DJi Mini 2 Drone Demonstration and Review | 4K

I love the form factor, but i really did want 4k, and so i can match the footage quality to the rest of what i do on my channel and so when the mini 2 came out sporting, the ability to have 4k recording. I knew that it was something that i was seriously interested in and took a plunge with. Today’S episode is brought to you by phantom wallet the minimalist modern wallet that sets you free from a bulky, traditional wallet, while also making it easy to access your cards and money when you need them. Thanks to their unique fanning mechanism visit phantomwallet.com to check out their unique sizes, styles and finishes that span from aluminum to wood to carbon fiber, you can even customize your wallet with new accessories like a money, clip cache holder, id display and even the chipolo tracking integration. If you’re the kind of person who loses their wallet use code – dustin 15 for 15 off when you’re ready to check out now and today’s review – is going to be a little bit different. Because really i mean to me, this is more about the footage and i suspect, that’s what you want to see and so i’m going to voice over. But just give you a look at a lot of different footage that i’ve taken over the last couple of months. That i’ve been reviewing and getting familiar with this. So as noted, there are a number of key upgrades that come from the mini, which was already a really well received drone to the mini 2.

. First of all, as already noted, we get an upgrade to 4k video and the footage looks really really great i’m really thrilled with the the performance for video capture. We’Ll talk more about sensor performance in just a couple of minutes. Another key upgrade for someone like myself is that you have the ability to capture raw stills, which, obviously, if you want to do any kind of editing at all, to raw to uh images. Uh having raw is key for that now also noted, as an upgrade is the upgrade to it being quieter as far as the motor transmission but don’t. Let that oversell you. It still sounds like the world’s largest angriest hornet, if you’re anywhere near it. Another upgrade, however, is that we’ve gone from a wi fi transmission to the upgraded occusync 2.0, and so that allows you to have control of it in ideal conditions, up to 10 kilometers or a six mile range, which is really really incredible. Likewise, it can fly up to heights of 2.5 miles that’s over four kilometers, which is really really impressive, it’s also very fast. You can in the sport mode. You can go up to 36 miles an hour which is right under 60 kilometers an hour, so it can move incredibly quickly in sport mode. It slows down to about 22 miles per hour if you’re flying in normal mode, which is still, in my experience, plenty fast in most situations. And then you can also choose to go into the cine mode, where it’s 12 miles per hour, which allows you to get smoother.

The big smoother footage, the biggest thing being particularly for banking and making turns you’re going to allow a little bit more resolution by eliminating a little bit of the speed out of the movement. It can now also sustain itself in winds of up to between 19 to 24 miles per hour or that’s 38 kilometers on the high end and the flight time has been extended from 30 minutes to 31 minutes of fly time, and so some impressive upgrades that already Made a good good drone to now be a really really competent drone with just a a few things that are still missing, that you might miss and might be worthy considering of upgrading to a higher end model. We’Ll touch on those in just a moment. First of all, however, we’re going to interrupt the footage and we’re going to go a little bit closer on and take a look at the drone itself and some of the basic functions and features there. Let’S take a closer look, so one of the hallmarks of the miniseries has obviously been how incredibly compact it is, and that certainly cannot be overstated. If you are like myself started off with the phantom series, this is downright tiny. By comparison, it also comes with a few logical um places of you know, keeping things protected while you travel. So you know, first of all covering up the various rotors which it does effectively and then a secondary cover that covers up the camera and you know it’s.

