- Today, we're checking out the Mavic Air 2S.
I'm gonna go ahead and just call this a review,
because the firmware should be pretty close to being final.
This is completely unsponsored.
It flies like an Air,
but it has that 1-inch sensor that you get from the Pro.
I believe this is the Fly More kit.
Inside of here, we get a bag.
This is cool right here.
Some DJI ND filters.
4, 8, 16, and 32.
So what is that, 2, 3, 4, and 5 stops of ND.
I believe you could also,
additionally get a 64 to 512, I believe.
So that would give you all the way up
to higher neutral densities for the really sunny days.
Let's take a look inside the bag here.
And we have our aircraft.
It looks exactly like the Air.
Looking at the two, they look very similar.
I think the main obvious difference is the size
of the camera, of course.
But we also have sensors right here up top.
So that's interesting.
No sensors on the side, like the 2 Pro does,
but if we take a look right there, 1-inch sensor.
The only downside about this 1-inch sensor is
that there is no aperture control.
The Fly More kit is gonna give you batteries.
And these batteries last so long now
that if you have three of them,
you'll probably be able to fly for an hour and a half.
Anyways, a Security Guard came here five minutes ago
and said we can't film here,
but it was nice of them to give us five minutes at least,
to just get this segment in, but we gotta move.
And Look, we have Secret Service coming
in to kick us out right now.
They have guns, I think, so we should probably go.
(Upbeat music)
So, so far so good.
As expected, the aircraft flies really good.
'Cause the Mavic Air 2 was a really solid aircraft.
I love flying that thing.
And I also love that
with the more modern drones, you don't have
to do that Compass Calibration nearly as much.
You know, this whole thing where it says like, calibrate,
you have to go, oh, you look like an idiot.
As a matter of fact,
I'll be testing this out for the next month.
And this is how many times I've had
to do the Compass Calibration.
Hopefully that's a zero.
Now in this firmware, we have 5.4k
up to 30 frames per second,
4k up to 60 frames per second,
and HD up to 120 frames per second for that super slow-mo.
And in all these resolutions,
as soon as you go past 30 frames per second,
there is a crop.
So here we are at 4k 24.
So now we go to 48 frames per second
and you could see the amount of crop we're getting.
So now I'm gonna go ahead
and bump up the resolution to 5.4k.
And I'm curious to see how much I can crop into this shot,
and see how much of the resolution still holds up.
But here's how it looks at 5.4K, maximized resolution.
I do have to be careful flying sideways though.
On the left here, there is a Safety Assistant mode,
which is going to turn off sideways flying,
so now I can't really go side to side.
So this is going to be a little bit safer.
Whoa, it's kind of like an airplane now.
It leans.
It's almost like an FPV Drone.
That's interesting.
Okay, but I guess this is going to be a little bit safer,
because it's not going to let you go side to side
where there are no sensors.
Not what I was expecting out of this setting, but okay.
And it just turns,
so it feels more like flying an FPV drone or a little plane.
but how is this 5.4k resolution though?
I bet it looks pretty good.
One downside of 5.4k is
that you can't use any sort of ActiveTrack mode.
So let me go ahead and go back down to 4k.
And now we have Dylan selected.
So now all I do is just fly the aircraft around,
and the ActiveTrack is going to frame Dylan for me,
which makes it super convenient.
Just make sure it's not gonna hit anything.
But in terms of the composition,
it takes care of all that for me.
So I love that and I love that to enter ActiveTrack mode,
you don't have to dig into the settings.
You now just go ahead and just highlight Dylan,
and it's tracking.
And I could also reframe his composition,
so I could go ahead, put him on the bottom right
if I want to, or top right.
And I'm just going to go ahead
and just use the ActiveTrack to follow him down now.
Oh, actually it's going to lose him there.
Yeah, so it's definitely going to lose them through that,
but it looks pretty cool up there.
We should go up there, huh?
Okay, so let's go ahead and try out MasterShot.
Okay, so it recognizes that we're three different people.
Okay, I've got Dylan selected.
Estimated flight time, three minutes.
Whoa, okay.
It's just kind of doing its thing.
I don't really know what it's doing just yet.
Interesting.
It's zooming as its flying.
I don't know what it's doing, but it's cool.
It seems like what it's doing is just
getting all the different angles.
I don't know, I'm kind of excited.
The shots that it's getting actually seem pretty cool.
(electronic music)
All right, Let's see if I can ActiveTrack myself here.
All right, we're gonna go ActiveTrack, Trace.
So I'm just gonna let the drone do its thing,
while we go ride.
Let's see how good this thing is.
Yeah, I mean, it seems like as long as
there's no major obstacles in the way, you're good.
