DJI Phantom 4 Pro Review

So yes, the Phantom 4 can use its optical sensors to avoid crashing into things when you’re piloting. But it can also use them to automatically do your bidding in the air. Yep, it’s not cheap, but DJI has made one of the smartest drones available with the Phantom 4.

The Phantom 4’s remote control and live feed is based on DJI Lightbridge technology, providing effective control range of up to 3.1mi in unobstructed areas that are free from interference. Its HD live feed gives you an exact view of your flight, perfect for composing shots. Another change involves an updated 3-axis gimbal that cradles the camera on both sides, replacing the single-sided cradle of the Phantom 3. Whether this enhances the stability of video footage or still photographs remains to be seen. It isn’t evident in footage I captured, though admittedly it would be hard to dramatically improve the already silky smooth stabilization the Phantom 3 is known for. Increase operational efficiency by gaining fundamental insights captured by the Phantom 4 RTK.

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Point-of-Interest and Way Points – these features allow users to select areas that the drone will fly towards in a certain order. The DJI Phantom 4 comes with an outer and inner box – the latter serves as a carrying case for the drone. The box also has enough space to carry two extra batteries and a tablet with a 7.9 inch screen. Firmware version 2.1 for the Nikon Z9 comes just three months after Nikon announced a major v2.0 update. In addition to a new High-Frequency Flicker Mode, Nikon has also improved AF tracking in various shooting modes. We’re just five days away from the first full-color scientific images from the James Webb Space Telescope being unveiled to the world.

I truly know of no drone in the $1500 – $2000 range that can best this machine. Indeed, I know of no other competing drone below $2000 with a full 1-inch camera sensor. It is a well built, dji drones well spec’d and easy to operate machine that produces near-pro level video and some solid still photos. We see why it is still being offered as the leader in the Phantom line of drones.

There was no problem generating the whole spectrum of outputs from any of the three point clouds. The accuracy and quality depended on the source data, meaning we got the highest-resolution orthophotos from the flight performed 40m above ground. No surprise there but the point of our test was to see how accurate and of what quality the results would be at different heights. How high one decides to fly should always depend on the specific needs of one’s project, expected accuracy and required level of details. When used on the DJI dji fly the Survey3 camera captures photos using its default interval timer. Since the lens field of view in the Survey3W model matches that of the original Phantom camera, planning your survey overlap is super easy.

Then you can try and bring the exposure back up a little in Lightroom. It’s worth remembering at this point that we are talking about images coming from a tiny camera housed dji mini 2 fly more combo beneath a quadcopter which is capable of hovering hundreds of metres above the ground. The sensor offers an ISO range from 100 to 1600 for stills and 3200 for video.

Onboard vision based obstacle sensors provide additional safety and give the Phantom the intelligence to see and avoid obstacles in its path. This Phantom 4 Pro+ V2.0 does not require you to link a smartphone or tablet to the remote controller to see where the drone is going and the videos it is recording. The 5.5-inch monitor is made specifically for the controller. It’s considerably brighter than a smartphone or tablet screen, making it easier to fly the quadcopter in bright daylight. The OcuSync transmission program can send video images live in high definition at distances up to 4.3 miles—a seriously long range. Imagery transmitted to the 5.5-inch screen is clear and detailed.

There are a few new advancements with the Pro V2 and we will highlight these throughout this post. I’ll be doing some overseas travel later this year, and I know I’ll kick myself if I don’t have a drone to explore a little and view my location from overhead. Thanks to the compactness of the Phantom drones, including one in my check-in luggage would be quite feasible. I know in my home town in Orlando I wouldn’t be able to fly a drone over the top of people on the beach, but in Sydney, the laws seem to be a bit more vague at the time of writing. Whilst no-fly zones are tightly regulated, I found that in Australia at least, areas for recreational drone flying were rather vague, with the laws constantly changing.