Adventure unfolds
DJI just recently announced the brand new drone, the DJI Mavic Air ($709.20) to their already impressive array of drones. This drone is a must buy for anyone wanting to get their first drone or upgrade from the DJI Spark.
As you read this Mavic Air Review, you will see why It’s so good and insanely tempting not to get it as a secondary, more travel friendly drone to the Mavic Pro and definitely to the Phantom 4 Pro and Inspire owner.
But let’s dive in and have a look at its features of this little devil (yes it does come in red), as we compare it to the Mavic Pro, Mavic Platinum, DJI Spark as well as the Phantom 4 Pro, to see why.
Enjoy
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
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DJI Mavic Air Quadcopter with Remote Controller -... | 1,055 Reviews | $709.20 | Buy Now |
Size & Weight
Phantom 4 Pro | Mavic Platinum | Mavic Pro | Mavic Air | DJI Spark | |
Flight Weight | 1388g | 734g | 734g | 430g | 300g |
Size (Folded) | 289×289×196mm | 198×83×83mm | 198×83×83mm | 168×83×49mm | 143×143×55mm |
Cubic (Folded) | 16370cm3 | 1364cm3 | 1364cm3 | 683cm3 | 1125cm3 |
Size (Unfolded) | 289×289×196mm | 305×244×85mm | 305×244×85mm | 168×184×64mm | 143×143×55mm |
Cubic (Unfolded) | 16370cm3 | 6326cm3 | 6326cm3 | 1978cm3 | 1125cm3 |
Propellers | Fixed | Foldable | Foldable | Fixed | Foldable |
Arms | Fixed | Foldable | Foldable | Foldable | Fixed |
Mavic Air Size
The new Mavic Air is truly the most portable drone the DJI have ever made, especially considering the array of amazing features that are packed inside this little guy.
To me the DJI Spark not only fell short on features, but also the fact that its arms could not fold away, making its “folded” dimensions nearly twice that of the new Mavic Air, while delivering not nearly enough features in comparison, such as 1080p video only and a 2 axis gimbal. But we will get into those in just a bit.
Let’s focus on size for now. I own a Phantom 4 Pro, and while I love its capabilities its size just isn’t practical for both traveling and hiking for 4 hours if not more, which I do a lot of. Because of this, it more often than not doesn’t get to come with and join in on the fun. 🙁
Cubic Space in your Bag
When looking at the dimensions of a drone, the most important factor to consider is how much backpack or bag space it’s going to take up while traveling i.e when folded.
Once the drone is up in the air, this is less significant, although still an important factor for other reasons.
The Mavic Air measures in at 168(L)×83(W)×49(H) mm, which now beats the DJI Spark’s dimensions of 143(L)×143(W)×55(H) mm. The only reason for this is because the DJI Spark’s arms are fixed and can’t fold in. Maybe with the release of the Spark 2, we will see folding arms, possibly making it the smallest again, but for now the Mavic Air is the smallest DJI drone available.
Next in line is the Mavic Pro, coming in at 198(L)×83(W)×83(H) mm followed by the biggest drone, the Phantom 4 Pro with its dimensions of 289(L)×289(W)×196(H) mm.
I have illustrated these dimension in the attached image, although not keeping the drones to scale so that the number can be read.
To better show the real scope, I have also attached a top view image of the 4 drones, side by side.
Even with both the numbers and the top view to scale, I think it still doesn’t tell the story of how truly small the Mavic Air is, so let me try explain it further.
Cubic Space in your Bag
Your backpack or bag only has so much cubic space that it can hold. Using this space optimally is naturally the best route to go. Taking the folded up dimensions of each drone and multiplying them together gives us cubic space.
The cubic size (in cm) are as follows:
- Phantom 4 Pro – 16370cm3 (289×289×196 mm)
- Mavic Pro/Platinum – 1364cm3 (198×83×83 mm)
- Mavic Air – 683cm3 (168×83×49 mm)
- Spark – 1125cm3 (143×143×55 mm)
Just look at how small the Mavic Air is, at only 683cm3. This is half the cubic space of the DJI Spark, Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum.
24 Mavic Airs in 1 Phantom
Now if these numbers still haven’t hit home yet. Sink your mind into this.
The Phantom 4 Pro‘s cubic space is 16370cm3, while the Mavic Air is 683m3.
If we divide 16370cm3 by 683m3, we get 23.96. Lets round that up to 24.
24! The Mavic Air can fit into the space of the Phantom 4 Pro, 24 times!
Have a look at the image I made to represent this. I actually had a hard time believing this myself and triple checked my maths just to be sure. Even then I wouldn’t believe it, so I made the image for my own mind to grasp this fact. Naturally the two drone aren’t at exactly the same aspect ratios, so the Mavic Air wont fit perfectly into the space 24 times (unless it gets squashed), but if you take the side gap and compare it to the gap at the back, they are about the same size, evening each other out.
And yes you can stuff a few things in between the arms of the Phantom to reduce this number, but nothing that will even come close to the Mavic Air
Remote Size Matters too
The remote of the Phantom 4 Pro is also massive in comparison to the Mavic Pro, Mavic Platinum, Mavic Air and DJI Spark’s much smaller and foldable remote controllers.
The Phantom 4 Pro’s controller doesn’t fold, which again requires more backpack space and also starts feeling like a brick sooner than later. I actually had to buy the Manfrotto MB BP-D1 Aviator Drone Backpack, just to hike and travel with my Phantom 4 Pro, remote and a few spare batteries.
This is an amazing bag, not only for your drone, but also as a general camera or hiking bag, and one I certainly will keep using. But now with the Mavic Air, I am able to use all the extra space available for my other camera gear and hiking supplies, without having to take another bag for them separately.
Any bag will do
The same scenario applies when traveling on flights, being able to store you little Mavic Air in something like a sling bag with or handbag is simply amazing.
With the Mavic Air’s small cubic space requirements, you can even fit it into your jacket pocket, doing away with the need for a bag at all.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my Phantom 4 Pro when I want the best footage quality, but it will now be kept solely for when I have a car with me and plenty of space.
Anytime a hike comes into play, the Mavic Air will be coming along. Sorry Phantom 4 Pro.
Mavic Air Weight
Similar to the above, weight plays just as an important role in the portability of your drone as size does. Weight is especially important for hiking as well as making sure your carry on bag meets the weight requirements when on an airplane.
With that said, the weight of the Mavic Air is astounding! Coming in at only 430g, it is only beaten by the DJI Spark which is 300g.
Again I wouldn’t even bother buying the DJI Spark due to its lack of features and larger cubic space requirements, when compared to the Mavic Air. The 130g you save are totally outweighed by the Mavic Air’s feature set.
Surprisingly enough, the Mavic Pro is just under, (126g or 14% short) of being double the weight of the Mavic Air, with the Phantom 4 Pro being THREE times heavier at 1388g!
Bundle Travel Weight
Don’t forget this is not including the weight of the remote, which alone weighs 836g, compared to its smaller, foldable 270g counterpart remotes.
Then you certainly need at least one spare battery, which adds another 468g to your backpack of your Phantom 4 Pro, while the Mavic Air’s batteries are a mere 140g. In total you are lugging around 2696g of drone when shooting with the Phantom 4 Pro.