And for the most part, at least in this Trace mode,
it's just going to trail behind me.
So I just have to be kind of cautious
to try not to set it up for failure.
All right, we're going 20 miles per hour right now,
and it's having no problems staying up with me.
I'm a little bit worried about this wall right here,
but so far so good.
There's no obstacles nearby,
so you can comfortably just let it go do its thing.
Dude, this is dope.
The only issue here is the lack of dynamic range,
but that's because I'm in the standard color profile.
But there's also an HLG and a D-Log,
which is going to give you more dynamic range.
DJI says the D-Log in here is gonna give us 4.6 stops
of dynamic range in ten bit D-Log 420.
So that's pretty awesome.
A lot of power in this camera.
A lot of flexibility if you're trying to edit.
And I also thought that it was pretty cool
that it automatically switches to 10 bit
when you switch into HLG or D-Log,
which makes sense because those are
the color profiles that you're gonna be grading.
So you want as much color information as possible.
Now we also have the option to go between H.264 and H.265.
And usually H.265 you go with
if you're trying to save on file size
or trying to get more information.
but DJI actually says the H.265
does both smaller file sizes, and more information.
So if you're trying to get the best image quality
out of this drone, then that's what they would recommend.
And H.264 is really only an option
for the standard color profile.
Once you go into HLG or D-Log,
you go automatically to H.265.
It's a little crazy trying to fly this drone
and ride this thing at the same time,
but it's actually pretty decent.
Ooh.
(electronic music)
Ooh.
here's a task.
Can we use the zoom while we're using ActiveTrack?
Oh we can, look at that.
It's just 1X zoom.
I'm going to go ahead, see if I get a little bit tighter in.
this is 3X, and 4X.
Look at that.
Check it out.
Look how zoomed in we are.
(man laughs)
Yeah, kind of crazy, huh?
And check it out.
I also got it paired with the DJI Smart Controller
with the built-in monitor.
This is something that I was pretty hesitant to get
for a pretty long time, because it's pretty expensive.
But actually every time you guys buy something
using my link down below for anything DJI,
they actually give me a little bit of store credit.
So I saved up enough, bought this thing,
and I am so glad I have this thing.
It's awesome.
You don't have to pull out your phone,
do that whole shuffling game
of trying to get your phone in there
without it pressing the volume buttons, or powering it off.
You've got to plug it in.
It's kind of a mess, so this is super nice.
And also this Air 2S has OcuSync 3.0.
So now we went from 10 kilometers to 12 kilometers,
and it also has four antennas, instead of two.
They told me the extra two antennas are back here
in the rear arms.
And what's cool about this Smart Controller
is that it has two wheels.
So, of course the left one is for our camera tilt,
but we also have the right one now
for the digital zoom.
And I'm at 4k, and I'm able to go to 4.3x zoom.
And again, digital zooms tend to not be that great usually.
Maybe something like this.
This is a 2X zoom.
This looks pretty cool.
And if you don't have the Smart Controller,
you can still zoom,
but you just have to use the touch screen
instead of using the rocker.
This MasterShot feature is really cool,
because I'm just gonna chill here, let it do its thing.
It's gonna take three minutes and gather a whole bunch
of clips that are really cool for me.
So, this is a cool feature.
Honestly, at first I thought it was going
to be one of those gimmicky things where it tries
to edit this crappy little sequence for you,
but here it just records the whole sequence.
Let's say you get to an Epic location,
and you want someone to get shots of you.
You literally just program it for yourself,
and you put down the controller
and it's going to get all these shots for you.
So it's like having a drone operator.
Now we do also still have the QuickShot, Hyperlapse,
Panoramic, and QuickShots is something that I am big fan of.
You know, the typical Rocket, Helix and Boomerang shots.
I like Helix a whole lot.
So let's go ahead and get Helix.
This one's one of my favorites.
And these always look so good,
having these advanced camera moves done automatically.
Can't go wrong with that.
It's always really nice having the drone get the shot
for you because it always comes out perfectly.
Kari and I wanted to get a few shots
at our special bench on her last trip.
And we were able to do it with QuickShots,
which was super useful.
I swear, these birds are trying to attack the drone.
(intense music)
By the way, check it out,
Peter McKinnon's new bag.
It has that same kind of cool Peter McKinnon bag design,
but it's smaller.
So more useful for daily use.
All right, so here's the C70 that we're recording with.
All right, so this will just go in here?
- Yep.
- Like that?
Oh, hey, that's actually pretty impressive.
- Oh, you want to shoot something real quick, Gene?
No worries, Bam.
- Wow.
Now one of the main reasons why I'm excited
to have this bigger 1-inch sensor is
because bigger sensors often get just cleaner images.
