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DJI Air 2S Review: Has DJI Finally Created a Superior Successor to the Phantom 4 Pro??
DJI has released the “DJI Air 2S” as the latest drone in the Mavic series. It has the same size sensor and photo resolution as the Mavic 2 Pro and the Phantom 4 Pro with 4K video @ 60fps or 5.4K video @ 30fps. Has DJI finally released a travel-sized drone that can replace my 4-year-old Phantom 4 Pro???
Testing the image quality of the DJI Air 2S vs. the trusty old Phantom 4 Pro. Will the latest Mavic be my new go-to compact travel drone? Or should I clean the bug guts off the Phantom 4 Pro and keep using it for another year?
I have had a Phantom 4 Pro since February of 2017. It has been my go-to drone for real estate photography and video for a few years. But at some point I can’t help but wonder, “How long do these things last? Is DJI going to release a superior compact travel drone for me to upgrade to someday? Should I just fly this Phantom 4 Pro for years until a motor fails and it crashes in a field?”
Back when the Mavic 2 Pro came out in 2018 many people thought of that drone as the successor to the Phantom 4 Pro, but the Mavic 2 Pro could only do video at 4K @ 30fps, whereas the Phantom 4 Pro could do 4K @ 60fps. So the Mavic 2 Pro failed to be a totally superior successor, though it has been a popular model.
When the DJI Mavic Air 2 came out in 2020 with a 48-megapixel camera (better thought of as a 12MP quad bayer sensor) that could shoot 4K @ 60fps I had high hopes about that being my new compact travel drone, but knowing it had a smaller sensor than the Phantom 4 Pro I had my suspicions. Once I got ahold of one I pitted the Mavic Air 2 against the Phantom 4 Pro in a series of photo quality tests, and I generally preferred the image quality of the Phantom 4 Pro’s camera over the Mavic Air 2. So the Mavic Air 2 didn’t end up replacing my trusty old Phantom 4 Pro.
Now in April 2021 DJI has released the “DJI Air 2S” as the latest drone in the Mavic series. It has the same size sensor and photo resolution as the Mavic 2 Pro and the Phantom 4 Pro with 4K video @ 60fps or 5.4K video @ 30fps. Has DJI finally released a travel-sized drone that can replace my 4-year-old Phantom 4 Pro???
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Shortly after my DJI Air 2S arrived I took it along with my Phantom 4 Pro (P4P) to a couple locations to test out the cameras, because I enjoy meticulously analyzing photo quality (i.e. I’m a dork). The first location was a park. Here are some unedited photos looking straight down at about 393 feet AGL:
The first thing you may notice in the two photos above is that the DJI Air 2S appears to be zoomed out more than the Phantom 4 Pro, even though they are about the same altitude. This is expected because DJI lists the Air 2S as having a 22mm full-frame equivalent focal length, and lists the Phantom 4 Pro as having a 24mm full-frame equivalent focal length. The Mavic 2 Pro has a 28mm focal length. Obviously one focal length is not better than the other, it just depends on the situation.
The other thing I noticed but was NOT expecting is that with these unedited DNG(RAW) photos the Air 2S has better color and contrast than the Phantom 4 Pro right out of the camera. Chalk that up as a win for the DJI Air 2S!
Now let’s see if we can see a difference in sharpness when we zoom in on these photos.
When looking at these crops keep in mind that the DJI Air 2S camera and the Phantom 4 Pro are both about the same distance from the subject (the ground at the park park), but the Phantom is “zoomed in” to 24mm while the Air 2S is “zoomed out” to 22mm. This should be an advantage for the Phantom 4 Pro when comparing crops of the same sized area of the park. If you have two cameras with equal lens sharpness and sensor resolution both the same distance from the subject, but one is at 22mm and the other at 24mm, the camera at 24mm should capture more detail of the subject since it is zoomed in farther.
In the extreme crops of the lower left, middle, and lower right areas of the park photos, the DJI Air 2S crops are 513 x 341 and the Phantom 4 Pro crops are around 570 x 380 (one of them is 576 x 384) due to the variance in focal length between the two drones. If both cameras/lenses were equally sharp the Phantom 4 Pro should have no problem winning, because it is zoomed in farther and has about 23% more pixels covering each cropped comparison area.