Obviously, probably somewhat fragile, gimbal mechanism there, which, by the way, i do have to say that the gimbal mechanism is, is just amazing to me on this. Just knowing how complex gimbals can be the fact of how stable this is in movement in a variety of weather conditions is, is truly impressive to me. So a couple of stages that come into getting this ready for action. You first fold out the top two we’ll call them wings out straight out and then the bottom to rotate forward, and so you end up with you know this profile that you know it doesn’t. You know it used to be there is you know, on the the phantom there’s, these big prongs, to keep it off the ground? However, it’s helped a lot that it has the automated landing system that makes sure that you’re coming down gently. You have a weight of only 249 grams, that is only 8.8 ounces, and so this is obviously incredibly light, but i will point out that it is uh it doesn’t feel cheap. At the same time, it feels like it’s it’s, fairly sturdy and, as you can see, i’ve got a little bit of marking on mine that’s. Actually, the byproduct of i had landed on a gravel, driveway, really coarse, gravel and actually a large, probably 80 or 90 pound dog you know was coming over very excited and came and stomped on it and mashed it down and literally that is all the damage that Was done as i got a little bit of a scrape on the finish, but so far it’s proven to be quite durable and so kudos to them.

On that you know the finish actually reminds me a bit of some of canon’s l series lenses, it’s kind of the same color and just there’s a light flocking there. That reminds me of that, even though everything here is probably certainly engineered plastics. Now what you have at the back is a couple of ports usbc, which you know theoretically, could be used for a few purposes. These days, it’s very easy to do your firmware updates by just by using the app which is fantastic. You also have your card slot here and so it’s. A micro sd i’ve got a 64 gig card, which seems to be plenty even with fairly extensive usage, and then there is a port here that covers where the battery the flight battery is the flight batteries. Are you know pretty good sized all things considered and they’re rated for up to around a 31 minute flight time? Now? I actually purchased this in a kit that called the fly more kit and so the fly more kit. First of all, it comes with the nice nylon bag. It does come with a number of accessories, extra rotors and things like that. A few tools for helping with you know if you do have some wear and tear some damage to things along the way you do get a couple of extra knobs for the controller as well, and you know a nice logical place to carry everything, but probably the Headline thing here is that you’ve got you have not only two additional batteries, but you have this charger that will charge in sequence.

It doesn’t charge them all simultaneously, but it will sequence charge uh three batteries, and so you know you can, you know not have to think about it. Very much. Usbc is the primary way that you can connect in, but there is also output. You can draw some off the batteries themselves. You know, maybe, if you’re wanting to charge a controller in a you know desperate situation. So another thing that has changed is the controller itself, which now has a larger. Some people may not necessarily love that, but it’s also a much more versatile charger, and so i don’t actually mind it. It’S still. The whole package is still compact and easy to bring along, and so there is a place here where you can actually get to the knobs it’s, not to say you can’t use this without the knobs, but it certainly is easier with them in place, and so you Know, but for storage, you might want to keep them in there because it just helps there to be less vulnerability and a nice flat profile here so uh. What i a few things that i like about this, is that, first of all, it allows you to get a lot of your controls, um in a really logical, easy to access way that is actually simpler than using them on the the phone app. So that includes ability to switch between sources, video or photo to take photos or video. You know with one click i really like the knob here that allows you to control the tilt of the camera, whether you’re going to look up or down, and so that is useful.

You have a return to home button here and then you can switch between the different modes. Now the you know also primary thing that’s going to happen here is this is where you’re going to connect in your uh, your phone and so that you have monitoring of the actual drone itself now um. There are some other cables that are included that you have you know in the kit, but you’re if you’re shooting ios your cable is already in here. I want to point that out because i looked at it for looked for it for a while. This sits in here so nice and flush it. I wasn’t really thinking that it was a cable because it ever the flow was so so good. But anyway, that is the cable you’re going to want to connect into ios and if you’re shooting android there is going to be a subsequent cable there or usb. You know something has usbc, etc, etc. So once you have your phone connected, obviously that screen becomes incredibly important and i find that much truer with the mini series. One thing you quickly pick up going from the larger phantom to something this size is that at even a moderate height, the small profile and the light color makes this completely disappear. There’S been plenty of times that i could hear it, and i could not see it so you become really reliant on the the actual image coming off of the camera to help to bring it home.