Another way of looking at it is the fact that the Mavic Air is a touch lighter than just one Phantom 4 Pro Battery. No wonder my back started hurting so often when hiking.
Mavic Air Bundle = Phantom Remote
Let’s compare this to now much more manageable and back-saving total of 840g (430g + 270g + 140g) when traveling with the Mavic Air bundle.
This means that when traveling with the Mavic Air drone, two batteries and the remote, is only as heavy as the remote of the Phantom 4 Pro.
This is an insane difference and reason alone to buy the Mavic Air as a secondary travel drone to your Phantom.
Flying Features
Phantom 4 Pro | Mavic Platinum | Mavic Pro | Mavic Air | DJI Spark | |
Speed (P-Mode) | 31mph / 50kph | 22mph / 36kph | 22mph / 36kph | 17.9mph / 28.8kph | 13mph / 21kph |
Speed (S-Mode) | 45mph / 72kph | 40mph / 65kph | 40mph / 65kph | 42.5mph / 68.4kph | 31mph / 50kph |
Flight Time | 30min | 30min | 27min | 21min | 16min |
Noise | 82.1dBA | 70.3dBA | 77.3dBA | 76.1dBA | 75.3dBA |
Flight Range | 4.3Mi / 7km | 4.3Mi / 7km | 4.3Mi / 7km | 2.5Mi / 4km | 1.2Mi / 2km |
Intelligent Flight Modes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Arms | 8 | 11 | 11 | 7 | 5 |
Flight Speed
The new Mavic Air is insanely fast for its size, being able to fly at 42.5mph/68.4kph while in sports mode. This is just slightly slower than the much bigger and more expensive Phantom 4 Pro, which flies at 45mph/72kph.
The Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum lag behind at speeds of 40mph/65kph while the DJI Spark wasn’t made for speed sitting last at 31mph/50kph.
Why is flight speed important? Well when strong winds suddenly pick up (which they do) of let’s say 35mph and your DJI Spark can only fly at 31mph, its going to get blown in the opposite direction you are trying to fly it in, which in this case would be towards you. Bye bye drone.
So with the Mavic Air, you can be assured that not many wind speeds will be able to override your drone’s capabilities.
Flight Range
The Phantom 4 Pro, Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum all have a flight range of 7km, while the Mavic Air and DJI Spark have flight ranges of 4km and 2km respectively.
In many countries, laws prohibit you from flying further than 2km, as then you loose visual sight of the drone, thus the 4km on the Mavic Pro is more than enough distance.
The only benefit of having a 7km range is that you are assured a very strong signal at 4km with the Phantom 4 Pro, Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum, compared to if the Mavic Air were at 4km.
I don’t see this as too much of a determining factor, as I generally don’t fly further than 500m to 1km anyway, in order to keep vision on my drone and avoid collisions.
Re-Designed WiFi Transmission
As with the DJI Spark, the Mavic Air’s transmission is based off an Enhanced WiFi signal. This is different to that of the Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum which use OcuSync and the Phantom 4 Pro which uses LightBridge.
The DJI Spark has had a bad reputation with its WiFi range signal, so many are worried that the Mavic Air will suffer from this as well. Well this is not the case. DJI re-designed the placement of the Wifi transmitters, meaning the Mavic Air actually has a far better integration of the WiFi, which are now storage away in it’s four foldable feet.
This allows the WiFi signal to transmit away from the drone in four directions, instead of the body interfering with it, which was most likely the case with the DJI Spark.
Flight Times
Drone flight times are very much related to the size of the drone, battery, weight and cost. The cheaper DJI Spark has the lowest flight time of 16min, with the new Mavic Air coming in at 21mins.
The Mavic Pro adds an extra 6mins of flight time over the Mavic Air with 27mins, while the Phantom 4 Pro and Mavic Platinum have a flight time of around 30mins per battery.
Later in the article when I talk about batteries, you will see how I compare the weight of bringing along a spare battery of the lighter Mavic Air to that of a single Mavic Pro and Phantom Pro 4 battery. For the similar weight amounts, you are able to fit in a spare Mavic Air battery and extend your flight times dramatically. This obviously comes at an increased cost for the spare batteries, but the fact still remains
Flight Noise
The release of the Mavic Platinum introduced lower noise propellers and motors, which work off a different frequency compared to the other drones. For me, this an amazing feature, as the buzzing sound is what always attracts an unwanted crowd, complaining individuals and police and even a swarm of bees who attacked my Phantom because they thought it was an intruding wasp #truestory!
People usually hear the drone, long before they actually see it, which is the issue.
These noise level reading amounts will differ depending on what device you use to capture it, as well as how far you are from the drone, but what’s important is the placement from loudest to quietest.
Decibel Levels
The Phantom 4 Pro is the biggest and loudest of the drone options, with around 82.1dBA, which is equivalent to hearing power tools! Next in line is the Mavic Pro with 77.3dBA.
The Mavic is is slightly quieter at 76.1dBA, closely followed by the DJI Spark at 75.3dBA.
Then of course the reigning champ is the Mavic Platinum with 70.3dBA.
So while the Mavic Air is not the quietest of the drones, it is a runner up to the Mavic Platinum, while gaining a much smaller form factor, so definitely a choice to consider.
Intelligent Flight Modes
The Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum feature 11 flight modes which range from gesture controls, follow, activetrack, tripod, tapfly and more.
The Phantom 4 Pro features similar modes to the Mavic, but at a reduced 8 modes.
The DJI Spark uses some of its bigger brother’s modes, but also introduced some new modes, which are linked to its advanced gesture controls as well as Quickshots.
The Mavic Air continuous the trend, by enhancing these two new modes even further.
Gesture Control Modes
The Phantom 4 Pro has no gesture controls, while the Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum have a very basic version of gesture control.
The DJI Spark however allows you to launch the drone from your palm (PalmLaunch), as well as control its flight with Jedi like movements using PalmControl.
You are also able to take photos using Selfie Mode, which is achieved by showing a framing box with your hands to the DJI Spark drone, activating a 3sec countdown before the photo is taken.
If you wave, it will activate ActiveTrack, whereby the drone moves about 3m away from you and above the ground, then following you as you run or walk.
You can easily activate video recording by lifting one arm in the air and also starts on a countdown timer.
To call back your DJI Spark, lift both arms in the air (Bekon)
Mavic Air upgraded Gestures
The DJI Mavic Air has taken the gestures and made them even better. Bekon has been changed to using both your palms instead of your arms. By spreading your palms, you push the drone away from you, while bringing them together, brings it towards you.
Selfie has no been renamed SmartCapture and works by making a peace sign with your fingers, instead of having to use both hands to make a framing box.
The framing box gesture now takes video, instead of you raising one arm.
The Mavic Air also supports an improved ActiveTrack but doesn’t support PalmLaunch or landing (due to its size), but it does support landing on the ground using the basic open palm gesture and lowering your hand slowly towards the ground.
QuickShots
The DJI Spark, was the first to introduce QUickShot, which allows videos to be taken using a preset movement. Before this, the drone operator would have to skillfully fly and maneuver his drone manually in order to get these unique looking shots.