With that in mind, can the Air 2S can still win?
Before we jump in I would just like to say it’s obvious that either drone can produce great photos for a variety of professional purposes and I am cropping these more than anyone should ever need to crop them for a real project. We are just going to be looking at the fine details with extreme closeups to see if there’s a noticeable difference.
Here is the first crop from the lower left corner of the main park images:
Surprisingly, despite the Air 2S crop being only (513x341) vs. the P4P crop being (576x384), there is actually more definition in the Air 2S crop. The branches over the white table are sharper and more defined and you can see the brick lines better.
Let’s take a look at an extreme closeup near the middle of the full images:
In this close up of the middle of the photos it’s hard to say which crop has more detail, which in itself is a win for the DJI Air 2S since it’s accomplishing a similar amount of detail with fewer pixels in the crop.
Now let’s take a look at another crop from the lower right corner of the full images:
In this crop you can see significant green and magenta fringing around the edges of the white crosswalk paint and along the edges of the cement in the (570x380) P4P crop, and the fringing is almost non-existent in the (513x341) Air 2S crop. You can also see more detail and less color fringing on the yellow/green crosswalk sign with the Air 2S. Adobe Lightroom was applying lens corrections to both images.
Just so I don’t base my entire test around one photo, let’s take a look at some photos in the city!
These photos were both taken from about the same altitude and location (though it looks like I may have been 5 or 10 feet higher with the DJI Air 2S), and you can again see the difference between the focal lengths of 22mm and 24mm. The DJI Air 2S had better color and contrast right out of the camera for the city scene as well:
Now let’s check out an extreme crop of the left side:
The biggest difference in these drones really shows up at the edges of photos, which is where many lenses show their weaknesses. The (513x341) Air 2S crop of the left side is much cleaner, sharper, and more defined than the (570x380) P4P crop. You can compare the building edges & windows in these crops to see how there’s fairly significant green/magenta fringing on the edge of the P4P lens that’s almost non-existent with the Air 2S.
One more crop from the right side:
There isn’t a ton of difference in this crop, but something that I noticed quickly is how it looks like both cameras ran into a bit of a moiré issue with the right side of that building where the lines were close together. I used a radial filter in Adobe Lightroom to correct the moiré, and here’s the updated comparison:
With the moiré not distracting from the side of the building it looks like the window lines where the moiré was are slightly more defined and less noisy in the (513x341) Air 2S crop than the (570x380) P4P crop. There also might be a little more color fringing and noise with the P4P, but other than that there’s not a huge difference.
I wanted to do one more test in a high dynamic range situation after sunset where the foreground was very dark. In order to take photos at the exact same time identical lighting in each shot I just set both drones on a table and took the photos at the exact same time. Here are the original unedited photos taken at ISO 100, f/2.8, 1/25th shutter speed:
Here are the same photos with highlights reduced to -79 and shadows cranked to +95 in Adobe Lightroom:
And here are crops of the center of each photo:
If you compare the lower part of the tree trunk in the middle, the pine branches, and tree leaves, you can see how much sharper the Air 2S is right in the center of this high dynamic range scene.
Conclusion
The only thing I miss while using the included DJI Air 2S remote and the DJI Fly app is the ability to change camera settings with the wheel on the remote. With the remotes included with the Inspire 2 or Phantom 4 Pro you can press the right wheel to cycle through camera settings and then turn the wheel to change a setting in the DJI Go app. With the DJI Air 2S remote you have to tap on the screen and drag the slider to change values like shutter speed, ISO, or white balance.
Other than minor differences in the remote & app, after comparing the photo capability of the DJI Air 2S with my trusty Phantom 4 Pro in a variety of situations it is clear the Air 2S has a much sharper camera/lens combination. The sharper lens combined with the highest video resolution of any compact drone from DJI (i.e. smaller than an Inspire) has made the DJI Air 2S my new favorite travel drone.
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An In-Depth Review of Canon's RF 600mm & 800mm f/11 IS STM Lenses
Canon raised a lot of eyebrows when they announced the extremely affordable RF 600mm & 800mm f/11 IS STM lenses. “An 800mm lens for $899??? But it’s f/11??? What’s going on here??” Canon has so far been unique in this sub-$1,000 venture, especially considering the 800mm lens. What are the real trade offs with these smaller & cheaper f/11 600mm and 800mm lenses?
