In-Depth Overview DJI Mini 3 Professional

DJI Mini 3 Professional – Transfer Over Everybody – A Skilled Drone for Below $1,000

by Paul Rossi, DRONELIFE Contributor and Chief Operations Officer and Chief Pilot at 9 Ten Drones.

All costs are estimates as of time of publication and topic to vary.

Earlier this yr we noticed producers downsize their sUAS whereas additionally enhance efficiency capabilities by introducing “upgraded” variations of already out there fashions.

Proceed studying under, or hear:

In Could of 2022 DJI launched the Mini 3 Professional which began displaying up within the wild all through June and into July. The Mini 3 Professional with DJI RC is a large improve to the Mini 2 which had no impediment detection and required a cellphone or the costly DJI Good Controller to fly.

For therefore many people the primary drone they are going to ever fly is that this miniature “ship” that weighs lower than .55 kilos (Sure, this drone weighs simply over half a pound and I did name a drone a ship, shoutout to the nice Jon McBride). 28 years in the past I performed EA sports activities video games on my brothers model new Ps and 26 years years after releasing the PS1, Sony launched the ps 5 in 2020. DJI launched the Phantom in January 2013 and in a little bit over 9 years the corporate has reached its “Ps 5” second, with the discharge of the Mini 3 Professional.

For my part, when in comparison with Sony’s Ps gaming console, DJI has developed its drone know-how and merchandise at a price thrice quicker. Bringing this introduction again to the drone evaluation; in case your first flight is with the Mini 3 Professional, that’s like beginning your online game journey with a ps 5, you will have little perspective on the place it began. Regardless of which drone you started your flying with, you’ll definitely benefit from the expertise of flying the Mini 3 Professional.

Mini 3 Professional

The Mini 3 Professional is compact, but highly effective, requiring a small footprint for launch and restoration which is perfect for hobbyists and professionals performing work in environments with restricted area. All through this evaluation I might be diving into a few of the particulars that make the Mini 3 Professional, pound for pound, the very best prosumer drone at the moment out there for buy. DJI has taken the Mini 2 and made it considerably higher with the addition of impediment sensors, improved digital camera specs, a redesigned physique, prolonged flight time and integration with the DJI RC sensible distant.

Mini 3 Professional Battery Choices

DJI is once more elevating the bar, holding pilots within the air longer by engineering a drone that flies for over 40 minutes with the upgraded “Plus” battery, promoting as much as 47 minutes of flight time and 40 minutes of hover time, in no wind. Necessary to notice that the Mini 3 Professional is bought with an ordinary battery that gives roughly 32 minutes flight time. 

Chances are you’ll be asking your self this query proper now “How can a drone have two completely different flight occasions if the payload doesn’t change?”. The easy reply is the battery casing for each the “customary” and the plus is similar nonetheless the Li-ion cells they’re placing contained in the circumstances are completely different. The plus battery consists of cells which are bigger (heavier by 40.5 grams) which in flip present an elevated capability for prolonged flight time.

When put in for flight, the “plus” mannequin batteries will put your drone over 250 grams and out of doors the “Class 1” class which affords the pilot the choice to function over human beings and shifting autos in a transient nature, by no means hovering and/or loitering over an individuals over shifting autos (See 14 CFR 107.39 FAR for rules concerning operations over human beings). When flying the Mini 3 Professional to conduct “Class 1” operations at all times be certain that to have your “customary” battery and prop guards put in.

If max endurance is the purpose and the flight operations gained’t be carried out over human beings it would be best to have your “plus” battery put in to maintain you airborne longer. It’s actually thrilling to be speaking a couple of drone with “adjustable” battery choices which are tailor-made towards particular flight operations. The time period “max endurance” is one thing the FAA is testing distant pilots on throughout the written examination nonetheless it not often comes up in operational dialog since battery cost proportion has zero influence on the load of a battery.

Mini 3 Professional Clever Flight Battery “Commonplace”

– 80.5g weight (sub 249 gram drone weight when put in)

– 2453mAh capability

– 32 minutes flight time

– 70 minute recharge (30w USB-C)

Mini 3 Professional Clever Flight Battery Plus

– 121g weight (drone exceeds 250 grams when put in)

– 3850mAh capability

– 43 minutes flight time

– 110 minute recharge (30w USB-C)

After a number of check flights on the 9 Ten Drones coaching facility in Holly Springs, NC we averaged a max flight time simply over 42 minutes whereas flying and 37 minutes hovering in little to no wind circumstances with the Mini 3 Professional “Plus” battery. (Security Notice: In every of our check flights we flew the Mini 3 Professional battery down to five% or much less which we don’t advocate anybody do frequently.)

Presently, there aren’t many commercial-off-the-shelf drones that present flight occasions in extra of 40 minutes. Whether or not you might be utilizing the Mini 3 Professional for actual property pictures or sending it indoors to clear a construction you’ll most definitely respect the prolonged flight time it offers.