The 4 QuickShots on the DJI Spark are:
- Rocket (Ascend with the camera pointing downward)
- Dronie (Fly backward and upward, with the camera locked on your subject)
- Circle (Circle around your target)
- Helix (Fly upward, spiraling around your subject)
The Mavic Air adds to these 4 options with another 2, by introducing:
- Asteroid (Extended version of Helix which results in a Small Planet effect)
- Boomerang (Mixture of Helix and Circle, where the Mavic Air will circle the subject, while moving up, but then circle down to the same starting location again)
Obstacle Avoidance
Phantom 4 Pro | Mavic Platinum | Mavic Pro | Mavic Air | DJI Spark | |
Obstacle Avoidance | FWD + DWD + BWD +SW | FWD + DWD | FWD + DWD | FWD + DWD + BWD | FWD + DWD |
Distance FWD | 0.7 - 15m | 0.7 - 15m | 0.7 - 15m | 0.5 - 12m | 0.2 - 5m |
Distance DWD | 0 - 10 m | 0.3 - 13 m | 0.3 - 13 m | 0.1 - 8 m | 0 - 8 m |
Distance BWD | 0.7 - 15m | - | 0.3 - 13 m | 0.5 - 10m | - |
Distance SW | 0.2 - 7m | - | - | - | - |
Pilot Assistance | No | No | No | Yes | No |
Obstacle Avoidance
The new Mavic Air now has 3 way directional obstacle avoidance sensors, including forward, downward and the inclusion of backwards as well. The only drone beating it, is the Phantom 4 Pro with forward, downward, backward, left and right avoidance sensors.
The Mavic Pro, Mavic Platinum and DJI Spark only have forward and down facing sensors, putting the Mavic Air one step ahead in terms of safety and crash avoidance (saving you those expensive repair bills).
The new back facing sensors will certainly help assist in more reliable QuickShot flights, as now the Mavic Air will be able to better avoid any possible collisions behind it, which is something the DJI Spark had problems with, due to its lack of back facing sensors.
Pilot Assistance
DJI however, didn’t stop there and upgraded to FlightAutonomy 2.0 from the DJI Spark‘s initial version.
With this upgrade, the Mavic Air, they have introduced a brand new technology unseen in any of the other drones, called Advanced Pilot Assistance Systems (APAS).
Previously, if the drone came close to an obstacle that would cause it to crash, such as a wall or tree, the sensors would see this and cause the drone to come to a stop, avoiding a certain collision.
Now with Pilot Assistance, the drone actually keeps moving, going around the obstacle instead.
Amazing right!?
Avoidance Distance
The Precision Measurement Range, (ie the distance that the sensors reacts an upcoming object), have be vastly improved over the DJI Spark’s 0.2 – 5m to the Mavic Air’s 0.5 – 12m, when using the forward facing avoidance sensors.
This is just short of the Phantom 4 Pro, Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum’s avoidance distances of 0.7 – 15m.
Downward avoidance is the same for both the Mavic Air and DJI Spark at 8m with the Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum winning with 13m over the Phantom 4 Pro‘s 10m
Only the Phantom 4 Pro and Mavic Air have backward avoidance of 15m and 10m respectively. The is the only drone with sideways avoidance sensors of 7m
Gimbals
Phantom 4 Pro | Mavic Platinum | Mavic Pro | Mavic Air | DJI Spark | |
Gimbal | 3 axis | 3 axis | 3 axis | 3 axis | 2 axis |
Tilt Range | -90° to +30° | -90° to +30° | -90° to +30° | -90° to 0 | -85 to 0° |
Roll Range | - | -30° to 120° | -30° to 120° | - | -17 to +17° |
Pan Range | -30° to +30° | -30° to +30° | -30° to +30° | - | - |
Gimbal Cover | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
3 Axis Gimbal Stabilization
The Mavic Air has a great upgrade to it’s gimbal stabilization over the DJI Spark’s 2 axis gimbal, again putting the Mavic Air on par with its bigger brothers.
This means far better stability in your footage, thanks to the camera being stabilized with three axis, instead of only two. DJI also reinforced the gimbal, allowing even greater performance.
Had DJI left this out of the Mavic Air’s release, and stuck with only a 2 axis gimbal of the DJI Spark, it would have been very difficult to recommend this product.
But they didn’t – and that is amazing.
Gimbal Ranges
Gimbals are able to move in 3 different ways, called tilt, roll and pan.
- Tilt is the up and down panning motion of the camera.
- Roll is when the camera rotates sideways, turning the from landscape to portrait orientation.
- Pan is the sideways panning movement of your camera.
The gimbal on the Mavic Air only a tilt capability of -90° to 0° as the default setting. This can be extended to unless you are shooting really low and want to shoot upwards.
The tilt is the movement of the camera looking forward ( 0° ) to downwards ( -90° ). This can be extended to look up, at +17°. This is slightly better than the DJI Spark, that only offers a tilt of -85 to 0°, with no extendability. This means it cannot shoot at a 100% downwards angle or point higher than forward.
The Phantom 4 Pro, Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum all offer a tilt capability of 90 to +30°
Camera Roll
The DJI Spark offers a Roll of -17 (left) to +17° (right), where as the Mavic Air doesn’t offer any roll.
This is nothing to be concerned about as a meager 17° range, doesn’t offer much shooting value
A more important use of camera gimbal camera roll is when we look at the Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum, as they offer a a much larger roll range of -30° to 120° which allows for the camera to shoot in portrait orientation instead of landscape orientation.
This is useful for shooting stitched panoramic images, as well as when you just want to shoot a portrait orientation image from your drone. But remember, the Mavic Air now has both those features covered with its newly built in 360 panoramic and portrait panoramic features, which is why it actually doesn’t need any roll.
Camera Pan
As mentioned earlier, the last camera gimbal movement on the DJI drones is Pan. Camera an is when the camera moves in either a left or right direction
The Phantom 4 Pro, Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum all offer a pan capability of -30 to +30°, meaning that when the drone isn’t moving, the camera can move 30°, left or right.
The Mavic Air and DJI Spark have no camera pan abilities. On a larger, ground camera rig, I can definitely see the value of a gimbal that can pan, but with our nimble drones, sitting in the skies, I really don’t see much need for it.
Why? Because any drone can already, easily rotate in a full 360 degrees, with a simple push of the right controller joystick in either direction, giving you the same panning motion effect, but with a far greater range.
Protective Gimbal Covers
The Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum have protective plastic covers for their gimbals, but require a 2 piece setup and can be tedious to put on, and often result in gimbal overload warnings when you forget to remove one of the parts.
The Phantom 4 Pro and DJI Spark have no protective gimbal covers, while the Mavic Air has a new, one piece cover system that is very easy to put on in a few seconds, while doing a great job at protecting the gimbal.
