DJI Mavic First Impressions

I had a chance to play with the DJI Mavic today on 2 occasions and not only test our the DJI Go, but also the Litchi app.  It was a little colder in Wisconsin today, but a very nice and sunny fall day.  The wind in the first session was about 15 mph, but the Mavic performed great.  I finished the day by doing a sunset session to try and test the waypoints and pano features in the Litchi app.  

Basically, my experience with drone were from the MultiWiiCopter that I built a few years ago.  With that drone, I had to concentrate on flying it and could never take my eyes off of it.  With the DJI Mavic, it flies itself.  Add litchi to the Mix, and everything can be planned out ahead of time.  No flying skill at all is necessary, and I was able to concentrate on what I wanted to capture from a photo and video stand point.  Where I need to spend some time now that I'm comfortable letting the Mavic fly itself is the photo settings.  Everything I did today was just set to Auto, as I wanted to ensure that I could safely move the drone around and land it safely.  I really enjoyed the sessions I've had this week, and think that the Mavic will allow me to get back into aerial photography, and start to dabble in aerial video.  More to come!

DJI Mavic Test Flight & Images

The Mavic is my first drone from DJI. I built a Y6 Multiwiicopter a few years ago that takes much more skill to fly than the Mavic. I am pleasantly surprised at how stable this drone is, as I will primarily use my DJI Mavic for aerial photography. I've had the drone for a couple of days, and went home on lunch today to get some test shots. The drone is very stable, and pretty much flies itself. Here are a couple of shots from the quick session.

Looking down at my house, you can see my shadow on the back patio.

My other goal was to do a panoramic to see how well the image merge together.  The shot above has 32 portrait images that we're combined with Autopano Giga.  I think that I'm going to have a ton of time with the DJI Mavic pro.  Too bad that I missed the fall colors and it's dark at like 4:30 now.  I'm planning on going out this weekend and spending a lot of time flying and shooting.  :)

DJI Mavic Pro Custom Pelican Case

Just like every other photographer who pre-ordered the DJI Mavic, I too had to wait while DJI got their act together, but it showed up earlier this week.  I've flown every day, and hope to have some sample shots up soon.  I went with the Fly More package, which came with a camera bag.  However, I plan on traveling with the Mavic, and with everything else in my car, including dogs, I didn't think that the satchel they provided offered enough protection for my new toy.  I went with a Pelican 1400 case and ordered the Kaizen foam to customize the inside.  I don't think that the pick and pull foam that comes with the Pelican cases works very well.

As you can see, the Mavic fits comfortably in the foam cutout, along with 2 spare batteries, the controller, the car charger, memory card holder, and battery to USB converter.  I have the multi-battery charger at home, and didn't think that I would need to try and fit that in here too as the batteries should be fully charged when on the go.  The 1400 case will work well when I just need a bit more protection for the Mavic