New angles
I have dabbled with drones in the past, with little success. My first drone, an original Mavic barely lasted a month in my bag before i sold it on. My second venture was a Mini 2 but the camera on it was poor in my opinion and I sold it to fund an Air 2s. This had a really good camera on it but on its maiden flight it ran out of battery returning to home and crashed into a ladys garden near Glastonbury Tor and took me over two hours to find! After this incident I was just too anxious to fly it and so it also was sold on. So, my early venture into aerial photography had not gone well!
However, I kepy a toe into the genre, watching videos on YT and keeping up with the latest drone releases from DJI. When I saw the Mini 3 pro released my interest was piqued again. I like the minis because they have far less paperwork involved to fly them and because of the light weight are easy to carry around in my camera bag. The mini 3 had much larger snesor than the Mini 2 and the F1.7 aperture lens meant it was excellent for low light photography and filming too. I ummed and ahhhed for quite a while but eventually took the plunge and invested in one.
Once I had it set up to my liking I took it out for its first flights and have to say really enjoyed it. The mini series are a joy to fly, with good batteries allowing for average flight times of around 30 minutes. You can launch and land from the hand with a little practice and they are nippy enough to get to locations quickly and quietly.
First flight
So, a few flights in and I had a week off so decided to head down to Bournmouth to photograph the piers on the beach. I arrived just before sunrise and had the beach mostly to myself apart from some metal detectorists scouring the beach for lost items. I set up and launched the drone and used up one battery getting various shots of the main pier. I also spotted an early morning paddle boarder who was a good subject matter for me.
paddle boarder
The pier
I decided to head the drone over to the other pier and managed to grab an image of it which I wont share as its pretty boring! However on the way back I was filming a b-roll piece for a future video when my drone was attacked by a Peregrine Falcon! To be fair the drone held up well and after tumbling over a couple of times managed to right itself and stabilise. The Peregrine on the other hand was wounded, blood up the side of my drone when i got it back proof of this. I was glad I got my dorne back but aghast that I had wounded one of my favourite birds of prey! I hope it recovers is all I will say.
So, hopefully that will be the only drama I have with this drone. I had another session with it on a trip to visit my Dad in Wales and the drone flew well and no obvious side effects from the attack. I had to replace some of the propellors and a word of warning to other users…….the supplied DJI screwdriver is hopeless! From what I have discovered the prop screws have some form of loctite on them to keep them secure making them a bugger to get undone and the DJI screwdriver is pretty much useless for this task. However I had some fine drivers at home and one of those was capapble of getting the job done.
In conclusion, I am really happy with this drone. It takes some great photos, is packed full of useful features, such as hyperlapse and various other filming tricks. It also is capable of taking 48mp images using some clever tech which I find to be full of detail and easy to edit. I look forward to sharing more images with you in the future!
A disused reservoir just above Cwmbran