Cameras
Phantom 4 Pro | Mavic Platinum | Mavic Pro | Mavic Air | DJI Spark | |
Sensor | 1” | 1/2.3” CMOS | 1/2.3” CMOS | 1/2.3” CMOS | 1/2.3” CMOS |
Shutter | Mechanical + Electronic | Electronic | Electronic | Electronic | Electronic |
Focus | Auto | Auto | Auto | Fixed | Fixed |
Focal Length | 24mm | 28mm | 28mm | 24mm | 25mm |
FOV | 84° | 78.8° | 78.8° | 85° | 81.9° |
Aperture | f/2.2 - f/11 | f/2.2 | f/2.2 | f/2.8 | f/2.6 |
Storage | Micro SD Card | Micro SD Card | Micro SD Card | 8GB Built In + Card | Micro SD Card |
Camera Sensors
The Mavic Air has the same 1/2.3” CMOS sensor we have seen in all the phantoms, as well as the Mavic Pro, Mavic Platinum and DJI Spark. The only drone that broke this trend was naturally the Phantom 4 Pro with its 1” sensor. The larger sensor offer more light, thus increases the quality of low light shooting as well as reducing noise levels.
As I mentioned in the weight and size write up, while the 1” sensor is great to shoot with, I’ll definitely take it with me when I have a car to drive my drone around in. Anytime there is a hike or long travels involved, the Mavic Air’s 1/2.3” CMOS sensor is more than enough, especially when shooting for anything online, such as your social media or website, which let’s be honest is 95% of the time.
Phantom 4 Pro Camera
When you want to submit images for print, then naturally the 1” CMOS sensor will yield better results.
The 1” sensor naturally influences video in the same way, giving you cleaner video, but again you have to weigh up whether its worth lugging the Phantom 4 Pro with or simply popping the Mavic Air in a side packet of your bag.
It really depends on what you are shooting and at what level of professionalism the end product needs to be. In 90% of the time, the 1/2.3” CMOS sensor does the job just fine.
Camera Shutter
The Mavic Air comes with the same electronic shutter, shooting 8 – 1/8000s as the Mavic Pro, Mavic Platinum, while the DJI Spark shoots at 2 – 1/8000s with its electronic Shutter.
The exception is again the Phantom 4 Pro, which has both an electronic shutter, shooting at 8 – 1/8000s as well as a mechanical shutter that shoot at 8 – 1/2000s. Now the difference between the two, requires an article on its own, but I’ll try to briefly explain the benefits of a mechanical shutter vs an electronic one here.
A mechanical shutter is the same as the shutter in your DLSR camera, which has a front and rear shutter curtain.
A mechanical shutter does not suffer from the rolling shutter effect. The rolling shutter effect can be seen in many mirrorless cameras, where if you move fast while shooting, either by panning or moving the camera. When you do this with an electronic shutter, you will see subjects such as buildings tilted to one side.
Electronic Shutters are becoming better
The Sony a9 has improved on this, by nearly eliminating the rolling shutter effect with its advanced electronic shutter, but we realistically can’t expect the same out our little drone camera just yet.
So to combat this, the Phantom 4 Pro has the option of a mechanical shutter for when you want to do fast moving shots of subjects that are close, say moving sideways flying down a street, filming someone running.
For everything else, an electronic shutter of the Mavic Air, Mavic Pro or Mavic Platinum is just fine. Most drone work is done high up in the sky, where rolling shutter isn’t a factor anyway.
Focus & Aperture
The focus system on the Mavic Air is fixed, just like the DJI Spark. Similar to the above, you only really need auto focus when your subjects are close to the drone and you want to focus on a specific area/subject.
The Mavic Air has a slightly smaller (darker) aperture of f/2.8 compared to the DJI Spark’s f/2.6, and the Mavic Pro or Mavic Platinum’s f/2.2. The difference from f/2.8 to f/2.2 is only ⅔ of a stop of light, which in most daylight cases wont make any difference, as most people put an ND filter on their DJI cameras anyway. At sunset/sunrise ro night, the Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum will have a slight edge, but just barely. The Phantom 4 Pro is the only DJI drone in this comparison, that has a variable aperture, which can be set from f/2.2 to f/11, just like your DSLR camera, in order to decrease the depth of field (DoF) or exposure.
This again is the reason why the Phantom 4 Pro is an entry level professional filmmaker’s drone (DJI Inspire being the high end professional levels), when compared to the Mavic Air, Mavic Pro or Mavic Platinum, which are built for good old droning fun and portability.
Focal Length and Field of View (FoV)
The Focal length of the Mavic Air is 24mm which is the same as the Phantom 4 Pro, while the Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum have focal lengths of 25mm and the DJI Spark sits at 25mm.
The FoV are naturally in relation to their focal lengths with the Mavic Air offering a lovely 85°, Phantom 4 Pro is at 84° and the Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum being narrower at 78.8°. The DJI Spark is in between the Mavic Air and Pro, with a field of view of 81.9°.
Remember the higher the degrees of the FoV, the wider the footage captured. This is all dependant on what you like, but I like to have nice wide angles for my drone footage. Either way not a major buying factor.
Still Images
Phantom 4 Pro | Mavic Platinum | Mavic Pro | Mavic Air | DJI Spark | |
Photo Resolution | 20MP | 12MP | 12MP | 12MP | 12MP |
ISO Photo | 100 - 12800 | 100 - 1600 | 100 - 1600 | 100 - 3200 | 100 - 1600 |
Photo Format | JPEG/DNG (RAW) | JPEG/DNG (RAW) | JPEG/DNG (RAW) | JPEG/DNG (RAW) | JPEG |
Photo Format | 14fps | 7fps | 7fps | 7fps | 3fps |
Panoramic | 8.4MP (4096 x 2048) | 8.4MP (4096 x 2048) | 8.4MP (4096 x 2048) | 33.6MP (8192 x 4096) | 8.4MP (4096 x 2048) |
Exposure Bracketing | 3 or 5 images | 3 or 5 images | 3 or 5 images | 3 or 5 images | 3 images |
HDR (Built In) | No | No | No | Yes | No |
Image Resolutions
Let’s get into the nitty gritty of the what this camera can shoot.
Just like the Mavic Pro, Mavic Platinum and DJI Spark, the Mavic Air shoots 12MP images.
The Mavic Air can either shoot at 4:3 4056×3040 or 16:9 at 4056×2280. Unless you want to save a fraction of time not cropping your photos to 16:9, I would definitely always shoot at 4:3 to get the extra resolution. You can always crop it afterwards, but cant get those pixels back if you shoot in 16:9.
The Phantom 4 Pro shoots at 20MP still images with its 1” sensor, so its image quality will definitely be better than the other drones.
RAW & JPG
All the drones shoot in RAW DNG and JPG, except for the DJI Spark which only shoots JPG. RAW is vital to anyone wanting to take proper photos with their drones.
I don’t see the point of paying $999 for the Mavic Air and shooting JPG images.
There are a ton of smartphone apps that can edit raw images now, such as SnapSeed, so the fear of RAW should really not exist.
The extra dynamic range and clarity you get from a RAW file outweighs its JPG counterpart every time.
Photo ISO
The ISO for photos has also been increased to a very nice 100 – 3200 on the Mavic Air, which is a 1 stop (double the light) increase in exposure over the Mavic Pro, Mavic Platinum and DJI Spark’s lower 100 – 1600 ISO range.
The Phantom 4 Pro again reigns supreme with an ISO range of 100 – 12800. This is a full 2 stop increase in exposure (4 times the light) compared to the than Mavic Air and 3 Stops (six times the light) over the Mavic Pro, Mavic Platinum and DJI Spark.
