DJI Mavic 3 Pro

DJI's Mavic 3 Pro adds a third camera to the Mavic 3's two to create an even more versatile, high-end drone. Angela Nicholson picks up the controller

- Angela Nicholson

The DJI Mavic 3 Pro has all the features of the Mavic 3, but it has three cameras mounted via a mechanically stabilised gimbal, instead of two. As with the Mavic 3 and Mavic 3 Classic, the Mavic 3 Pro’s main camera was developed in tandem with Hasselblad and has a 20MP Four Thirds type sensor fronted by a 24mm equivalent lens. This is joined by a 48MP telephoto camera with an equivalent focal length of 70mm and a 1/1.3in type CMOS sensor, and a 12MP 166mm equivalent camera with a 1/2in type CMOS sensor.

While the main camera has a variable aperture and can be set in the range of f/2.8-f/11, the other two cameras have fixed apertures, f/2.8 with the 70mm and f/3.4 with 166mm camera. Fixed apertures are quite common in consumer drones, but they make a neutral-density filter essential for recording video.

Speaking of video, the Mavic 3 Pro’s main camera can shoot at a maximum resolution of 5.1K (5120x2700) at 24/25/30/ 48/50fps, in either MP4 or MOV (MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, HEVC/H.265) format, and at bit rates up to 200Mbps. Switching to either of the other cameras drops the maximum resolution to 4K (3840x2160) at up to 60fps and 160Mbps. The Hasselblad camera can also shoot DCI 4K (4096x2160) or 4K (3840x2160) footage at up to 120fps, and Full HD (1920x1080) at up to 200fps in slow-motion mode.

By default, all three of the cameras record 8-bit 4:2:0 (H.264/H.265) colour, but the main and 70mm cameras can also record in D-Log, D-Log M or HLG enabling, 10-bit 4:2:0 colour.