if you've been looking at the mavic 3 classic mavic 3 Pro or the air 3 and wondering which
drone you should get then today's video is going to help you out a lot and we're going
to jump straight into photo quality one of the things that differentiates the mavic 3 mavic 3
classic and the air 3 is the main 24 millimeter camera on the mavic 3 you have this wonderful
20 megapixel Hasselblad four thirds sensor camera that is just fantastic lots of detail really great
colors and gives you a lot of leeway to work with there's a lot of dynamic range DJI says
about 12.6 12.7 stops which is a huge amount for a droneless size on the other hand the air 3 has
a 24 millimeter camera but it's that one over 1.3 inch sensor which means it's 12 or 48 megapixels
now it's a quad Bayer sensor so it's not a true 48 megapixel sensor it's a way that they group
the pixels together in a clump of four to give you more dynamic range and give you some other
options but it can also be split and all of them can be read separately so you get a 48mp megapixel
photo this is a 12 megapixel photo here this is the 48 megapixel in the same exact spot and if
you notice I actually prefer the quality of the 12 megapixels a little bit over the 48 megapixels
just because I feel like you get a little less uh aberrations and fringing and just odd things that
happen but if you want a little bit more detail the 48 megapixel does give you a little bit more
detail now if you have the mavic 3 Pro the air 3 both have that 70 millimeter 3x lens both are
sporting a 12 or 48 megapixels and to me there's not a lot of difference between the two it is nice
to be able to punch in that little bit extra and get a little bit more compression it definitely
gives you a different way to compose a shot but then on the mavic 3 you also have that 166 or
162 millimeter lens depending on which version you get um if you obviously you don't get that
if you're on the classic but the mavic 366 only shoots in 12 megapixels but that is a really great
focal length if you want to get shots of stuff that you don't want want to be anywhere near or
Wildlife something like that that you don't want to take any chance of disturbing them that lens
or that camera will give you that option and both of these drones do offer all of the panoramic wide
angle sphere photos 180 degree photos vertical panels all of that in the different cameras which
gives you a lot of options for different kinds of photos that you might want to take and they all
look really good and there is one more difference in both of these drones for photos and that's 360
photos if you're gonna do a lot of 360 photos then the air 3 is going to be a better choice because
it has 60 degrees of up tilt and so you can get an actual true 360 degree photo where the mavic
3 is limited to 35 degrees of up tilt so you never actually get a true 360 degree photo now
at pieces in the sky it makes it look like it is but it actually isn't and you won't really notice
until you get down around or near really tall buildings now I'm been working with the mavic
3 for a long time I've worked for the air 3 now for quite a bit of time and I will say if you do
a lot of photo work or if you're a serious aerial photographer the mavic 3 wins hands down that 20
megapixel main camera is just fantastic to work with so if you're really serious about photography
I would definitely consider the mavic 3 classic or the mavic 3 Pro if you have the budget for it and
then it comes down to the video performance of both of these drones now the mavic 3 definitely
has a huge advantage over the air 3 and that's that four thirds sensor with the Hasselblad color
science which is absolutely fantastic but it can also shoot 5.1 K up to 50 frames a second which
gives you a fair amount more resolution if you want to work with it and reframe stuff in post
also it can shoot 4K up to 120 frames a second where the air 3 is limited to 100 frames a second
in 4k and while both of these drones shoot 1080p up to 200 frames a second the mavic 3 gives you
a much higher quality because it crops in on the sensor and gives you a true readout whereas the
error 3 bins it and you definitely notice a big difference in the level of detail now the mavic
3 classic only has a 24 millimeter camera but the mavic 3 Pro have a 3X camera like the air 3 does
and the mavic 3 Pro and the original mavic 3 have a 7x camera about 162 to 166 millimeters depending
on which model you got behind me there's some Climbers on the rocks and I want to show you the
difference in the field of view between the three different cameras both on the Air 2 air 3 and on
the mavic 3 Pro so you can get an idea of what you can do with the different cameras available on
these drones so here you can see the 24 millimeter on both the mavic 3 Pro and the air 3. if you can
find the climbers in here you're doing really well then here is the 3x camera on the air 3 and
the mavic 3 and all of these settings are as close to the same as I could possibly get them and then
here is the 166 millimeter camera on the mavic 3 Pro which obviously gives you a ton more reach
definitely really compresses that background and gives you a just unbelievable Parallax effect now
the one downside of this camera and the one that was on the original mavic 3 the 162 millimeter on
the original mavic 3 is that neither one of them will shoot in any sort of D cine-like or d-log M
they both only shoot in normal which is a super contrasty image and it's a little bit difficult