The Phantom 4 Pro definitely takes the cake with ISO, but it’s amazing that the Mavic Air actually beats the Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum
Burst Mode Shooting
Much like our DLSR cameras, these little drones actually offer stellar burst mode shooting capabilities.
Again the Phantom 4 Pro is king of the hill here with its 14fps (frames per second) burst shooting capabilities, followed by the Mavic Pro, Mavic Platinum and Mavic Air doing 7fps and the DJI Spark doing a meager 3fps.
This isn’t a feature I use too often but it definitely has its place and value for others, depending on if you like to shoot fast moving subject with your drone or not. Either way the 7fps is more than enough in the majority of cases.
Panoramics
The Mavic Air is able to shoot 25 images and stitch a 360 spherical panoramas in camera, being the first to output a whopping 33.6MP (8192 x 4096) resolution. Previous DJI 4 GO software updates, enabled the DJI Spark, Mavic Pro & Mavic Platinum to be able to shoot 360 spherical panoramas at an 8.4MP (4096 x 2048) resolution.
In addition to this, all the drones also shoot Horizontal, Vertical, and 180° panoramas, increasing the FoV of your images as well as the resolution.
Before this, you would have to manually shoot the images and stitch them together on your computer afterwards. Third party apps such as Litchi assisted with the shooting, but as far as I know you still need to stitch them in post. Either way, it’s great that this is now built in and you don’t need to run often buggy 3rd party apps alongside you DJI Go app to get this done.
HDR & AEB
Just like the panoramic feature, the new built in HDR processing is amazing and a huge time saver. Now you can shoot a range of exposure brackets and have the Mavic Air process it for you right there and then to share on social media, without having to go back to your computer and edit it manually later, after the moment has passed.
DJI have however left you with the option to still shoot AEB (auto exposure brackets) with the Mavic Air, should you prefer to do so. Just like the Mavic Pro, Mavic Platinum and Phantom 4 Pro, its shoots at either 3 or 5 bracketed exposures. The DJI Spark an only shoot 3 exposures.
I would never shoot a sunset with less than 5 exposures, so here again the DJI Spark falls short.
Video Shooting
Phantom 4 Pro | Mavic Platinum | Mavic Pro | Mavic Air | DJI Spark | |
Max 4K Video | Cinema 4K 60fps | Cinema 4K 60fps | UHD 4K 30fps | UHD 4K 30fps | - |
FHD Video | FHD 120fps | FHD 96fps | FHD 96fps | FHD 120fps | FHD 30fps |
Bitrate | 100mbps | 60mbps | 60mbps | 100mbps | 24mbps |
Color Profiles | Cinelike D / D-LOG | Cinelike D / D-LOG | Cinelike D / D-LOG | Cinelike D | - |
ISO Video | 100 - 6400 | 100 - 3200 | 100 - 3200 | 100 - 1600 | 100 - 3200 |
Video Format | MP4/MOV | MP4/MOV | MP4/MOV | MP4/MOV | MP4 |
Video Codec | H.264/AVC; H.265/HEVC | H.264/AVC | H.264/AVC | H.264/AVC | H.264/AVC |
Video Resolutions
The biggest and reason alone to buy the DJI Mavic Airover the DJI Spark is the upgrade to UHD 4K30p (3840×2160) from the FHD 1080p. Now the Mavic Air not only has the smallest form factor of all the drones, it shoots 4K video just like the Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum. This is magical!
Some say they don’t need 4K but the benefits of shooting at 4K and being able to downscale your footage to 1080p increases sharpness and reduces noise. Another benefit is that you can now use the 4K footage to pan or zoom in post production if you are working in a 1080p project. Here again paying more for the Phantom 4 Pro gets you 4k at 60fps, but again you have a drone that’s much larger, nosier and heavier to deal with.
1080p 120fps Slow Motion
If you still insist that 4K isn’t for you, then let’s not forget the fact that the Mavic Air an now also shoot FHD at 120fps, equivalent to the Phantom 4 Pro!
That is 4 times slow motion, even beating the Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum’s 96fps. Wow!
Remember that as with the 4K30p upgrade, the 120fps needs 100mbps, so be sure to get a fast enough Micro SD Memory Card. I list some great choices below.
To understand the trade-off of mbps depending on what level of quality you are wanting to capture is directly related to the bitrate. You can read more about that on int he my Gh5 all-intra article
Video Bitrates
If you thought the small size, weight and 4K camera sold you, then you’ll be even more delighted to hear that there is even more to totally sway you in buying the this little beauty. The Mavic Air now shoots at a bitrate of 100mbps, again equivalent to the Phantom 4 Pro and again beating the Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum’s much lower 60mbps.
If you don’t know, mbps (megabits per second) is the amount of data captured per second to give you the video you see. The more data (megabits) the higher the quality of the video.
I wrote a very detailed article on this subject for the Panasonic GH5, but the same applies to any camera and memory card, so you can visit that article here to find out more. Having the ability to shoot at an astounding 100mbps, nearly double that of the Mavic Pro, on such a small drone is breathtaking to say the least.
Video Codecs
Just like the Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum, the Mavic Air shoots in either MOV or MP4 formats, using the H.264/AVC compression codec.
The DJI Spark only shoots in MP4 (which is fine),
The Phantom 4 Pro is the only drone is this comparison that has the option for H.265/HEVC as well, which is the newer compression technology, giving you the same quality, but at a reduced file size, saving you memory card and hard drive space.
Video ISO
The video ISO is different from the photo ISO on the DJI drones. Here the Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum beat the Mavic Air’s ISO of 100 – 1600 with their ISO of 100 – 3200.
This is the reverse of the photo ISO, as now the Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum are 1 stop better than the Mavic Air and will result in slightly better sunset/sunrise and night time videos. If you mostly shoot in the daytime, then this, as with the photo ISO, won’t really matter.
Again the Phantom 4 Pro is ahead here with an ISO of 100 – 6400 (2 stop increase) and surprisingly the the DJI Spark actually beats the Mavic Air here with the same ISO as the Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum.
Color Profiles
The Mavic Pro, Mavic Platinum and Phantom 4 Pro are able to shoot in either Cinelike D or D-LOG color profiles, while the Air is only able to shoot in Cinelike D. the DJI Spark doesn’t support color profiles.
For those of you who are unsure of what color profiles are, they are a setting similar to DNG in stills, where you are shooting the video with its highest dynamic range (the range from the brightest highlight to the darkest shadow).
The video will usually be very flat looking, but this is intended, as in post production, you bring back the color and saturation (like filters in Instagram) in the way you like using video editing software such as Adobe Premiere Pro.
Storage
Another great new feature with the release of the Mavic Air is a 8GB built in storage. This is the first time a drone has had this feature and definitely one that all future drones should have.
This not only extends onto the micro SD card that you can also insert into the Mavic Air, but comes in very handy for when you forgot to put your micro SD card back in and left it at home, or realize its full.
As I said, the Mavic Air also accepts a micro SD card, just like the other DJI drones, but remember, the Mavic Air shoots at 100mbps now, meaning you will need a compatible micro SD card that is fast enough to write that data.
If you read my article on the Best Memory cards for the Panasonic GH5, you will see how I explain that in order to shoot 100mbps (megabits per second), requires a WRITE speed of 12.5MBps (megabytes per second). 100/8 = 12.5.