And of course you know, the return to home is incredibly important. Now, the downside of being so heavily gps oriented is that you, just you, tend to run into a lot of restrictions. It seems like hardly no matter where you try to fly, that you know there’s some kind of restriction and you’re having to answer questions and take responsibility and do this and do that and so it’s it’s a bit of a pain. Frankly, and so i mean obviously they’re trying to protect themselves and there’s a lot of controls that are built in, but i would say you know, probably my primary frustrations have come with that integration and just being overzealous when it comes to that. Even if you’re, not flying in any kind of risky fashion or any kind of legitimately protected area and so very quickly, once you’re connected up, you see what it sees and obviously i’m not going to take off here at the moment at my work table. But it gives you an idea that the camera is already live and ready to go, and so obviously that helps a lot, and so you can, as i said, you can rotate up and down right there. But anyway, having being able to see what it sees is. Obviously, going to be really crucial to your flight, so all in all the execution of the pieces here is really excellent. We’Ll move on to talk about flying it using it and the image quality you’re getting off of the little camera so overall, i’m impressed by the build quality, despite you know, they’re being being so lightweight under 250 grams, which of course it’s that allows it to not Have to be registered in certain jurisdictions um with you know some kind of flight agency, and so it gives you a little bit more flexibility in that regard.

As i noted, it also does have an upgraded camera here, which 4k footage, as we’ve already seen. A lot of, but then also the ability to capture raws and something that i can do a little bit more uniquely that maybe not every drone review will cover, is an actual mini review of the camera itself. So we’re going to jump and take a look at image quality here. So one of the key updates to the mini 2 from the mini 1 was that you now have the option to record in raw, which is obviously something very important to those of us that are a little bit more invested in image quality. And so you have the option of recording in either a 4 3 or a 16 9. I would recommend, go ahead and recording in 4 3 for the simple reason that, as you can see, our dimensions are four thousand by three thousand. If you shoot in sixteen nine it’s, four thousand by twenty two fifty so all it’s doing is just cropping off the top and the bottom, whereas in this case you know, i can do that. Sixteen nine crop later on and i have a little bit more option on where i want a crop to get maximum composition out of this, which i have done here, and so i think that i it’s worth shooting in 4 3, unless you want to just directly Grab images really quick and throw them into you know footage in some way go ahead and shoot in 4 3 and give yourself a little more flexibility.

Now you can see that the camera is rated at four and a half millimeters, but, as you can see the angle of view, that i’m more accustomed to is actually reflected here and it’s a little over 20 millimeters, and that seems about right that’s. Where i guessed it and you’ve got a maximum aperture of f 2.8. Here you don’t really have aperture control, however, so i mean it’s kind of a fixed aperture, take it with a grain of salt. In that sense, now, as far as the actual uh image quality goes uh depending on different settings, you know it’s it’s it’s, not as versatile a lens as what i you know, i’m accustomed to in you know, slrs or mirrorless bodies, but we’ve got a pretty nice Amount of resolution, however, what’s here, can definitely use some uh sharpening if you’re looking at it. You know just raw right out of camera. Basically contrast is a little bit low. I think, and definitely there is some room for sharpening let’s, take a look at what i’ve done so in the image on the right. Obviously, i’ve done a bit of processing, i’ve added in some contrast to it and i’ve added in some sharpening. So as a byproduct, as you can see, there’s just a lot of additional, you know appearance of detail, mostly due to improving the contrast and adding a little bit of sharpening and so that you can see those details kind of stand out a little bit better.

So what you can see is that i have mostly boosted contrast by raising the white value and dropping the black point value uh to you, know, kind of build the histogram a little bit more favorably. As far as sharpening goes, i have added in a plus 80 i’ve got a radius of seven and a detail at 48 and a bit of masking at nine and after playing around. That was the settings that i liked now. In this case, there is no uh automatic profile for this particular uh camera. As of yet, however, i find that the you know the if you go to enable profile corrections and you choose dji, it goes with the inspire one and as far as the distortion goes, it seems to correct fairly well and so that works for me at the Moment so, on a 4k monitor like this. If i go full screen, i am basically pretty much already at a pixel level, and so you know what you see is what you get, but detail looks fairly good and obviously you can get some incredible angles of view. Um, you know that are unique to the way you can look at other images, but there’s not going to be a whole lot of additional cropping uh. You know room there latitude there if you want to display on a higher resolution display. At the same time, however, i don’t want to fault it too much, because i think that images look fairly good.