Extra batteries for the Mini 3 Professional will value $95 for the plus mannequin and $65 for the usual mannequin.

Mini 3 Professional Distant Choices

The Mini 3 Professional will be bought 3 ways; with the DJI RC, RC N1 or and not using a distant.

The DJI RC is the most recent distant controller to be launched by DJI which works with the Mini 3 Professional and the Mavic 3 drones. The DJI RC leverages the latest OccuSync 3.0 know-how that gives transmission ranges as much as 7.5 miles in keeping with DJI advertising and marketing. In testing we discovered the vary of the DJI RC paired with the Mini 3 Professional to be just below 1 mile whereas flying at 400 AGL in a suburban setting. We discovered the battery life to exceed 3 hours, a number of business initiatives, earlier than we determined to recharge the DJI RC battery which took simply over 90 minutes. The 700 nit display brightness on the DJI RC allowed us to see particulars simply even when holding the distant in direct daylight. The DJI RC is an outstanding distant controller that we extremely advocate buying together with the Mini 3 Professional.

The RC N1 requires the pilot to make use of their cellphone as a display as a way to leverage the drones FPV digital camera whereas additionally permitting for the seize of picture/video information. The N1 distant is ergonomic and appropriate for hobbyists pilots. Anybody trying to function commercially ought to think about buying the Mini 3 Professional with the DJI RC.

Perhaps you already personal a DJI Mavic 3, Air 2 or Air 2S which got here with the RC N1. On this case you can go forward and buy the Mini 3 Professional and not using a distant controller because the RC N1 can be utilized with a couple of drone at completely different occasions, by no means pairing to or controlling a couple of drone at a time. 

Mini 3 Professional Digital camera Specs

• 1/1.3” CMOS Picture Sensor
• Efficient Pixels: 48MP
• Mounted Aperture: f/1.7
• 4K HDR Video @ 30FPS
• 4k @ 60FPS
• 1080p @ 120FPS
• True Vertical Capturing
• Gimbal Tilt: -135* to 80*
• D-Cinelike Shade mode

DJI brings again the vertical picture and video seize possibility that we noticed within the authentic Mavic plane, with “true vertical taking pictures” permitting your digital content material to be immediately share worthy. Gone are the times of cropping and/or rotating your panorama video as a way to share it throughout the varied social platforms.

Flying the Mini 3 Professional

Each time I fly a brand new DJI plane or maintain a newly launched distant, I’m tempted to become involved with design/manufacturing however then I bear in mind how I don’t have a large enough bag of money to fund even the very best of concepts. Unboxing the Mini 3 Professional ignited that “Grasp Builder” hearth in a method no different drone has previously.

In just some years DJI has taken the “Mavic Mini” from hobbyist to skilled with just some enhancements to the plane and distant. The very first thing I did was fly the Mini 3 Professional straight at some obstacles to check the performance of the newly built-in impediment detection and avoidance system. Holy wow, I used to be impressed instantly, with the plane set to “bypass” mode it was effortlessly navigating tight areas and avoiding obstacles with ease. The spatial consciousness and avoidance offered by the six(6) visible sensors is second to none.

(Security Notice: The ahead impediment detection solely works at speeds of 23 MPH or much less, with the rearward impediment detection working at speeds lower than 18 MPH.)

The Mini 3 Professional detects and avoids obstacles in handbook flight utilizing its Superior Pilot Help Methods (APAS 4.0) know-how. Flying below the concrete bleachers was an incredible demonstration of how this automobile can be utilized to help in confined area asset inspections.

The reside feed introduced on the DJI RC is crisp. The colours are clear, daring and positive to make you consider you can be filming for the subsequent huge blockbuster film in Hollywood. The “sensible distant” for the Mini drone is a large improve and makes the flying expertise all of the extra gratifying. Much less fumbling with a cellphone means much less time organising and a zero p.c likelihood {that a} cellphone name interrupts your subsequent flight.

DJI has taken cheap to the skilled stage with the Mini 3 Professional. This very inexpensive drone is able to capturing each picture and video that can be utilized for advertising and marketing in any respect ranges in addition to assist decrease price range video productions. 9 Ten Drones is at the moment leveraging the Mini 3 Professional to offer business actual property companies and to assist the creation of our personal advertising and marketing/social media content material. Here’s a hyperlink to a video produced for a number one business actual property agency within the Sandhills, North Carolina area:

Clever Flight Modes

The Mini 3 Professional has numerous flight modes that can enable for clever automated flight making your job of capturing the scene and topic simpler than earlier than. These flight modes embody;

– MasterShots is a gaggle of automated flight maneuvers the Mini 3 Professional will carry out whereas additionally capturing video on the similar time. As soon as the flight maneuver is accomplished you can be left with a enjoyable cinematic video to share and combine into your initiatives. This sequence of flight modes is nice for folk simply studying how one can fly.