Best Mavic Air Micro SD Cards
To speed things along, here is a list of compatible micro SD cards for the Mavic Air.
- SanDisk Extreme Pro Micro SD Card – 32GB, 64GB, 128GB
- SanDisk Extreme Plus Micro SD Card – 32GB, 64GB, 128GB
- SanDisk Extreme Micro SD Card – 32GB, 64GB, 128GB
- SONY Micro SD Card V30 – 32GB, 64GB, 128GB
- Toshiba Exceria PRO Micro SD Card – 32GB, 64GB, 128GB
- Samsung Pro Plus Micro SD Card – 32GB, 64GB, 128GB
Note that currently the Mavic Air supports up to 128GB Micro SD Cards, but with future firmware updates it will be able to support 256GB Micro SD Cards
Remote Controllers
Phantom 4 Pro | Mavic Platinum | Mavic Pro | Mavic Air | DJI Spark | |
Axis | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Ports | USB & Micro USB | USB & Micro USB | USB & Micro USB | USB & Micro USB | Micro USB |
Connection | Cable | Cable | Cable | Cable | Wireless |
Foldable | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Controller Weight | 836g | 270g | 270g | 270g | 270g |
Dim (Folded) | 165x160x110mm | 145x77x35mm | 145x77x35mm | 145x77x35mm | 145x77x35mm |
Cubic | 2904cm3 | 391cm3 | 391cm3 | 391cm3 | 391cm3 |
Enhanced Foldable Remote
The Mavic Air, Mavic Pro, Mavic Platinum and DJI Spark all use the similar designed foldable remotes, give and take a few adjustments/upgrades, here and there. As the Mavic Air is the latest release it comes with a few slight fixes.
The first being able to hold thicker phones and the other is removable joysticks. Being able to now unscrew your metal joysticks with the Mavic Air’s controller and place them inside it for storage during travel is fantastic. This now only saves more space in your bag, but more importantly prevents them from hooking onto something and breaking in the process. Also now, if one should break, you can easily replace it.
As I mentioned before, the Phantom 4 Pro’s remote is a massive, non-foldable and much heavier remote controller, weighing 836g compared to the much smaller, foldable and lighter 270 odd gram remote controllers of the Mavic Air, Mavic Pro, Mavic Platinum and DJI Spark.
This makes a huge difference in traveling, especially for avid hikers.
Upgraded USB connections
All controllers connect to your smartphone using a USB cable (either micro USB or regular USB) except for the DJI Spark, which only wireless.
This can make the DJI Spark more unreliable and prone to disconnects.
The Mavic Air’s USB has been given the latest upgrade to Lightning, Micro USB (Type-B), USB-C.
Note that unfortunately you cannot charge the drone via it’s USB-C port.
DJI App
Phantom 4 Pro | Mavic Platinum | Mavic Pro | Mavic Air | DJI Spark | |
Transmission | LightBridge | OcuSync | OcuSync | Enhanced Wi-Fi | Enhanced Wi-Fi |
App | DJI GO 4 | DJI GO 4 | DJI GO 4 | DJI GO 4 | DJI GO 4 |
Live View (Controller) | 720p@30fps | 1080 p @30 fps | 1080 p @30 fps | 720p@30fps | 720p@30fps |
Latency | 220 ms | 160 - 170 ms | 160 - 170 ms | 170 - 240 ms | 260 - 300 ms |
DJI Go 4 App
All drone use the same DJI Go 4 App to connect and operate the settings while shooting.
The Video Transmission Technologies vary quite a bit though. The DJI Spark and Mavic Air use Enhanced Wi-Fi to connect to the app, while the Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum use OcuSync.. The Phantom 4 Pro uses lightbridge. The differences between these three technologies requires an article on its own, so I wont be going any further into this.
The Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum transmit at a screen resolution of 1080p while the other drones are all 720p. The Mavic Pro and Mavic Platinum have the lowest latencies of 160 – 170 ms, with the Mavic Air coming in second with a 170 – 240 ms latency. The Phantom 4 Pro has a similar latency to the Mavic Air at 220 ms while the DJI Spark has the worst latency of 260 – 300 ms
Flight Batteries
Phantom 4 Pro | Mavic Platinum | Mavic Pro | Mavic Air | DJI Spark | |
Batttery Type | LiPo 4S | LiPo 3S | LiPo 3S | LiCoO₂ 3S | LiPo 3S |
Energy | 89.2 Wh | 43.6 Wh | 43.6 Wh | 27.43 Wh | 16.87 Wh |
Capacity | 5870 mAh | 3830 mAh | 3830 mAh | 2375 mAh | 1480 mAh |
Battery Weight | 468 g | 240 g | 240 g | 140 g | 95 g |
New Battery Type
The Mavic Air uses a new battery type called LiCoO₂ 3S, while the Mavic Pro, Mavic Platinum and DJI Spark, use LiPo 3S. The Phantom 4 Pro uses LiPo 4S. The science behind these batteries are beyond this article and interest of the majority of us, but I thought I’d make mention of it regardless.
What’s most important when looking at the batteries is the weight and capacity, as this relates to both how much weight you have to lug around with you when traveling or hiking as well as how much flight time the battery is going to give you.
Battery Weight vs Flight Time
As I mentioned earlier in the article, the batteries on the Mavic Air are astoundingly light, (just like the body), weighing in at only 140g.
This is extremely light when you consider that they give you 21mins of flight time each. Buying a second battery really isn’t a weight issue any longer. If you look at the Mavic Pro or Mavic Platinum and consider that each of it’s batteries weigh 240g, you basically get just under two batteries (1.7 to be exact) with the Mavic Air for the same weight sacrifice as one battery of the Mavic Pro or Mavic Platinum.
This means you get 36mins of flight time (1.7 x 21mins each) with the Mavic Air for the same weight as 27mins with the Mavic Pro or Mavic Platinum. You obviously can’t split up batteries in fractions, so if we take 2 Mavic Air batteries the total weight comes to 280g, giving us 42mins of flight time, compared to 240g for only 27mins of flight time with the Mavic Pro or Mavic Platinum. Well worth the extra 40g for an additional 15mins of flight time.
More Flight time per Gram
This gap gets even bigger when you do the same calculation with the Phantom 4 Pro whos batteries weigh 468g each. Doing some quick maths, 468 ÷ 140 = 3.3. So you can fit 3 Mavic Air batteries in you bag for less weight than just a single Phantom 4 Pro battery.
In other words, 3 x 21mins = 63 mins of flight time with the Mavic Air for only 420g of weight, compared to just 30mins with the Phantom 4 Pro for 468g of weight.
Netting you not only an additional 33mins of flight time, but also an extra 48g for something else. Naturally the Phantom 4 Pro offers better features as we have already covered, but this is certainly another win for the Mavic Air in my opinion.
Conclusion
That about wraps it up for this DJI drone comparison between the new Mavic Air, Mavic Pro, Mavic Platinum, Phantom 4 Pro and DJI Spark. The Mavic Air is what the DJI Spark should have been, so while a little late, definitely not too late at all, as its weight and size vs feature list are simply amazing.
So the big question remains: Should I buy the new Mavic Air?
