it made me very upset and messed up a couple of important videos. Now I know that every time you switch modes, you need to check the video settings.
In Hyperlapse mode (such as TimeLapse) there is only one video format - 1080p 25 fps H264 and it is nailed tight there. That is, you can’t change anything at all, there are simply no buttons to configure the video.
The solution is to check the box “save source photos” and then you can make at least 4K 120fps from them, but with your hands.
The camera itself, the Hasselblad with a one-inch sensor, was supposed to be a bomb that humiliates the owners of the Phantom 4 Pro, but a video from Cliff Totten from the Mavicpilots forum appeared on Youtube, where he draws attention to a strange camera problem.
If you don’t want to watch 35 minutes - a brief squeeze:
The video raises the problem of a muddy video in 4K mode, which, according to Cliff, looks like a stretched 2.7K video. Cliff hypothesizes that the DJI was faced with the problem of overheating the sensor and could not provide sufficient cooling for it in such a small case. This, in his opinion, was the reason for the delay in the presentation of The bigger Picture, and since the problem appeared almost before the release - DJI went to the trick and programmatically made two 4K modes - normal and HQ. The first shoots a 2.7K video and stretches it to 4K, which is why soap appears, the second is a real 4K, but uses only part of the pixels in the middle of the sensor, which looks like a cropped video with a lower viewing angle.
DJI's official response to this video.TL; DR - everything is fine with us, you are testing incorrectly.
I ran the same tests with a photo target and did not find this problem myself (video on demand). Perhaps because I have a drone from the second batch, and the first one with a problem, it crashed like hotcakes and in Melbourne a week after the release it was impossible to buy the Mavic 2 Pro anywhere at all - everything was sold out.
Nevertheless, I still don’t shoot in 4K, because I have nothing to watch such a video on and I like 60 frames per second more, so 2.7K is enough for me.
Night mode. It is just something.
In general, I am very pleased and in my opinion the advantages of the Mavic 2 Pro significantly exceed its disadvantages. But I think that it’s good to know about these shortcomings before buying, and not after.
I hope someone my experience will be useful.
My first drone in childhood was like that
I had three of them. The first one did not take off, because I opened the box on the bus on the way home and lost the gadget that holds the upper triangular yellow plate holding the blades. At the second, the trigger was rubbed with kapron thread and the gum inside burst, which twisted this thread back. The third lived the longest, but he was blown away by the wind.
Then there was this helicopter that I played with at home, then it was the same, but with a camera, followed by the Syma x5 and x8 pro drones, in the remote controls of which I re-soldered their miserable antennas to normal from wi-fi routers and it worked great. Then there was the Walkera QR X350Pro with a separate suspension for the camera and the Chinese analogue of GoPro, and finally I rented the Mavic 1 Pro for a day and realized that all this time I was doing the wrong thing. Of course, I bought it later and flew with pleasure for a year, but the announcement of the Mavic 2 Pro deprived me of peace, and my budget - more than two thousand Australian dollars.
So - here she is, my charm
Problems and features not mentioned in specifications or in advertising
Mavic 2 normally flies faster than the first. So fast that I had to get used to it separately and if I press full throttle forward with a small headwind - the forward angle of the hull makes the front obstacle sensors useless, as the application on the phone tells us.
The propellers in the kit immediately come with a reduced noise
Image Propeller Offtopic
An interesting story came out with these propellers - I was a couple of drone driver groups on Facebook and there was just a wave of hysteria about these propellers from Mavic Platinum - dozens of posts asking “is it worth buying?”, “I bought it and it's cool”, “ but I bought and didn’t feel the difference ”and so on.
In general, the essence is this: these propellers have a more optimal aerodynamic shape and create greater lifting force than stock ones at equal speeds. As a result, in order to just hang you need to twist them more slowly, according to my subjective measurements in the spirit of “plus / minus a kilometer” - by 20%.
It was checked as follows - there is a tachometer on the remote control, but I was just thinking now - the speed of which of the four motors it shows. I think the average value from all four. So - with stock propellers there 530 rpm ± 50 depending on the wind. But with pathos propellers - 420 rpm ± 50. As a result of lower revolutions - the sound is not that quieter, it is simply lower in tone, which is also perceived as lower volume.
Listen and compare here:
In my subjective opinion, a decrease in engine speed generally gives a couple of additional minutes of flight, since less energy is consumed. But on purpose, I did not test it.
The propellers themselves are on the left of the Mavic 1, on the right is the Mavic 2 / platinum.
In general, the essence is this: these propellers have a more optimal aerodynamic shape and create greater lifting force than stock ones at equal speeds. As a result, in order to just hang you need to twist them more slowly, according to my subjective measurements in the spirit of “plus / minus a kilometer” - by 20%.
It was checked as follows - there is a tachometer on the remote control, but I was just thinking now - the speed of which of the four motors it shows. I think the average value from all four. So - with stock propellers there 530 rpm ± 50 depending on the wind. But with pathos propellers - 420 rpm ± 50. As a result of lower revolutions - the sound is not that quieter, it is simply lower in tone, which is also perceived as lower volume.
