DJI Mini Four Professional assessment: The perfect light-weight drone good points extra energy and smarts

Final yr, DJI confirmed what was potential in a small drone with the Mini Three Professional by becoming tons of know-how and a high-quality digital camera right into a sub-250 gram drone. Following that up was by no means going to be simple, however now (after quite a few leaks) it’s unveiled the Mini Four Professional with an extended checklist of recent options.

Except for one enchancment, the digital camera is basically the identical. Nevertheless, it has new omnidirectional impediment sensors that get rid of the blind spots on the Mini Three Professional. It additionally comes with a brand new function known as ActiveTrack 360 that permits you to program digital camera strikes when monitoring a topic.

Small drones are one of the simplest ways to trace fast-paced motion, as they’re maneuverable and fewer inclined to wreck when crashing. With all of the enhancements, the Mini Four Professional is best and safer at that than its predecessor — at the very least on paper. Now, let’s discover out if it lives as much as that in the true world.

Design

The Mini Four Professional remains to be underneath 250 grams so it may be flown and not using a license or registration in lots of areas, nevertheless it has delicate design adjustments throughout. The 4 forward- and rear-facing sensors are actually positioned in order that they’ll see to the perimeters as properly, and the physique is a little more streamlined. It has bigger cooling vents, barely smaller rear arms and new touchdown ft on the entrance. The digital camera/gimbal defend is smaller and simpler to placed on, and it has a brand new guard that protects the propellers when it’s saved.

As earlier than, the gimbal tilts up 60 levels and down 90, and the digital camera flips 90 levels to offer you full vertical decision for social media. On the rear is a microSD port, and the Mini Four Professional has 2GB of inside storage for emergencies.

The Mini Four Professional comes with one in all two controllers, the fundamental RC-N2 that requires a smartphone, and the RC2 with a built-in display. Because it makes use of DJI’s new Ocusync Four transmission, first launched with the Air 3, it solely works with the brand new controllers and never the older fashions — for now, anyway.

You should buy it with a $55 ND filter set for sunny days, which I’d advocate in the event you can afford it. DJI additionally gives a wide-angle 18mm equal lens attachment ($40), nevertheless it has important barrel distortion and may trigger focus points.

The drone additionally helps DJI’s Lightcut, an enhancing app that permits you to generate fast movies for social media. As DJI says, it permits “one faucet technology of charming movies by merging ActiveTrack, MasterShots, and QuickShots footage,” whereas automating sound results and extra. It additionally works wirelessly, so there’s no have to obtain footage to your smartphone.

Efficiency

Given its small measurement and maneuverability (and the identical sensor as DJI’s Motion 4), you’ll be able to consider the Mini Four Professional as a flying motion digital camera. The sunshine weight (and low value in comparison with, say, a Mavic Three Professional) additionally makes crashes much less consequential.

Most velocity is a decently quick 35 MPH in sport mode, or 26 MPH in common operation. It will probably deal with winds as much as 24 MPH, a powerful determine for a sub 250 gram drone. In operation, it may appear to be it’s being buffeted pretty laborious by the wind, however you wouldn’t comprehend it from the footage because of DJI’s gimbal and stabilization know-how.

The Mini Three Professional was successfully blind on the perimeters, however the Mini Four Professional gives safety throughout just like the Mavic Three Professional and Air 3 — because of 4 new omnidirectional sensors on high and two on backside (together with a time-of-flight sensor). It additionally makes use of DJI’s APAS, which gives automated braking and impediment bypass for additional safety.

In case you’re spending $760+ on a drone, you could not wish to check the impediment detection limits. That is my job, so I had it comply with me whereas I walked and biked amongst bushes and different potential snags. I did have a number of crashes, however right here’s what I discovered on easy methods to keep away from them.

The sensors are visible, in order that they don’t work in dim mild. And dense forest with fantastic branches is a no go — the omni sensors can miss these, however the propellers gained’t. Lastly, the Mini Four Professional detects obstacles finest when touring ahead, much less so when going sideways, and worst of all when flying backwards.

It did work round well-spaced bushes with thick branches and loads of leaves, close to buildings and usually round well-defined obstacles. It was in a position to maneuver round these, select respectable routes and reacquire topics in the event that they disappeared. That helped me seize some good motion footage, although one ought to all the time stay cautious of accidents.