Let’s sum up the main feature differences with some pros and cons:
Mavic Air vs Spark
Pros:
- 4K30p video vs None
- FHD 120p vs FHD 30p video
- 3 Axis Gimbal vs 2 Axis Gimbal
- RAW vs JPG images
- Video Color Profiles
- 1 Stop of extra stills ISO
- Backward obstacle avoidance
- Built in HDR Mode
- 2 Additional Quick Shot modes
- Built in 8GB Storage
- 442cm3 (65%) smaller during transport
- 5mins (31%) of extra flight time per battery
- 76mbps (317%) increased bitrate
- 2km (100%) increased distance
Cons:
- 130g (43%) heavier
- $400 (67%) more expensive
- 1 Stop less video ISO
Would I buy the Mavic Air over the Spark?
Um, yes! #dropsthemic
Mavic Air vs Mavic Pro or Mavic Platinum
Pros:
- Built in HDR Mode
- 6 Quick Shot modes
- Built in 8GB Storage
- Backward obstacle avoidance
- 1 Stop of extra stills ISO
- 24mm vs 28mm focal length (subjective)
- 6.2° (7.9%) increased field of view (subjective)
- 683cm3 (100%) smaller during transport
- $400 (40%) cheaper
- 304g (71%) lighter
- 40mbps (67%) increased bitrate
Cons:
- Louder (especially compared to Mavic Platinum blades)
- 6mins (29%) less flight time per battery (although you can get 1.7 Mavic Air batteries per 1 Mavic Pro in relation to weight)
- 3km (75%) less distance
- No portrait roll mode, but can do portrait panoramics
- f/2.8 vs f/2.2
- 1 Stop less video ISO
Would I buy the Mavic Air or the Mavic Pro/Platinum?
This is probably the most difficult choice that owners of the Mavic Pro or Mavic Platinum will face. The new Mavic Air brings in some great features, that are not only comparable, but actually better (most notably the bitrate, weight, cost and size) than the Mavic Pro or Mavic Platinum.
The fact that it is half the size and 40% lighter, while still delivering 40k30p is mind-blowing. But is this worth paying $999 if you already own a Mavic Pro? It could be and really depends on how much you travel and if your current Mavic Pro is starting to feel big in your bag or not.
For people who don’t own the Mavic Pro or any drone to begin with, this is a no-brainer. The Mavic Air is a superb choice if you are new to drones or upgrading from the DJI Spark.
Mavic Air vs Phantom 4 Pro
Pros:
- Built in HDR Mode
- 6 Quick Shot modes
- Built in 8GB Storage
- $800 (80%) cheaper
- 15940cm3 (2297% or 24 times) smaller body+battery
- 958g (223% or 3.2 times) lighter body+battery
- 2513cm2 (643% or 7.2 times) smaller remote size
- 566g (210% or 3.1 times) lighter remote
Cons:
- 4k30p vs 4k60p
- 1” vs 1/2.3” sensor
- 20MP vs 12MP images
- 2 Stops less photo ISO
- 2 Stops less video ISO
- f/2.8 vs f/2.2 – f/11
- No Auto Focus
- No Mechanical Shutter
- 7fps (100%) less burst mode shooting
- 9mins (42%) less flight time per battery (although you can get 3 Mavic Air batteries per 1 Phantom 4 Pro in relation to weight)
Would I buy the Mavic Air or the Phantom 4 Pro?
This is easier to answer than when compared to the Mavic Pro or Mavic Platinum. The Phantom 4 Pro is a different type of drone. As i covered in the article the Phantom 4 Pro is made for higher end drone footage and filming requirements than either the Mavic Air, Mavic Pro or DJI Spark are designed for. The Phantom 4 Pro hosts features like variable apertures, increased resolution in both video and stills, together with higher burst frames and a mechanical shutter.
It is however 80% more expensive, 223% (3.2 times) heavier and a whopping 24 times larger and bulkier when having to pack it away in a bag. Don’t forget the remote controller of the Phantom 4 Pro, which is also another 643% (7.2 times) bigger and 210% (3.1 times) heavier than that of the Mavic Air.
The design choices for the Mavic Air are for those who want high quality footage but are able to easily take it with you wherever you go, while in most cases the Phantom needs to stay home unless you are traveling locally in your car, or need the higher specs for a higher end production quality.
If you are new to drones and don’t own either, the the Mavic Air is certainly the better choice just for its portability and feature set. If you do own the Phantom 4 Pro already, then the Mavic Air can also be a great choice as a secondary drone, again for the simple fact of its portability. Now you can leave you Phantom 4 Pro at home when you are traveling but also take it with when you need higher quality visuals. Being able to own both is a great benefit, as each has its own place.
Final Rating
The Mavic Air is one of DJI’s most versatile drone releases to date.
A perfect fit for for time drone buyers, as well as seasoned professionals, outdoor adventurers and YouTube video makers, that are always on the move and want great quality aerial footage to be available to them anytime, anywhere, without the weight and size of previous drones.
Beyond its small and lightweight form factor, the Mavic Air excels with its new 100mbps 4K video, 3-axis gimbal, strong photo ISO, array of Quickshots and gesture modes, enhanced obstacle avoidance, lightweight battery size with great flight performance and much more.
The Mavic Air is very affordable at $799 for the base package which includes drone, a remote, 2 sets of propellers (8 in total), set of propeller guards a carry case, 1 battery and a bunch of connections. Then you get the the Fly More combo for $999 which includes an extra 1 set of propellers and 2 extra batteries.
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10/10
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9.8/10
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8.9/10
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9.6/10
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9.5/10
Great comparison review, everything all in one great article. Can’t wait for my onyx black mavic air 😀
Hello Ryan, awesome review on the mavic air, probably the best one i’ve read so far.
I do have one thing i would like to add one thing and have a couple of questions to you, that i haven’t seen anyone talking about.
About the sphere pano , everyone is saying that the mavic air is the first drone with sphere pano but spark actually have it for a while already.
my question is what are the differences on spark and mavic air sphere pano? if i’m correct spark takes 46 photos on his sphere while the mavic air only takes 25, why is that? and what does this mean on the final result?
thank you very much
Hello Raphael
Thanks for stopping by and glad you enjoyed the comparison review.
This reply ended up being far larger than expected, so I am going to break it down in parts.
To answer your first question:
The Spark initially only did horizontal and vertical panoramics when it was released.
However looking at the release notes they added in:
So yes your statement is correct, they do in fact both deliver horizontal, vertical, 180° and 360° panoramics (sphere mode). Thank you for pointing this out, I will update the article accordingly.
The Mavic Pro also received a pano mode update in version 4.1.18, on 8 November 2017 as well as the Phantom 4 Pro in version 4.1.22, on 2 January 2018.
DJI in fact, didn’t claim that the Mavic Air was first to shoot Sphere Pano, but rather the first to shoot it at the largest size 360 panoramic, being 33.6MP (8192×4096), instead of the Spark and Mavic Pro’s 8.4MP (4096×2048) spherical panoramic. This is most likely where the misunderstanding comes in, from both myself and other articles you might have read. Apologies for that.
