As I type this, the consumer drone world is agog with the impending release of DJIs latest drone, the Mini 3 Pro. First impressions are that this tiny drone is a big leap forward; it’s certainly the hottest ticket in town, selling out four days before it’s due to ship on one well known online retailer and talk of buy now, deliver August. I however, bucked the trend and went for its predecessor the DJI Mini 2 and this weekend it had its maiden flight (excluding the flights I made in the house that is).
For context, this little drone fits in the palm of my hand, weighs less than 250g with a battery and yet is still a fully-featured and competent piece of kit. All the images here come from this diminutive flying camera.
I started writing this post in mid-May and since then the Mini 3 Pro has started to appear in the hands of hobbyists (as opposed to online influencers) and whilst they are largely positive there’s quite a few notes of caution echoing around the online forums. Having flown the Mini 2 for the last few weeks, having previously used bigger drones like the Mavic Pro or Air 2s, I’m quite taken with the form. I can deploy it very quickly but more importantly it’s sub-250g mass means there are more places I can legally fly.
The two sunset images above are a case in point. From rising from my seat and taking the drone out of its bag to returning to my armchair with images captured was no more than ten minutes.
Will I buy the Mini 3 Pro? Probably. Photographically it’s a decent improvement on my Mini 2 and from a flying point of view it’s has some worthwhile enhancements too. I sold my Mavic Pro this week, after five years service I’ve upgraded my bigger drone to the Air 2s, and felt a slight pang as I posted it off. I learnt to fly with the Pro and have some fabulous images to show for its five years with me.
So there we have it. An update on my drone photography. You can expect some film-based posts shortly as I’ve just put the first 2022 roll of film through the Horizon S3 Pro; probably my favourite 35mm film camera ever.
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