ActiveTrack 360 provides digital camera strikes to the standard topic monitoring to create dramatic pictures. It seems to be complicated at first, however the thought is fairly easy. You utilize the so-called steering wheel to “draw” a route on concentric circles, and the drone will comply with it, ducking any obstacles it encounters.

You possibly can change parameters together with the internal and outer radius, internal and outer top, digital camera velocity and floor proximity. That makes it potential to get all kinds of pictures. The tough half was determining which aspect the drone thought of to be ahead and backward — DJI ought to work on this to make issues clearer.

In case you plan fastidiously you may get some attractive, swooping ActiveTrack pictures. The same old impediment caveats apply, although, and it additionally provides complexity — as a result of it’s a must to work out the place the drone goes to be if you arrive at your finish level. With all that, it’s finest to observe in an open space earlier than making an attempt it in a posh setting.

After all, the Mini Four Professional nonetheless has DJI’s automated modes aimed toward social media customers, like MasterShots, QuickShots and Panorama together with Hyperlapse. It even contains the Waypoint function from the Mavic Three Professional, which helps you to pre-program advanced drone strikes and repeat them — a classy function for a small drone.

For the latter function, you launch the drone and choose the Waypoint perform, fly to a spot of curiosity and set the proper digital camera angle. As soon as there, you faucet “+” on the display (or hit the C1 button the RC2 distant) to program a waypoint. Repeat that course of by way of all of your factors of curiosity, and when you’re performed, you’ll be able to play again the sequence. The drone will easily fly to every level the identical manner every time, so you utilize it to point out a scene in the course of the day after which later at night time, as an illustration.

The Mini Four Professional makes use of Ocusync Four transmission first seen on the Air Three that sends 1080/60p video as much as 20 km, in comparison with 1080/30p over 12 km with Ocusync 3. These distances are decrease right here in Europe due to transmitter energy guidelines.

In use, it gives a noticeable enchancment in connectivity, with fewer dropouts and far better vary — even when the drone goes behind obstacles. The change could be very noticeable right here in Europe with smoother video and dropouts now very uncommon. It must be even higher within the US, the place you may ship the Mini Four Professional on a reasonably lengthy journey.

The usual 2,590 mAh Clever Flight Battery has a bit extra capability than the Mini Three Professional’s 2,453 mAh cell, however vary stays the identical at 34 minutes. In real-world flying, we noticed about 25 minutes earlier than listening to the return-to-home warning, so plan accordingly.

When you’ve got a Mini Three Professional, its cells look like suitable with the brand new drone, in order that’s a great factor in the event you already personal that mannequin. Within the US, you may get the Plus batteries that present as much as 45 minutes of vary, however native guidelines block their use in Europe.

The RC-2 first seen on the Air Three is DJI’s third display controller after the RC and the RC Professional. It’s considerably higher than the RC, with a brighter display, higher really feel and extra exact controls. The opposite choice is the non-screen RC-N2 (requiring a smartphone), which has similarities to the RC-N1 mannequin however with O4 compatibility.

Digicam

The Mini Four Professional’s digital camera has the identical 1/1.Three twin ISO sensor as its predecessor, utilizing an equivalent 24mm equal lens with a hard and fast f/1.7 aperture. That’s a reasonably sizable sensor for such a small drone, only a bit smaller than the 1-inch sensor on the Mavic Air 2S.

The distinction is that it now helps 4K slow-mo at as much as 100 fps, or 1080p at 200 fps. The movement is embeded 30fps, nevertheless it’s nonetheless a pleasant function for wildlife, crashing waves and extra. That’s on high of 4K at as much as 60fps and 1080p at 120fps. It has a two instances digital zoom for 4K and 4 instances at 1080p, with a slight loss in sharpness.

There’s additionally help for DJI’s D-LogM, which boosts dynamic vary and offers you extra flexibility in put up. DJI has a LUT that makes it simple to transform it to common video — however some enhancing is required for finest outcomes. You can even shoot in DJI’s HLG mode, which once more boosts dynamic vary. You possibly can see the outcomes immediately on an HDR TV, however you’ll have to do an HLG to REC.709 color-space remodel to make use of it with common video. Each help 10-bit 4:2:zero seize for improved constancy and lowered banding.