Mavic Air was however the first drone release where they make promotional mention of it on its product page, probably because the Spark’s, Mavic Pro’s and Phantom 4 Pro’s 360 updates were after launch and thus flew under the radar. #punintended 🙂
So with the Mavic Air, they wanted to make it known. Either way it’s great that they all have this feature now, and am sure it will be the standard in all future drone releases.
To answer your second question in regard to 360 (Sphere Pano) image amounts.
Let’s take a look at the lens angles (field of view) adnt eh images taken per drone:
Remember the larger the FoV degree, the wider the lens.
Now, let’s first take a look at each panoramic mode in more detail:
Horizontal
Common panoramic technique that many of us use on our DSLR/Mirrorless cameras, as well as smartphones to increase our lens’ viewing angle (field of view), by stitching images together, that otherwise wouldn’t have been within the FoV. These panoramic images however, don’t line up on opposites sides, both left & right or top & bottom. Panoramics vary in sizes and degrees, but you can lightly refer to it, as the 90° panoramic.
Vertical
Same as above, except the images are taken in a vertical array instead of horizontal.
Again, these images dont line up on opposites side, both left & right or top & bottom.
180° Panoramic
Same as horizontal but going all the way around to where you first started your panoramic, meaning that your left and right edges now join up, unlike horizontal, where they don’t.
This means that you can now look in any direction and have a clean, seamless image. While this does have a 360° viewing angle, its seen as 180° because its only capturing half (horizontal part) of a true 360° panoramic
360° Panoramic
This is generally when a DSLR/Mirrorless camera is placed on a special tripod head, such as the Nodal Ninja 3 MKII w/Rotator R-D16 and the photographer manually takes a series of images, to create both a 180° Horizontal Panoramic as well as a 180° Vertical Panoramic at the same time. This then adds up to a full 360° Panoramic.
The amount of images required to cover the 360° depends on the lens you are using (wider the lens, the less images required, but the lower the final panoramic resolution).
Let’s look at some examples:
When shooting on my Nikon D850 full frame camera at 14mm on my Nikon 14-24mm, it requires me to shoot
Giving me 12 images, because this lens has a diagonal FoV of 122°
On the new Nikon Fisheye 8-15mm, shooting at 8mm, I would only need to shoot images every 120° at 0° pitch. Giving me 3 images, because this lens has a diagonal FoV of 180°.
This would result in a lower final resolution panoramic, but the workflow is far quicker.
Using the Mavic Air’s 24mm (full frame equivalent) lens, I would need to shoot:
Giving me 24 images, because this lens has a diagonal FoV of 85°
This however doesn’t give us a perfect full 360 panoramic, as we are still missing pieces at the bottom and top.
Going back to the Nodal Ninja 3 MKII (as well as other professional 360 tripod heads), it requires a tripod to attach and stand on. So if we were to shoot lower than about a -60° pitch, we would start seeing the tripod legs in our 360 panoramic, although not the entire tripod.
So we need to shoot directly downwards to capture that and remove it later in software or shoot a blank image with it removed so that we only see the ground.
We also didn’t cover the area right above our tripod (usually sky or roof), so we need to take an extra picture for that too.
NB: The upward image is known as the Zenith and a downward image is known as the Nadil
We need to add these images to our previous lens totals:
Now you may have noticed that I left out the Zenith in the Mavic Air calculation. Why is this?
Well, simply because the Mavic Air & other drones, can’t shoot perfectly upwards at a perpendicular 90°, due to the drone body and propellers being in the way. This has improved with the Mavic Air, Spark and Mavic Pro’s, over the Mavic Pro’s, as their cameras are more in front of the drone, where as the Phantom 4 Pro’s camera is right below, making it even more difficult to get the Zenith shot on the P4. The only way to truly get this shot, was to have DJI flip the drone upside down (wouldn’t that be cool)
The Nadil in this case is not an issue, because the drone is in the sky and there thus is no tripod in its way, giving it a nice clean image when taken.
Now getting back to your question on why the Spark’s requires 46 images and the Mavic Air only requires only.
To be honest I don’t know.
My only thought from what i’ve seen, is that the Spark’s seems to take the panoramic image at a much more zoomed in FoV than the Mavic Pro does. Why I don’t know, because they both output the same sized panoramic (4096×2048) at the end, and 46 images is really overkill for a 25mm lens.
So to me this is just something that they could simply optimize better, which is what they seemed to have done with the Mavic Air and thus all the hype about it. Maybe we’ll see this optimization carried across to the Spark in future updates, maybe we won’t. Only DJI will know.
Anyway, that’s a massive reply, but one well deserved and hopefully helps you and others too
Cheers
Very informative and review. Like the clean layout. Thx.
Glad it was helpful
Great Mavic Air review, makes mention of so many aspects that other reviews dont.
Best comparative review I have seen, well done! I have one question, did you compare image processors? As I thought I read somewhere that the Mavic Air has a faster and better image processor, (equivalent to the P4P) which enables much of the benefits the Air has over the Pro, such as the bit rate improvements and colour processing etc. If this is the case then it is unlikely that any future FW updates to the current Mavic Pro will give it the features the Mavic Air has, at least that is my take on it :-).
Hi Tyraus
Yes correct the Mavic Air has the same processors and sensor as the Phantom 4 Pro, just in a much smaller body.
The Mavic Pro has the same as the standard P4. So no, no firmware upgrade will ever make the Air and Mavic Pro the same because its hardware limited.
Thanks
if one was to go with the Mavic Air rather than the Phantom4 pro then my question would be how well can you clean up the video in post production in comparison to the raw Phantom footage. At this time I am about to obtain a quality editing computer but wish to have the best video from a drone………….by the way…..best comparison I have seen yet in an article!
Hi Brian
Thanks for visiting glad you enjoyed. The video footage on the Mavic Air a mix between the Phantom 4 Pro and Mavic Air. Same sensor and resolution as Mavic Pro (4k30p), but with the same bitrate as the P4 Pro (100mbps).
The Phantom 4 Pro is the best video footage out of the lot, with its bigger 1 inch image sensor, 4k60p resolution and higher ISO capabilities. But as I said, its a much larger drone. The true magic about the Mavic Air is its super small form factor that is able to carry a great and very capable camera. If travel is not an issue for you, then P4 Pro is you go to, for best footage quality.
Thanks
One last thing to note is that all these drones shoot Long GOP compression codecs H264, so not all-intra or RAW, which only the DJI Inspire can do. You can read the differences between the longGOP and all-intra here
Hands down the best in-depth review I have ever read. Awesome job Ryan!
I was on the fence between Mavic Air and the newer Mavic 2 series. But the Air seems to be a great choice for a beginner/intermediate level, and is available at a great price point.
Thanks a lot!
Excellent review, probably the best 360 degree I have seen so far. I have both Spark and Air because my drone needs to be under 500 grams to freely fly a drone without permissions and extra paperwork. Obviously Mavic Air wins for the better video quality and RAW photos for post processing. Spark provides the lightest kit for the longest flight time. Spark’s USB charging and simultaneous charging of batteries also make it the best choice when I am on the move. Modified Go 4 app adds more flight modes to Spark including Waypoints Cinematic mode etc. So, my winner is Spark for mobility, and Mavic Air for quality.
Hi ALex, thanks for stopping by and your valuable input. Yes, agreed, the spark does have benefits, especially on the move