I recently picked up the new Mavic Mini for some upcoming trips I have planned. Hopefully the travel restrictions will ease up in the coming months and I can use it in some other places. I managed to take it with me just on a camping trip this past weekend and it has reminded me just how interesting it is to have a drone around when you're exploring the wilderness.
You can think of a drone as allowing you to have whatever perspective you want when photographing something. You never again have to worry about having something be in the way of a perfect shot. It also introduces you to perspectives that feel unfamiliar to land-based bipeds, like looking straight down on the uncannily regular ripples on a lake. Finally, when exploring unfamiliar terrain, they let you scout out routes and possible things to visit with high-speed aerial reconnaissance. Given that there were no other humans around, we didn’t have to worry about the drone noise disturbing others’ experiences. They’re really just particularly large mosquitoes anyway, so they blend in.
Here’s my impression of the Mavic Mini:
- Battery life is amazing compared to our old Spark. We could fly for 20+ minutes on a battery, which substantially reduced stress.
- Weight is fantastic – the drone + remote control + 3 batteries was a bit over a pound. The best camera is the one you have with you, and when you’re on a backpacking trip, that’s going to be the one you’re willing to carry.
- The computer vision algorithms still aren’t great. For example, the downward-facing auto-stabilization is fooled by the wind creating ripples on a lake, causing the supposedly hovering drone to zoom along sideways at 15mph even with your hands off the joysticks. This is really unnerving.
- We were frequently hampered by restrictions in terms of maximum wind speed (17mph), so there were some amazing flights we had to skip or cut short because the winds picked up. It’s stressful trying to get the drone back from across a lake in high winds.
- Image quality is reasonably good, though the camera sometimes makes strange decisions about overexposure that need to be manually compensated.
- The 3-axis gimbal is a huge improvement over the 2-axis gimbal in the Spark, allowing for smooth video while moving sideways.
As a side note, the product promotion video for the Mavic Mini is extremely well executed. It makes you feel like world peace is achievable and DJI could solve the brewing US-China conflict by just getting everyone together for a dance party on a mountaintop (filmed by drone, of course). They also are strongly positioning drones as something fun for everyone instead of the more typical marketing aimed at boys-with-toys. This of course helps them sell more drones, but it’s also pleasantly refreshing to see this shift.