Each pixel is, I think, 2.2 microns on this sensor,
which is pretty decent.
Now the difference might not be super obvious,
but if you put it up next to an Air 2 in low light,
then it becomes very obvious.
The 1-inch sensor just looks so much better at 6,400 ISO
then that half-inch sensor.
Or compared to something like the Mavic Mini,
which is a 1/2.3-inch sensor.
I mean, that's pretty much an action camera size sensor.
So you're not going to get that good image quality
out of that.
And then compared to the 2 Pro,
which also has this one-inch sensor,
they look pretty comparable.
But I did notice that this 2S
does a bit more noise reduction.
So sometimes that's good because it looks cleaner,
but also you lose a little bit of detail.
So the Mavic 2 Pro does retain a little bit more detail,
but it also does have more noise and grain.
But again, it's not just for low light times like this
where it's dim,
or if you're in the shadow,
then it's going to look much cleaner.
So I will take it.
Now I believe if you use the same battery that came
with the Air 2,
DJI says you're going to get about 31 minutes
of flight time out of it.
And what's cool is this little adapter thing came
in the Fly More combo and check it out.
It's basically now a battery bank.
If you want to charge your phone.
Anyone got a dead battery?
Dylan, your phone's always dead.
- And you charge it right now?
- [Gene] Yeah. Do you want me to charge to right now?
- Sure.
- Oh, your battery's dead because you're irresponsible,
and never charge your phone.
Ta-DA, look at that.
- Wow.
- Okay, give it back to me.
- Okay.
- All right, so I got the Air 2S up in the air.
I'm going to go ahead and sync here.
So now I can cut to the drone angle and still get audio
from this camera I have right next to me.
Now, one feature I always thought would be cool was
if there was like a little microphone built
into the controller,
and it could transmit that audio to the drone.
So when you download the footage,
instead of just having no audio,
you could actually have like a little voiceover track
or hear what you were saying at the time.
You could kind of narrate your flights.
I'd be able to just kind of fly around
and talk about how cool this football field is.
Well, I'm going to go ahead and put this into Sport mode.
And Here we go.
(rock music)
This is some cool music.
Yes, this is intense.
Is this cool?
Yeah, not bad.
41 miles per hour.
Yeah, this thing's got some punch though.
Let's see.
Let's go this way.
Must have had a little bit of tailwind,
'cause right now I'm stuck at about 36 miles per hour.
Still not bad, but not as fast as 40.
In normal mode, I'm getting about 32-33 miles per hour.
But let me go ahead and angle all the way up,
and I'm going to just see if I can hit Sport mode.
I'm going 40 miles per hour,
and the camera angle hasn't dipped.
So that's actually a really cool feature.
You know what I'm talking about
if you've ever flown the Mavic 2 Pro at high speed.
You'll be flying, and then, you know,
like right around this point,
you would see the camera go like that,
but here I'm able to maintain full speed
and keep that camera up.
So that is actually really, really nice.
Oh, did I get a little bit of jello there?
This one-inch sensor might give us a little bit
of that rolling shutter.
Let's see here.
Yeah, see that?
I think that's only really going to be
if you have a really quick foreground cross,
but see how if I go into sport mode and go sideways,
see how bendy those rods look.
So something to keep in mind.
But in terms of overall flight performance,
I've really liked what their newer drones have been doing.
It's just easier.
It's more confident and is just able to handle more wind.
Let's go ahead and check out the depth of field
of this camera.
So let's go up there, say hi to Dylan.
This is about a foot away from Dylan's face right now.
So I probably wouldn't recommend it.
Now this test, since we're really getting depth of field,
we're really seeing that 1-inch sensor
with that F28 aperture.
So the background's way out of focus.
And if I throw focus on the back,
Dylan goes out of focus.
I'm going to bring it back on Dylan.
Yup, Dylan's back in focus.
So you can get depth of field out of this, if you want.
But I want to say if we pull back a little bit,
realistically, you probably won't be getting
much closer than this.
And at this point, the background has a little bit of blur.
I'll throw the focus to the background,
so we could see what the background looks like sharp.
So anything beyond this distance,
you don't have to be worried too much
about the depth of field being too shallow.
So that's actually a good thing,
unless you're going for depth of field,
then you probably need to go with an Inspire.
Get that Super 35.
So at this distance, pretty much everything's in focus.
I mean the deep background might be a little bit soft
and again, this is a fixed aperture.
So you kind of get what you get.
You can't really close down the lens
or open up the lens like you can with the Mavic two Pro.
Now I did ask DJI why they didn't put
that variable aperture inside of this camera,
because if it did this would have been
the only drone I really needed.
