Drone diaries: the 2018 DJI Mavic 2 Pro review

I’ve been flying the Mavic 2 Pro (Hasselblad version, of course) for nearly two months now – both for color/tonality tuning and flight testing. Yesterday, DJI announced two versions in an update to the highly successful original Mavic (which is what I’d been flying up to this point). The Mavic 2 Pro carries a 1″ sensor camera, 28mm-e f2.8 lens, and Hasselblad imaging pipeline; that camera module is designated as a Hasselblad L1D-20c. The second bird is a Mavic 2 Zoom, which carries a 2x 24-48mm-e zoom on a 1/2.3″ sensor. Everything across the board is significantly improved – we’ll go into the details after the jump. In short: it’s a Phantom 4 Pro in a Mavic’s clothes.

Disclosure notes: I work for Hasselblad/DJI, I was involved with the development of the Mavic 2 Pro, and this report was made on the basis of my experience with prototypes at various stages of development. Small image thumbnails are clickable for larger versions, and there are full sized samples where noted.

Small image thumbnails are clickable for larger versions.

Let’s start with the aircraft side: the battery is now quite a bit larger, at 59.3 WH against the original Mavic’s 43.6 WH. Together with the new props, you get about five minutes more flight time in practice – for the way I typically use them, 20min on the Mavic has now become 25min on the Mavic 2. It’s also a bit faster; I’ve seen as much as 78km/h on the GPS in still air (officially, 72km/h max in Sport mode). It has collision avoidance in every direction with no fewer than eight cameras that are solely for navigation and stereo mapping of the environment to avoid obstacles, including backwards. As a result, it can now detect glass and won’t crash into it like the previous Mavic. This is in addition to radar, and landing lights for night flights (both so the cameras work, and so you can recover the aircraft more easily; and you will want to fly at night once you see what the 1″ camera can do). In practice, if you’ve flown a Mavic – then you will have no problems flying the Mavic 2. It’s a bit more stable, a bit faster, and a bit more precise thanks to the extra positioning cameras and next generation navigational components, but it should be familiar to existing pilots.

Not an insignificantly larger gimbal and camera…think of it as relative medium format.

Physically, it’s not much larger than the original and occupies the same effective packing volume. Oddly, the biggest impact on packing volume will be the slightly larger size of additional batteries (sadly, connectors, chargers and other accessories are not compatible between the two versions) and the controller. Whilst the controller might look the same as the old one, the sticks can now be unscrewed and stowed inside the folding arms so it takes on a flat profile. No more damaged sticks! There are also two other minor but important changes – the camera button now has a half press to focus, freeing up another button for custom assignments, and the control wheel on the right side is now a sprung toggle (as the controller is shared with the Mavic 2 Zoom).

On to the more important stuff – the camera. I have not had a chance to use the Zoom version yet, so my comments are confined to the 1″ Pro, and biased by my involvement in development. First question is likely to be: “is this a real Hasselblad?” – I think the answer is yes, though a lot more complicated now that DJI and Hasselblad are integrated. The imaging pipeline is definitely Hasselblad, as is the color and tonal response tuning. We’ve never made our own sensors, so use of a 1″ 20MP Sony sensor is very much normal. That sensor is mated to a matched 28mm-equivalent lens with variable f2.8-11 aperture (for light and thus shutter speed control, not DOF) that resolves very well right into the corners, at all apertures. The lens (and gimbals) are not interchangeable, but there is a bayonet fitting on the front of the 1″ version that can take future accessories (filters etc). Given that the entirety of the camera hardware has been packed into a 3cm cube: this is really, really impressive. Camera housing and gimbal are both magnesium alloy for strength and heat dissipation.

