MacDirectory magazine is the premiere creative lifestyle magazine for Apple enthusiasts featuring interviews, in-depth tech reviews, Apple news, insights, latest Apple patents, apps, market analysis, entertainment and more.
Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1256627
DJI Air 2 Mavic's midrange reaches higher By Ric Getter The original Mavic Air was the perfect place to start for serious photographers and videographers wanting to take their work in literally a new direction. (Up.) It was at a price reasonable enough to attenuate the uncertainties and perils of learning to fly, yet once you got familiar with it, the quality of images it produced would easily blend in with work done on one's more expensive, ground-based hardware. ProRes video files and raw images let it blend right in with professional workflows, as well. With last fall's introduction of the Mavic Mini, the Air became the middle-child of DJI's Mavic line, something of a perilous position for both manufacturers and consumers. The Mini is a great device for learning about drones, and the gimbaled camera showed off what going vertical could do creatively. And, of course there's the Mavic Pro 2, with its Hasselblad imaging and long flight times, dangling like an expensive carrot at the top of the Mavic line. In April, DJI released the Mavic Air 2, a totally new drone with a familiar name (and price), but a giant leap ahead in capabilities and features. The folks at DJI offered MacDirectory a chance to test out the Air 2, and I happily took them up on their offer to see how it compares to the Mavic Air I'd been flying for over a year. I soon discovered that there are just too many new-and-improved features in the Air 2 to enumerate in one article, so we're going to focus mostly on what would be of most important to folks doing serious photography and video, but there are a lot of impressive features in terms of safety, performance, and usability that go far beyond that. Under Control The controller design is entirely new. The rectangular shape is more comfortable to hold and the contoured bottom provides a solid grip. An extending spring clip holds the phone and falls about an inch and a half short of fitting the iPad mini that was dedicated to my Air. It's likely that it won't be long before the ambitious after-market catches up and offers an adapter bracket like the sturdy Skyreat. In fact, this time around, it would be possible to have a design where the tablet doesn't cover the controls. The antennas, which provide a much longer range than the original Air, are inside the housing. There are fewer buttons, but they're far more useful. Along with the power and all-important