to work with but when you need a shot like this it really is tough to beat and get anything else
now if you're looking between the mavic 3 Pro or the air 3 they both have that 70 millimeter
camera which has quickly become one of my favorite cameras to shoot with because it just gives you
a little bit more lens compression you get these really nice looking shots and the quality coming
off of it really on both of them I mean it's the same basically on both of them but the quality
coming off both of them really looks nice but I think my favorite thing is just the right amount
of lens compression you get from that 3x 70 millimeter camera it's great if you want to
jump in and get some shots of wildlife without getting too close it's great for getting people
and details on things that you wouldn't normally get that close with and overall the 70 millimeter
camera I think by far has become my favorite to shoot with both with year three and with the mavic
3 Pro but a huge Advantage the mavic 3 has over the air 3 is that main camera it's just has a lot
more dynamic range it just has a much nicer image quality to it in fact the only way I've been able
to get that kind of close with the mavic 3 or the air 3 is to be able to cut the sharpness down to
-2 on both cameras and that's kind of where especially if you're shooting in d-log on the
mavic 3 then that's where you're going to get the best most quality there's no in-camera sharpening
No nose reduction you get just absolutely beautiful imagery to work with but the biggest
advantage that the mavic 3 has over the air 3 is the variable aperture this is massive on the main
camera if you're out shooting and conditions are changing rapidly or you only maybe have a
couple of ND filters it makes a huge difference being able able to adjust that aperture on the
fly without having to land the Drone and put a different ND filter on or maybe boost the iso
way up because all of a sudden clouds moved over the in front of the Sun and you're in Shadow now
now that's not to say that the air 3 doesn't stand up or hold up it definitely puts out a really nice
image the d-log m is really nice to work with you can get it to a lot of places because it's 10-bit
you can color grade it pretty heavily and it doesn't quite fall apart as early as just a normal
color profile or an 8-bit color profile would for sure and because you get the 24 millimeter or the
70 millimeter camera you do get a lot of options for how you want to compose a shot and the image
looks really nice coming out of it but then we come to low light performance both of these
drones really do amazingly well in low light and I recently had a work trip to Las Vegas where we
actually had low light so I was able to shoot some there and I shot as close as I could to the same
thing with both of these drones in night mode so you can see here the quality of both of them very
good produces some great imagery in some pretty dang dark environments but there is a difference
here that I noticed one the mavic 3 only has night mode on the main camera you don't get it on the
other cameras where the air 3 you can get night mode on both cameras so that definitely gives you
more options for how to compose a shot and because er3 has the 1.7 aperture it actually matches up
and holds up to the larger sensor of the mavic 3. it's pretty impressive how well it does with
that that being said I haven't tried to film the Aurora or the Northern Lights with the air 3 yet
but the mavic 3 I have and it did a pretty good job it was pretty amazing how much it was able
to capture considering the size of this drone and the elements that it was battling at the time in
the fact that it was almost completely dark so for low light both of these drones do perform
very well because of the night mode setting the DJI has started to include in their drones which
I am really thankful for it has really good noise reduction overall and does a great job
getting you some very very low light shots so the mavic 3 if you want the best image quality out of
a small package like this the Maverick 3 classic or the mavic 3 Pro it's going to be the way to go
now if you're okay with not getting some of those little extra features then the air 3 is a really
solid drone will give you fantastic image quality but if budget is a concern this is still a really
solid drone the air 3 can punch well above its weight class and well above its price in image
quality overall both in photo and video modes now that we've covered image quality in photo
and video modes it's time to dive in some of the other things that make these drones similar and
the things that separate them when it comes to obstacle avoidance active track waypoints and
things like that active track is a great feature and I love it but it is limited in what you can
do with it in other words it just tracks the subject from the front or from the side or
from the rear and both of these drones do a great job with active track tracking from pretty much
any direction especially because they both have 360 obstacle avoidance one way to test tracking
is to see what happens when the subject gets lost behind an object and here the air 3 was a massive
winner clearly won over the mavic 3. I tried to track myself behind this rock several times with
the mavic 3 and behind a couple other things and every single time the mavic 3 would lose me and
stop tracking him one time it almost ran me over when it was trying to require me where the air 3