Canon raised a lot of eyebrows when they announced the extremely affordable RF 600mm & 800mm f/11 IS STM lenses. “An 800mm lens for $899??? But it’s f/11??? What’s going on here??”
Canon has so far been unique in this sub-$1,000 venture, especially considering the 800mm lens. As far as I can tell from looking at the websites of Sony, Nikon, Panasonic, Sigma, Rokinon & Samyang, the only other major camera or lens manufacturer that actively produces an 800mm lens is Nikon, and it costs over $16,000. Canon’s 800mm f/5.6 lens costs around $13,000. So what are the real trade offs with these smaller & cheaper f/11 600mm and 800mm lenses?
I own both the 600mm and 800mm f/11 IS STM lenses and use them both, but this article looks primarily at the 800mm since it lets me test more extreme focal lengths.
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Can They Really Produce Sharp Images?
I wanted to see if these lenses are sharp, and I started with a very controlled environment that you probably wouldn’t be in whether you’re trying to have fun or make money. I mounted the 800mm f/11 on a tripod indoors, attached a wired remote trigger to my Canon EOS R5, and focused on some playing cards that were about 20 feet away. The distance of 20 feet is important, because 19.69ft is actually the minimum focusing distance for the 800mm f/11 (it’s 14.76ft for the 600mm). I got as close to the cards as I could while still being able to focus on the King’s face. I took one shot with the stabilizer on and one shot with the stabilizer off, both using Electronic 1st curtain shutter. The camera settings were ISO 100, 800mm, f/11, 2.5 seconds. Here are the results of those two shots:
When I looked at the first image on my computer screen (when the stabilizer was off) I had absolutely no complaints about image sharpness. In fact, I was impressed. No one should be complaining about the sharpness of this 800mm lens for the price! I can see more detail in the playing cards from 20 feet away that I would typically notice if I was holding the card in my hand.
The image with the stabilizer turned on showed a little bit of blur. I assumed this would happen because I could see it in the camera’s LCD before I took the shot… the image moved around ever so slightly and constantly, and it is clear that stabilizers in an 800mm lens are not designed for long tripod exposures. I have accidentally left the stabilizer on when using a Canon RF 15-35mm wide angle lenses on a tripod and had no detrimental effects on sharpness, but with these super-telephoto lenses the stabilizer is definitely designed for faster shutter speeds during hand-held shooting.
Here are cropped versions of the above photos with the stabilizer on and off:
You can see in the above cropped images that when the stabilizer is off it is sharp enough to see the tiny fibers on the top edge of the card and the texture of the card itself. But when the stabilizer is on, it is slightly blurry.
Call me crazy, but I wanted to see if the image was still sharp if I threw a Canon Extender RF 2x on the 800mm lens. Since I was already stuck at f/11 with the lens, adding a 2x Extender will cause me to be stuck at f/22! I did an 8 second exposure instead of a 2.5 second exposure. I also moved back about 10 feet in order to keep a few different cards in the frame. Here is the shot from about 30 feet away with a 2x Extender, both uncropped and cropped:
Once again I was impressed! Even at when using a 2x Extender to achieve 1600mm, the image was sharper than I expected. From 30 feet away I can see the tiny fibers on the top edge of the cards, the texture of the cards, and the texture of the fake plant leaf behind the cards.
Thumbs up for Canon’s glass quality & sharpness, for both the lens and extender!
How Good are those Stabilizers? Hand-Holding Shots for Stationary Objects
One of the biggest challenges with 600mm or 800mm lenses is camera shake. The tiniest movement or vibration can cause your image to turn out blurry. Even the shutter or mirror in your camera can cause the image to be blurry, which is why I used 1st curtain electronic shutter for the longer tripod shots and electronic shutter mode for shots quicker than 0.5 seconds. Very fast shutter speeds and lens stabilizers can overcome vibration from a camera’s mirror or shutter, but since I am trying to specifically test the stabilizers in these lenses at different shutter speeds I wanted to eliminate that potential cause of vibrations.