And basically they told me it was for weight savings.
So the camera on this 2S is actually a lot lighter
than the one found on the Mavic two Pro.
So really this camera wasn't designed
to replace the Mavic two Pro,
but be a really good option
to put onto something much lighter.
(drone propellors spinning)
You hear that?
The drone's not even on, there is no battery.
This is the wind pushing.
So this just gives you an idea of how windy it is right now.
I totally forgot that I didn't even put a memory card
in there yet.
It does have that 7.9 gigs of internal memory.
So if you do forget your memory card,
then it will still let you record.
Like it just did.
eight gigs isn't enough to get you through a whole shoot,
but it's enough to save your butt once in a while.
To download the internal footage,
you just turn on the drone,
plug in the USB-C,
and it pops up as a drive on your computer.
So pretty straightforward.
Now here's where the lineup currently sits.
And the new 2S is going to sit right here
in between the Air and the Pro.
Now I really think that DJI did a really good job
with the 2S.
And actually, if I could only have one of them,
it would probably be the 2S,
because it has a lot of the capability that the Pro has,
but it still has more of the convenience factors
of some of these smaller ones.
So, let's go ahead and take a look through them.
Starting with the Mavic Mini 2.
it's definitely my favorite.
If you're on a budget, it starts at $449,
but it's still 4k 30, 10 kilometers of range.
It's also sub 250 grams, so super lightweight.
And I also like that it's USB rechargeable.
So if you're traveling, going to pack ultra light,
you don't even have to pack a charger.
Just plug it in via USB-C and you're good to go.
I would say the biggest downside is
that it doesn't have any sensor.
It also doesn't work with my Smart Controller.
It also has the smallest sensor out
of the bunch with 1/2.3 inch,
which is basically an action camera sized sensor.
The 4k 30 does look pretty good out of it,
but good luck if you're trying to film anything
in low light.
Next up is the Air 2, comes in at $799.
So it's almost double the price,
but I would say if you can swing it it's worth it,
because you get a more powerful aircraft.
It's gonna be a bit faster,
and you also get that half inch sensor, a 4k 60.
So it's a bigger sensor, better image,
and also sensors in three directions,
which is going to be a big deal.
And also we have a 34 minute flight time,
which is a tad better
than all the other Mavics in the lineup.
And the reason why I would personally go
for the 2S is it's $999.
So a little bit more than the 2,
but you get that significantly larger sensor.
You have OcuSync 3.0, so better range,
better sensor, 5.4K D-Log ten bit out of that 1-inch sensor.
So I think it's worth that extra $200.
I'm all about getting the best image quality possible
within reason.
You do get slightly less flight time.
It's 31 minutes, opposed to 34.
So still really good flight time.
And it's a little bit heavier.
It's 595 grams, opposed to the 570.
So again, barely a difference,
but much better image quality.
And then finally, there's a 2 Pro, which comes in at $1599.
So quite a big price jump, but it could be worth it
if you're looking for that variable aperture.
It's super convenient to go anywhere from F2.8 to F11.
We also have sensors on the side,
which has definitely saved me once or twice.
But it is also 907 grams,
so its significantly heavier and louder.
It flies great and it flies a little bit faster,
but it does feel a little bit outdated.
All the spark features don't seem to be as updated
as all the other drones.
Also, like I mentioned, if you're trying to fly
in Sport mode, it's hard to keep the Gimbal straight.
Once you hit a certain speed,
it's going to dip down to about minus seven degrees
in terms of your angle.
So if you're trying to fly in Sport mode
and you don't want to worry
about that Gimbal doing that jerk,
you have to have a lower angle.
But I do love the ability
of being able to turn the camera side to side.
So you could be flying parallel to something
and just have the camera kind of turn over and look.
So that's real nice.
And like I mentioned earlier, the Gimbal on the 2S is nice,
because you can have it at a zero degree angle,
flying at full speed in Sport mode,
go 40 miles per hour,
and it's still going to be able to get that shot
straight on.
You can also unlock this feature
where you allow the Gimbal to go up a little bit.
So even past zero degrees.
And that's useful if you're trying
to get kind of a low angle looking up at something,
but at that point,
then the camera will dip if you try to go too fast.
But if you're doing a maneuver
that's just going side to side or just backwards.
It could be a really cool shot having the Gimbal
face upward a little bit.
Anyways, thanks for watching.
Links and stuff down there in the description.
I think it's starting to rain, so I better get inside.
Let's go ahead and cut to the outro.
See you guys later.
- On behalf of the potato salad crew,
thank you for tuning in.
And if you're new to this channel,
please hit the subscribe button.
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And, we'll see you in the next one.
Peace out everybody.
(wind roaring)