DJI Mavic Mini

  Check out the Mavic Mini, DJI's smallest and lightest foldable drone. But, is it good enough for professional filmmakers? Let's find out. DJI just announced the Mavic Mini, the smallest and lightest foldable drone they ever made. It's only 249 grams, including the battery and that actually qualifies it as a toy in many countries that means it's below the minimum regulations which kind of requires you to have a drone license in many countries. That means you can literally fly anywhere in many places. But of course, you have to abide by the local regulations wherever you are. So always think about that and always inform yourselfwhere you are. Because sometimes it's not only250 grams that's the limit but also the energy that the dronegenerates when it's flying. So if you're flying too fast it generates too much energy and then you will need a license. So please check your local regulations. In the Fly More package the dronecomes in a nice carrying case including three batteriesin a charging unit so this thing that holds the batteriesalso charges the batteries and you can also attach yourphone or anything else with USB to charge it, which isvery nice, of course.

         And then of course we havethe typical DJI style controller which is almost the samewith every Mavic drone and of course all the accessoriesthat you need for charging, all of this, and alsoreplacement rotors. So of course I took theMavic Mini for a spin to find out how easy it is to fly and also to find out how goodthe footage looks. But first let's talk abouthow easy it is to fly. As somebody who has flownevery single iteration of the Mavic line over the years, I have to say that the Mavic Miniis definitely the easiest drone to fly from the Mavic line so far. And it is definitely the droneto start flying with if you're not experienced. It's much easier to stir and itfeels very stable in the air which surprised me, because I was flying ona bit of a windy day and it still was very stable in the air. Now there's three different shootingand stirring modes. First of all, there's the position,the P Mode, which is actually for beginners because it gives you limitedmaneuverability of drone. Then there's the Sports Mode, of course,which we know from other DJI drones and especially the Mavic line which usually is a super high-speeddrone flying mode. And then there's the newCineSmooth mode which gives you gentle breakswhen you stop flying actually, so it stops down gently and it gives you a morecinematic movement, a smoother cinematic movement, which is why they call itCineSmooth Mode. And that's exactly the mode I used for most of the footagethat you're seeing here.

         If you have flown any ofthe Mavic drones before you will be familiar with the interfacethat presents you on your phone when connected to the controllerand the drone. The only difference is:it is much simpler now than, for example, compared to thehigher-end Mavic 2 Pro. For fun, there are the quick shots that were first introducedwith the Mavic Air, which can create some interestingprofessional-looking pre-programmed movementsaround your subjects. Other than that, you havethe most important information about your flight and imagequality in front of you with the only difference that youcannot actually influence your image quality a lot. Unfortunately, this is nota 4K capable drone. The Mavic Mini can only record1080p or 2.7 K in 25 or 30p and only at the highlycompressed 40 Mps in h.264, not h.265 like the higher-end Mavic 2 Pro. Now, of course these limitationsare because of the fact that DJI had tried to make itas light as possible. This was clearly the intentionwith this drone. They could put in a processorthat is not as power-hungry and doesn't generate as muchheat as in the bigger drones and that enabled them to actuallymake something that small. And of course, that comeswith some drawbacks.

         And unfortunately, there is no wayto tweak the image from that camera. There is no D-log picture profile orany other picture profile for that matter except for the standard one. There is no way to influencethe sharpness and that would be nice, because the image looks kind ofover sharpened most of the times similarly to the originalMavic Pro image. And to make matters even worsethere is no manual white balance. There's only auto white balance, which of course results in someweird color shifts if your light is changing in the shot. Now, all these limitations aren'tgreat for professional filmmakers but I think they are ok, considering the fact that thisdrone is only 399 euros in its basic package. Nevertheless, there's one thingthat I think DJI should really change and that is the automaticshutter speed in the video mode. Right now you cannot actuallyset the camera in this drone to manual shutter in video mode and I don't understand why. Because it's possible in the photo mode. So, what happens is the camerawill always adjust its shutter speed to have a properly exposed image which means that it'sactually not possible to come from a dark forestand fly into the sunset because the dark forestwon't be dark anymore. So, DJI, please considerputting in a manual way of changing the shutterspeed in the video mode in the Mavic Mini.

         This will make it a lot morevaluable for all filmmakers. Other than that, the image fromthe Mavic Mini is very impressive considering its high compression. Yes, it has an over sharpened look which is similar to theoriginal Mavic Pro but in that one you could at leasttweak it a little bit and, of course, with the high compression,fine details can fall apart in the image if there is too much movement. But nevertheless, for somebodywho's starting out with a drone and somebody who hasn'tflown a drone before this is the typical type of drone thateven a professional camera person can always have in their bag because it literally weighsless than your cellphone. So this is something that's justpart of your tool kit. And considering the fact thatit's actually less than 250 grams means that you don't need permissionin many countries to fly this and you can actually fly it in places where you cannot fly any otherdrone without special permission. Please subscribe toour YouTube channel to see the other video thatI made with the Mavic Mini and I compared it to the Mavic 2 Pro, its bigger high-end sibling. Well, of course it's anunfair comparison, a little bit because this one is1,500 euros and this one is 400 euros but it's still interesting inhow the image compares. Anyway, thanks for watching and stay tuned to cinema5D for a lotmore from drones and cameras and all kinds of things relatedto Moving Image.