When you are hand-holding such a long lens for the first time, you might be surprised how hard it is to keep it still! The longer the lens, the more the subject will appear to be jumping around. This is why there is a “rule” about keeping your shutter speed about twice as fast as your focal length when you are shooting with your camera in your hands rather than a tripod. For example, if your lens is 50mm you’d want to use shutter speeds at least as fast as 1/100th of a second. If your lens is 15mm, you should only need a shutter speed of 1/30th sec. Does this rule still apply at 800mm? Let’s find out!
For the next test I found a couple of frogs playing a game, and payed them $20 to sit still for a few minutes (just kidding). I took at least 10 shots at each shutter speed with the stabilizer on and off. I used autofocus to focus on the left frog’s eye before each set of shots. Even though I was stuck at f/11 the background is blurred nicely, due to the fact that I was only about 20 feet away at 800mm. I adjusted exposures to make all the images somewhat similar, because in some shots I had slowed down the shutter speed without being able to change the aperture or lower the ISO further. I also had to move the frogs into the shade once I was testing slower shutter speeds.
For each set of photos, I had the Canon EOS R5 set to continuous shooting with the electronic shutter, which means it was firing at 20 shots per second. I just held down the shutter button until I got at least 10 photos. One thing to note on these non-stabilized shots is how much the photos jump around between shots, despite the photos only being 1/20th of a second apart! It’s a good indication of how hard it is to hold an 800mm lens steady.
My first test set was shot at 800mm, ISO 1000, f/11, 1/1600th sec, stabilizer off. When I looked at the 1/1600th sec shots with no stabilizer, it looks like the “rule” of using a shutter speed twice as fast as your focal length generally held up. I had 17 photos at this shutter speed and they all looked nice and sharp.
Now let’s see how a 1/800th sec. shutter speed did at 800mm since that “breaks the rule:”
Initially when looking at the 1/800th sec. shots on the computer I thought I “perceived” motion blur, but when I zoomed in I couldn’t necessarily prove it. So it seems like 1/800th of a sec. still produces usable images at 800mm, or have such a minor loss of sharpness that most people wouldn’t notice it.
At shutter speeds of 1/200th and 1/400th of a second it is hard to see the motion blur when looking at the whole images, but most of the images lose sharpness at these slower speeds. Here are four of the images at 1/200th:
Here are a couple crops to show the blur up close. One of these shots at 1/200th is fairly sharp, and the other shows a bit of blur:
At 1/100th of a second I took 13 shots with the stabilizer off, and only 1 lucky photo out of 13 was sharp. Once I got down to 1/50th of a second all 12 images I took had noticeable motion blur, and most of the photos were basically unusable:
To summarize the results of the non-stabilized test shots at 800mm:
1/1600th of a second produced all sharp images
1/800th of a second produced mostly sharp images, maybe a little blur creeping in on some
1/400th of a second produced a little motion blur on most images
1/200th of a second produced more motion blur than 1/400th, but still had a couple usable images
1/100th of a second produced 12 blurry images, but I had 1 lucky sharp one in there.
1/50th of a second produced 100% blurry images
So ultimately, the shutter speed that is double your focal length would be the safe choice if you were only taking one photo of a stationary object with the stabilizer off. If you take 20 shots per second like I did in this test, you could get away with lower shutter speeds than the rule suggests if your subject isn’t moving at all and maybe get a couple lucky sharp ones in there. =)
Now let’s see how far we can push shutter speeds with the stabilizer enabled. I am doing these tests with a Canon EOS R5, which has in-body image stabilization. This means if you were to put the same lens on an EOS R which does not have in-body image stabilization, you might not want to push the shutter speeds as low.
Let’s continue with shutter speeds of 1/50th of a second, but this time with image stabilization enabled:
When looking through these 1/50th sec. shots on my computer the one that had the most blur was the first image, captured right after I pushed the shutter button. I could have had a steadier first image if I had used the camera’s 2 second timer, and if I was trying to take a steady single shot that’s definitely what I would do. But generally speaking the stabilizer allowed me to shoot at 1/50th of a second. Also notice how the composition doesn’t jump around much at all! The stabilizer is making up for my slight hand movements that were clearly present in the non-stabilized galleries earlier on. Taking shots with the stabilizer on at 1/100th resulted in all sharp images as well, including the first shot as I was pushing the shutter button.