stayed really solid and just kept tracking right on through and got right back on subject acquiring
the subject once I came out the other side every single time so the air 3 active tracking if
that's something you're going to do the air 3 is considerably better but there are times when you
want to get shots that you just can't get with active track but you also don't want to have to
personally fly the Drone exactly every single time especially if you film yourself like I
do a lot and one of the best features that both of these drones have is waypoints which enables
you to get really cool shots like this now I did a whole video on why waypoints are better than
active track in some cases at least for the mavic 3 and you can watch that here but there are a lot
of cases where you want to do a very specific move with your drone that you can't do without flying
it yourself but with waypoints you can pre-program that entire move in and the Drone will repeat it
as many times as you need it to which is how I've been able to get shots like this now when it comes
to speed and flight mechanics there's not as much difference between these two drones as you might
think both of them top out at about 47 ish miles an hour but the air 3 does ascend a bit faster at
about 18 miles an hour compared to 13 to 14 miles an hour on the mavic 3 and the air 3 descends at
22 miles an hour where the mavic 3 is hard limited to about 13 14-ish miles an hour for descent speed
so it's about 30 percent faster descent speed about 20 percent faster Ascent speed so you can
get places a lot faster if you're going up in places like this in the mountains are trying to
get down really quickly as well and of course then we come to flight time now the mavic 3 is rated at
43 minutes if I remember correctly realistically you're going to be like at 33 to 36 minutes maybe
where the air 3 is rated to 46 or 47 minutes and on honestly I've been getting 38 to 39 minutes
depending on how you're flying if I'm sport mode stuff like that fighting heavy wind it's not going
to fly as long but the air 3 clearly wins on flight time and overall if you're going to be
doing stuff like I'm doing today out hiking in the wilderness and you want to condense your load as
much as possible while they don't seem that much different size wise there definitely is a weight
difference and when you add a couple of batteries that weight difference starts adding up quickly
and this is also where things take a little bit of a different turn depending on where you live
in the world for the US it's not such a big deal but if you live in the European Union the mavic
3 is over 900 grams which means it doesn't get the C1 label where the air 3 does so you're able
to fly this and use this in a lot less restrictive ways than you would the mavic 3. now I'm not going
to say that I'm an expert on any of the European Union regulations on drone weights and sizes and
how close and how far away you have to be from people and building stuff like that but you
need to be aware that the mavic 3 Pro at least is over that 900 gram limit and it will be much more
restrictive on where you can fly whereas the air 3 is a lot more lenient because of that C1 label
and because of the DB rating on it you can be much closer to people in buildings than the mavic pro
now the mavic classic I believe fits in that C1 label so if that's something you already go with
then you should be fine and then we come to what is probably going to be most people's determining
factor and that's budget the air 3 starts at a thousand and ninety nine dollars US dollars at
least at the time of this recording and then goes up to about fifteen hundred fifty dollars
uh if you're gonna get the fly more combo where the mavic classic the cheapest version of the
mavic 3 Series starts at about fifteen hundred dollars and or sixteen hundred dollars and then
goes up to Seventeen hundred dollars but if you want to get extra batteries that's going to run
you well into the 2000 US dollar range but if you're gonna get the mavic 3 Pro then you're
gonna start at two thousand one hundred ninety nine dollars or about twenty two hundred dollars
and go from there all the way up to the basically five thousand dollar mavic 3 cine range but I'm
really curious to know what you think are you gonna upgrade or change to the air three if you
already own a mavic 3 or is it a mavic 3 a better fit for you let me know in the comments below for
me they're both fantastic drones I'll be keeping both because the mavic 3 fits for my professional
work when I'm needing prores or I'm needing a higher quality image that's a little bit easier
to color grade for colorist that I hand it off to on TV shows and stuff like that but for me doing
the stuff that I do here in this area uh hiking backpacking a lot of times the things I do with
helicopters the air 3 is going to be it because of that weight savings the size savings and it
just does a great job and it pretty much captures everything I need in just that little bit smaller
and lighter of a package but if you want to see how I set my drones up in the settings you're
going to want to click or tap right there I will see you over there as always if you have questions
or if I didn't answer a certain question in this video then join me on my live stream which happens
Wednesdays at 4 pm Alaska time 8 PM Eastern where we can have more of a conversation and maybe
answer questions I didn't get to in this video I'll see you again soon in the next video cheers