On the video side, which I aim to cover in more detail at some point in future (though this is likely to be covered better by others who have more video expertise than I) – we now have UHD at 24/25/30P, 100mbps bitrate, 10 bit Dlog profiles, ISO 100-6400, and more frame rates at lower resolutions – up to 120fps in 1080P. You also have the option to use the full sensor width or 1:1 pixel mapping (slight crop factor, from 5472px width down to 3840). There are a whole host of additional computational-driven modes including reverse dolly (new) and the usual flight tracking, gesture recognition etc. from its predecessors. I have used this on a couple of client productions and found that rolling shutter seems to be lower than on the previous Mavic, which is a welcome improvement. Noise levels are also (as expected) much lower due to the larger sensor; I’ve done a couple of test runs at night with the usual street illumination at ground level and found the footage to be very usable with some grading and light noise reduction. This would have been completely out of envelope for the previous Mavic.

The same is true for stills: whilst the auto ISO range is a little lower – 100-3200 – there’s a boost mode to 12800. The question now is almost this: why use the higher ISOs when tripod mode is so stable? I’ve had successful long exposures up to 2s if wind is low enough, enabling use of ISO 100 or ISO 200. In JPEG mode, we gain quite a few neat tricks: stacking for lower noise or higher dynamic range; stitching using the gimbal for higher resolution (and on the Zoom, a super resolution mode through overlay of multiple captures from the same location). It’s not going to replace a full size Hasselblad in a helicopter, but I can definitely see it having its uses. It will also of course shoot raw in DNG format, but none of the computational stuff is available (though it will save the original files from a pano). Having been involved in discussions with the program head at a very early stage in development, it’s great to see some of these ideas make it to production.

There’s only one catch that I can see, and it’s a physical one: in order to maintain gimbal size, aircraft size and aerodynamic performance – there isn’t enough clearance for the camera to rotate 90deg into portrait mode, which is something of use to still photographers only (and only sometimes, and possibly only I’ll miss it). You do however have a lot more motion range on the gimbal – it is positioned further forwards so you can now look up, though beware seeing your own rotor disks. It’s probably more useful for video though – I can see a lot of shots where you’d want to approach something and fly over it but not see the ground (e.g. buildings with unfinished roofs), and for that you need sufficient gimbal-up angle.

At base ISO, we have a solid 11.5-12 stops of usable DR; a bit more if you are careful with exposure and post processing. This is a noticeable improvement over the original Mavic, and given the way highlight rolloff has been tuned, quite close to what M4/3 delivers in practice. The same is true for acuity: the sensor-lens package has been optimised for longer distances, full open but modest apertures and one (obviously) specific focal length, without flange distance restrictions. Such design parameters actually make it possible to design very high resolution optics in a compact package. (Aside from the Mavic 2 Pro, the Ricoh GR springs to mind as a good example of this.) Basically: use the lens as you need, and short of f8 and f11 where diffraction start to be visible, you won’t find if soft anywhere. It does deliver a ‘clean’ modern rendition (actually quite similar in micro contrast and overall contrast to the X1D’s lenses) rather than anything particularly atmospheric, but that of course allows you maximum flexibility in post.

Given my bias, the conclusion is expected: yes, the pro version is not insignificant money at just under $1500, but you are basically getting a shrunken and improved Phantom 4 Pro. If I didn’t already have one, I’d get one on the basis of still image quality alone: whilst the previous Mavic delivered really surprising results from a sensor that small, and results were printable to A3 or so, the new one has easily double the output potential (perhaps triple if you consider increased acuity at the individual pixel level, and a lower overall noise floor). I wish I’d had this when I was in Iceland – a Phantom 4 wasn’t really an option due to the size of the thing, and the rest of the cameras we were carrying for both stills and production. In any case, don’t take my word for it – size samples are available by clicking the thumbnails below, and I’ll have additional images up in a day or so. MT

The Mavic 2 Pro is available now at B&H or direct from DJI. The Mavic 2 Zoom is also available at B&H or direct from DJI.

Full size samples, for personal use only:

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More info on DJI aircraft can be found here.

More info on Hasselblad cameras and lenses can be found here.

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