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Drone - the current choice...


Snowfun
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I'm thinking of getting a drone - I can neither justify nor afford an Inspire or above so am looking at the 1000 mark (UK £). Purely for hobby/fun.

The dji Mavic looks to be the obvious choice. Are there any reasons to prefer a Phantom 4 (or even 3)? Or is there an alternative I should consider? 

There will never be situations when I need to get the shot so nothing is critical. I would prefer higher image quality over tricks and gimmicks (ideally I'd like to pop my Pocket into the air but not practical). Perhaps worth noting that I'll be using this in cold environments - possibly below the advertised minimum operating temperature.

The Mavic? 

Thanks for opinions,

Tim

Ps still trying to summarise all the opinions in the Mavic vs Karma post below...

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So far there isn't real independent reviews of the Mavic and the Karma. Just a bunch of general previews made by people who don't know anything about drones or by people who have "preferred" relation with a manufacturer...

That being said, the Mavic looks very good but I'm curious about its ability to produce good image in windy condition. I've done good stuff with the P3 and P4 in 30mph winds. I'm also concerned about the tiny camera: will that be possible to install a ND filter on it ?

Between the P3 and P4, I would go for the P3 because it's much cheaper, same for the batteries (they are expensive). The P4 only brings sides features such as collision avoidance. The IQ isn't very different (just a bit more sharp on the P4).

This is all P3 btw (except the timelapse)

 

 

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Be careful about saying 'game changer' if you haven't bought a usage licence from Apple. :grin:

It's a cool and fun quadcopter (I hate using the term 'drone', I reserve that for military application ones, I'd rather use 'quad-', 'hexa-', 'octocopter' or 'multirotor', 'aerial platform'). In  my eyes, it's just not a very serious aerial video platform, depending on what your expectations and requirements are however, it might be just super fine.

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35 minutes ago, Emanuel said:

I don't see any better IQ on the Phantom 4 side versus the Mavic Pro, actually, on the contrary... IQ is beyond artificial edges to my eyes or sharpness as you wish.

Other than the possibly superior stability in a breeze of the P4, it's difficult therefore to see any reason not to go with the Mavic.

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10 minutes ago, Snowfun said:

Other than the possibly superior stability in a breeze of the P4, it's difficult therefore to see any reason not to go with the Mavic.

Without mention as far as I've seen from someone else testing, the bird Mavic Pro beats the older member of family despite the possible superior stability you refer.

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3 minutes ago, graphicnatured said:

Compared to my Phantom 4 the Mavic looks really squirrely and all over the place. I'll reserve real judgement for when I fly one, but from this video only it appears clearly the Phantom 4 is way more stable in flight.

What video?

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My point is, if comparing to a P4, how stable is the Mavic? I know how stable mine is. I'd imagine that just by size that the Mavic is less. I'm not even talking s about it. The Mavic looks like a lot of fun. I don't know enough about it, but as I stated above, I can't see a possibility that is as smooth and stable as a P4 is in flight. If it is, then your statement is probably correct. Unless you are only talking about racing, then you are most surely correct.

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8 hours ago, graphicnatured said:

My point is, if comparing to a P4, how stable is the Mavic? I know how stable mine is. I'd imagine that just by size that the Mavic is less. I'm not even talking s about it. The Mavic looks like a lot of fun. I don't know enough about it, but as I stated above, I can't see a possibility that is as smooth and stable as a P4 is in flight. If it is, then your statement is probably correct. Unless you are only talking about racing, then you are most surely correct.

This test seems to show that the Mav is more stable in wind compared to the P4:

In my opinion Mavic platform was meant to be the new Phantom series and planned for 2017 ca. 1 year after P4 then Karma came a long and they decided to bring it earlier and for not pissing off the ones that just brought the P4 they continue to sell them.... once Mavic ships in quantity I bet we will see big discounts on P series or a new P with the X5 that would be a key differentiation with the Mav.

I really see no reason to have a P4 instead of a Mavic from what I saw... but you could simply wait for the first batches reaching the marked and the bugs to be ironed out to be sure...

Camera quality seems quite similar between the two, but best would be a controlled test by somebody that really knows how to compare camera... like sharpening settings, in D-Log and not, etc...
I prefer the less sharpened version of the Mavic but without knowing the exact settings I refrain to judge.

Anyway if you want real camera quality is either an Inspire with X5 Raw (X5 quality is crippled by the low 60 mbits bitrate) or a Freely ALTA or DJI M600 with a real camera but the price, complexity and risks are from another planet.

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