– FocusTrack goes to help you observe and comply with topics flawlessly with little or no consumer enter. The three choices for flight when piloting within the FocusTrack flight mode embody ActiveTrack 4.0, Highlight 2.0 and Level of Curiosity 3.0. Take a look at this video to see how the drone performs in FocusTrack:

– Hyperlapse will help you seize these lovely rolling clouds and shifting vehicles with a drama induced ‘excessive velocity” impact that beforehand required a excessive stage of piloting and video enhancing abilities. With very restricted enter you now get the right hyper lapse video straight from the Mini 3 Professional.

– Digital Zoom is offering skilled customers with the improved payload capabilities to take care of a protected standoff distance whereas nonetheless inspecting and capturing the asset or focal point.

Mapping & 3D Modeling

The images you seize with the Mini 3 Professional will be became excessive decision 2D maps and 3D fashions utilizing photogrammetry software program you at the moment use, nonetheless you will have to seize the pictures manually right now because the Mini 3 doesn’t combine with any present autonomous picture seize softwares. SkyeBrowse, DroneDeploy and/or Pix4D will almost definitely not be integrating the Mini 3 Professional into their software program.

The Mini 3 Professional will produce a excessive decision map and/or mannequin at an altitude at or under 200ft above floor stage(AGL) due to the 1/1.3” CMOS sensor. 9 Ten Drones did manually seize a sequence of photos which we processed right into a map and 3D mannequin.

It is very important be aware that the Mini 3 Professional digital camera has an digital (“rolling”) shutter, so when the CMOS sensor is turned “On”, the sensor scans line by line sequentially which can end in a rolling shutter distortion that will influence the standard of map/mannequin. My take from years of mapping with each mechanical and digital shutters, the influence is negligible except you might be mapping and modeling  for prime precision surveying functions.

Here’s a hyperlink to a 3D mannequin created utilizing images captured with the DJI Mini 3 Professional and processed with DroneDeploy by 9 Ten Drones – https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/wilson-county-nc-school-bus-dji-mini-3-pro-f0f06d58ccca4b8bb773fb49584845da

Mini 3 Professional Pricing Breakdown

Mini 3 Professional  – $759.00

• Mini 3 Plane
• Distant Controller N1
• Clever Flight Battery
• Battery Charger
• Spare Propeller Pair
• Charging/System Cables

Mini 3 Professional (DJI RC) – $909.00

• Mini 3 Plane
• Distant Controller DJI RC
• Clever Flight Battery
• Battery Charger
• Spare Propeller Pair
• Charging/System Cables

Mini 3 Professional (No RC) – $669.00

• Mini 3 Plane
• Clever Flight Battery
• Spare Propeller Pair
• Charging/System Cables

Mini 3 Professional Fly Extra Equipment Plus – $249.00

• Clever Flight Battery Plus x2
• Two-Approach Charging Hub
• Spare Propeller Pair x2
• Screws x12
• Shoulder Bag
• USB 3.0 Sort-C Knowledge Cable

Mini 3 Professional Fly Extra Equipment Plus – $189.00

• Clever Flight Battery x2
• Two-Approach Charging Hub
• Spare Propeller Pair x2
• Screws x12
• Shoulder Bag
• USB 3.0 Sort-C Knowledge Cable

DJI RC – $309.00

Mini 3 Professional Clever Flight Battery Plus – $95.00

Mini 3 Professional Clever Flight Battery – $65.00

Mini 3 Professional ND Filter Set (16/64256) – $55.00

Mini 3 Professional Abstract

Buy the Mini 3 Professional in case you are on the lookout for a leisure drone, so as to add aerial pictures to your actual property companies, to conduct room clearing for regulation enforcement functions, to examine infrastructure/development initiatives and a lot extra. At a price ticket below $1,500 you might be selecting up a completely loaded Mini 3 Professional drone with all of the extras that can make sure you present you a worthwhile return in your preliminary buy whenever you apply it appropriately. 

I extremely advocate selecting up the DJI RC Professional which comes with in-built display that forestalls you from having to fumble along with your cellphone which is required when flying with the N1 distant controller. Buy the fly extra equipment or extra batteries as a way to keep within the air longer, permitting you to seize extra of the household moments/recollections or present a superior business service to perspective purchasers. 

Should you began flying drones with the Phantom 1 or are simply selecting up the distant controller in the present day, I can assure you will see that the worth packed contained in the highly effective little DJI Mini 3 Professional. I’m excited to see how a lot additional the business will develop over the subsequent 8 years. The place do you suppose the usindustry could be within the yr 2030?

Learn extra about DJI:

Paul Rossi is the Chief Operations Officer and Chief Pilot at9 Ten Drones, a N. C.-based drone companies firm, coaching heart, and reseller.  Rossi can also be the Outreach Coordinator for the North Carolina Chapter of AUVSI.  A graduate of Embry Riddle Aeronautical College and the U.S. Military Aviation Logistics Faculty, Rossi is passionate in regards to the aviation business.  He holds each a personal pilot’s license for manned plane and a Half 107 Distant Pilot’s Certificates.  You may see extra movies and product info on the 9 Ten Drones YouTube channel.