After thinking about a DJI Mavic Pro for months I bit the bullet and got one on pre order from a store. After waiting for 2 months and finding out DJI are just shipping their b2c orders instead of b2b whilst stock is limited – I just ordered direct, cancelled my pre order and 5 days later had a drone.
After the initial excitement – I got everything charged up only to find my phone would not connect to it. Some online research later I figured I needed to be on a later version of Android. A little more research and before I know it I am wiping my phone and updating the OS. It worked! It was now definitely the night time and too dark to fly, and the risk of having a first flight indoors did not seem worth it.
The next morning it was time for my first flight. A quick youtube tutorial then lift off! The drone is so ridiculously easy to control. The sensors make it fairly hard to crash into stuff too!
The menus on the other hand are alot less intuitive. There are loads of settings which need fiddling with and it seems pretty bad at remembering them. I swear I have to change photo file format from jpg to RAW every time I fly.
The portability is by far the best feature of the drone – the fact it fits in a rucksack so easily means you can actually take it all over the place and fly whenever you fancy. It is pretty fun to just fly and not even bother with photo and video at this point. I enjoy exploring areas from above.
I have not played with video too much yet. I spent a few hours at Bugsboarding though and from under 5 minutes of footage cut together a quick edit. The follow modes are pretty tricky to use. It seems to stop following a lot – either due to obstacles or the subject changing direction too quickly. Also with gravity sports where you go downhill, the drone does not descend whilst following.
Much more practice needed!