Listen and compare here:
In my subjective opinion, a decrease in engine speed generally gives a couple of additional minutes of flight, since less energy is consumed. But on purpose, I did not test it.
The propellers themselves are on the left of the Mavic 1, on the right is the Mavic 2 / platinum.
At the remote control, the sticks are now unscrewed, which on the one hand reduces the chance of damage to the remote control when carrying it, on the other hand, they can be dropped and lost. Below is an additional USB connector, (like the first Mavik) where you can connect a tablet or phone or something else, but this port only works if you pull out the side cable, even if it is not connected anywhere. This at one time made me think that my remote control was defective and it helped only by accident, when after charging the remote control I again connected a tablet to it without a side wire and it worked.
Obstacle sensors
In advertising, there is an emphasis on the fact that the drone is hung from all sides with sensors and will not crash anywhere. In fact, all sensors work in only two modes - Active Track and Tripod. In normal mode, the side sensors do not work, and in sports mode, none at all. In addition, Active Track has “slow” and “fast” modes; in the second, a warning is also displayed that the sensors will be disabled.
A few screenshots
Normal manual flight mode (Positioning mode) - only the front and rear sensors work (in fact, still upper and lower, but at this height it does not matter).
Active Track (slow) - all sensors are working.
Active Track (slow) - all sensors are working.
Personally, in Active Track, the drone is stupid on side obstacles because it has only one camera on its sides, which determines the presence of an obstacle, but not the distance to it, so when flying a meter away from a tree, the drone just stops and complains about the obstacle from the side, although it does not bother him at all.
Separately, it is worth mentioning Tripod mode (tripod).
Initially, the first Mavik and before a certain firmware update for the second, it was a mode in which the drone barely moves if you try to control it, but at the same time it spends all its efforts to remain motionless despite the wind. Great mode for photos.
After updating in this mode, you can now set the speed of movement horizontally, vertically and turns, so you can use it to shoot video. A separate bonus is the work of all sensors.
Camera
That for which everything was started.
The first problem with the camera is the plastic cover. She scratches the camera on top every time I put on and take off this cover.
The solution is to stick tape on a surface rubbing against the camera. If you look closely, you can see two slightly diverging strips. Unfortunately, I found out about this too late and the presentation is already spoiled.
The second problem is incomprehensible changes in the video settings when changing flight modes.
In normal mode, there are video options - 2.7K 60fps and 1080p 120fps.
Screenshots of video settings
But you should switch to Active Track mode and these options disappear somewhere.
Screenshots of video settings
So if I had a video of 2.7K 60fps - when I switch to Active Track there will be 2.7K 30 fps. Moreover, the frame rate changes spontaneously and without any notifications. When you return from the Active track to normal mode, it does not change back and remains the same - 30 fps. I have no idea why this happens and how the drone’s flight mode in general can affect the camera’s settings, but it made me very upset and messed up a couple of important videos. Now I know that every time you switch modes, you need to check the video settings.
In Hyperlapse mode (such as TimeLapse) there is only one video format - 1080p 25 fps H264 and it is nailed tight there. That is, you can’t change anything at all, there are simply no buttons to configure the video.
Screen of nails
The solution is to check the box “save source photos” and then you can make at least 4K 120fps from them, but with your hands.
Settings
The camera itself, the Hasselblad with a one-inch sensor, was supposed to be a bomb that humiliates the owners of the Phantom 4 Pro, but a video from Cliff Totten from the Mavicpilots forum appeared on Youtube, where he draws attention to a strange camera problem.
The video itself on Youtube in English
If you don’t want to watch 35 minutes - a brief squeeze:
The video raises the problem of a muddy video in 4K mode, which, according to Cliff, looks like a stretched 2.7K video. Cliff hypothesizes that the DJI was faced with the problem of overheating the sensor and could not provide sufficient cooling for it in such a small case. This, in his opinion, was the reason for the delay in the presentation of The bigger Picture, and since the problem appeared almost before the release - DJI went to the trick and programmatically made two 4K modes - normal and HQ. The first shoots a 2.7K video and stretches it to 4K, which is why soap appears, the second is a real 4K, but uses only part of the pixels in the middle of the sensor, which looks like a cropped video with a lower viewing angle.
DJI's official response to this video.TL; DR - everything is fine with us, you are testing incorrectly.
I ran the same tests with a photo target and did not find this problem myself (video on demand). Perhaps because I have a drone from the second batch, and the first one with a problem, it crashed like hotcakes and in Melbourne a week after the release it was impossible to buy the Mavic 2 Pro anywhere at all - everything was sold out.
Nevertheless, I still don’t shoot in 4K, because I have nothing to watch such a video on and I like 60 frames per second more, so 2.7K is enough for me.
Night mode. It is just something.
2 Mb of pictures of night Melbourne
Random Views of Australia, 2.6 Mb
Conclusion
In general, I am very pleased and in my opinion the advantages of the Mavic 2 Pro significantly exceed its disadvantages. But I think that it’s good to know about these shortcomings before buying, and not after.
I hope someone my experience will be useful.