The one vulnerability, major vulnerability that i’ve seen is when it comes to flare resistance and, as you can see, this lens does not like bright lights pointed at it, and so you do have to you, know, exercise some caution and you’re going to see a real difference. In the contrast you get relative to how the bright light like the sun is in the frame. So, as you can see, i mean there’s, certainly limitations. Still there it’s not going to replace a you know a high end, mirrorless or dslr, but at the same time it’s very impressive. The kind of footage you can get and, of course from for me the biggest thing is you can get such a unique perspective from a camera like this, whether it be video or stills footage, it’s, just unmatched by anything else that you might do so what’s missing The biggest thing that i would love to see added to this and a future uh drone model would be to have some kind of obstacle: avoidance it’s, a little bit nerve racking. Knowing that you know it’s such a small drone and around here i’m flying over a lot of very tall trees and so there’s been a few times that the camera perspective is maybe you know all of a sudden, my heart, you start racing because i feel, like I’M, just about to clip into something and because of the range it may be flying so far away from me that i would have a hard time.

Locating it if it dropped down and so obstacle avoidance obviously takes a lot of the the guesswork out of that and gives you a little bit more peace of mind so that’s, something if you’re, you know very serious about that. You might want to look at a higher end model and beyond that you know, i certainly would like to see that as an upgrade for the future. Another thing is compared to the higher end models that you do have less kind of custom shots, and so, in terms of of tracking, you do have a variety of things. You can go into the app to do where you can do like short term tracking and boomerang and some other kind of setup shots. You know uh circling around an object. All of those things obviously are are great, but if you really want something like sport, tracking you’re going to have to look at higher end models, because this is not a drone that’s designed to for you to get on your bike, for example, and for it to Track you over a series of kilometers it’s one thing to do a few brief clips, but not something that’s going to work for the long term, but at the end of the day, for a price point of 449 us dollars. This is a lot of drone and if you want the fly more packet that i purchased myself and that i’ve demonstrated here, it’s going to run you at 595 usd so right under 600, but you are getting pretty good value in that upgrade.

You know most notably the additional batteries, but then also i mean invariably you’re going to have to replace some propellers along the way so having some backups of that and you know having the nice travel bag and charger all of those things are obviously very useful. So it’s pretty good value for money. If you want to spend that extra bit at the end of the day, i’m really delighted with it, i you know for for the kind of needs. I have the really only thing that i’m missing is the obstacle avoidance and and so i’m, just taking a little bit more cautious in some of the shots that i’m getting and making sure i’m leaving enough room for clearance as a part of them. But beyond that i mean there’s just a lot going on. The only thing that i don’t love relative to the early drones is that we’ve made so much progress as far as gps and assistance in flying, which is great don’t, get me wrong, but it also means that there are so many electronic nannies now at this point, That kind of limit how you fly where you fly and you know making you jump through a lot of hoops in terms of answering questions and in situations where it’s just overkill, i mean i’m, not doing any kind of risky behavior here, and so you know i Just find that it’s it’s a little bit intrusive in that regard, you know that’s part of connectivity.

I guess, but at the end of the day, i’m really delighted it’s a great addition, it’s, so portable so easy to bring along and it produces some pretty amazing footage. So well worth considering, if you’re in the market, for a compact, drone, i’m dustin abbott. If you look in the description down below there, are links there. If you want to explore further, would like to purchase one for yourself. Also link is to follow me on social media to become a patron or to sign up for my newsletter that comes out every thursday and, of course, if you haven’t already, please click that subscribe button right here on youtube.