Mavic 3 Commercial Pilot Review

Drone Safe Store is delighted to announce that we have provided professional commercial drone operator Nick Stubbs access to the new DJI Mavic 3 to get his honest opinions on the latest DJI technology. 

This is the U.K’s first review of the DJI Mavic 3 ever!

In this exclusive review, Nick Stubbs gives us his thoughts on DJI’s new flagship drone.

Nick has huge experience with aerial photography and has been in the drone industry as a commercial pilot for a long time and he certainly knows his stuff!

In this review, Nick has luckily grabbed his hands on the first-ever DJI Mavic 3 to land in the U.K and he is more than excited to give it a test fly and get some footage from its beautiful 5.1K camera. Nick has flown all of the DJI fleets from the original Phantom to the Inspire 2.

Before we dive into Nick’s notes on the new Mavic 3, Nick had to outline a number of variables when it came to the context of this review.

Firstly, Nick decided to overlook the missing features of the Mavic 3 which will be activated in a firmware update from DJI arriving in January 2022.

Also, Nick is framing this review from the mind of a professional drone photographer, meaning he is intending on comparing the quality from the  DJI Inspire 1 drone and X5 RAW camera, despite rarely choosing to shoot in RAW.

It’s fair to say Nick was desperate to get his hands on the new DJI Mavic 3, especially after seeing the leaks and chatter online.

“When you see the first clip shot at 3200 ISO, don't despair of the noise. Wait until I show you the rest of the night footage and you will be blown away. I also compare the low light, night footage and stills with the Mavic Air 2s and the difference is night and day. Tick.”

“This is dependent on what you are filming and the general conditions with the weather. However, I was pleasantly surprised by how long it stays in the air. Tick.”

The Hasselblad camera and lens as well as the M43 sensor are excellent! The photographs taken during the day are crisp, clear, and have ideal colour. The evening images are amazing. I was using ISO 100 and an aperture of about f4, and I was able to capture sharp shots at shutter speeds as fast as 3.2 seconds! What more could you want?

To be honest and frank, anything other than the 7x native focal length of the secondary lens is all but useless. Good for scouting but for pro stills or video? Forget it. With that being said, I did manage to get 2 really quite good clips with the 7x, 162mm camera/lens set up. It took a little work but I think the quality is good enough for showing on a standard computer screen, tablet or Smartphone. I was again, pleasantly surprised.

You know what, I think I just might!