I ended up taking 12 images in less than a second with a shutter speed of 1/25th, and the photos ranged from being sharp to having a minor amount of blur. Here is a crop of a couple photos at 1/25th from one of the sharper photos and one of the blurriest photos:
So using 1/25th sec. shutter speed for stationary subjects is fair game with this lens, especially when using continuous shooting (aka burst shooting) drive modes and an electronic shutter. As quick as the R5 shoots photos you will probably end up with a couple sharp photos in less than 1 second of shooting.
My test results at 1/13th sec. brings me to the end of our shutter speed stabilization tests, because all of the photos had a little motion blur. The amount of blur was very consistent at 1/13th, and the photos weren’t necessarily unusable but they definitely weren’t perfectly sharp.
To summarize the stabilizer tests with the Canon RF 800mm f/11 IS STM Lens:
Most or all photos will be sharp when shooting at 1/50th of a second or faster when the stabilizer is on and your subject is still (no animals or people)
You can get away with shooting stationary subjects at 1/25th of a second if you are burst/continuous shooting (hit or miss sharpness)
1/13th second exposures and slower will probably have minor motion blur in all images
You would probably never want or need to be at ISO 100 with a 600mm or 800mm lens like I was in these tests, because most subjects you photograph are going to be moving so you’ll want very fast shutter speeds. Even flowers move in the wind. If you are using these lenses you will probably be using higher ISO’s because subjects move across the frame quickly at super-telephoto focal lengths. The stabilizers are great, but they don’t stabilize the motion of your subject… they only reduce the effect of movement created by your hands holding the camera.
One Interesting Scenario where the RF 600mm and RF 800mm f/11 Lenses Differ Significantly vs. the Canon RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1L IS USM
One interesting thing I’ve discovered with these lenses is the way they handle bright light sources in low-light scenes. To illustrate the issue, I took the same shot with the Canon RF 800mm f/11 lens and the Canon RF 100-500 f/4.5-7.1L Lens with an RF 2x Extender attached to the 100-500 at a lighthouse at night. Both shots were taken back to back with the same camera with a tripod in the same location with the same white balance settings:
Since the RF 800mm f/11 has no aperture blades it renders the glow from lightbulbs along the catwalk as round circles of light, whereas the RF 100-500 f/4.5-7.1L captures the lights as stars with 18 points since that lens has 9 aperture blades. Canon’s user manual for the RF 600mm & 800mm states:
“ … Color flare might appear around the light source depending on shooting conditions…” and “For scenes where a light source is inside the screen, colored flare may occasionally appear as a halo of light around the light source.”
Most photographers will probably prefer the look of lenses with aperture blades when rendering light bulbs in night scenes over bladeless Diffractive Optics lenses like the RF 600mm and 800mm. But most people will not be using these lenses at night, so that shouldn’t be a deal breaker.
Sample Gallery - Photographing Live Animals at 1600mm
For the live animal sample gallery I wanted to take things to the extreme and see what kind of ISO’s and shutter speeds I would be using if I was hand-holding 1600mm, so I attached the Canon RF 2x Extender to the RF 800mm f/11 and took my Canon EOS R5 camera to the zoo. I found the easiest way to walk around photographing animals was to simply put the ISO on Auto with a range of up to 12,800 and control shutter speed as desired. If the camera got tricked by the lighting situation I adjusted settings as needed. I used Animal Eye Autofocus the whole time, which usually made focusing a breeze.
Here is the sample gallery with settings embedded in the photos. None of these photos are cropped at all:
Since this was my first time walking around shooting live animals handheld at 1600mm & f/22 I was slightly concerned about using ISO’s ranging from 3200 to 12,800. I assumed that the noise would be distracting enough to make the photos unusable, but I was impressed with how well the Canon EOS R5 handled it. I had the noise reduction slider in Adobe Lightroom typically between 25 and 40, and that seemed to be enough to make the noise acceptable at these high ISO’s. The combination of high ISO’s and a little of Adobe’s noise reduction allowed me to maintain fast shutter speeds for motion-stopping photos even if the animal was moving.
Initially I didn’t consider trying to photograph animals if there was a chain link fence between me and the animal, but then I tried with the mountain lion and found that the chainlink fence was so out of focus that it didn’t really show up in the image (though it may have impacted sharpness slightly). I also tried it with the tiger and was again fascinated at how the fence was so out of focus it didn’t appear to block the tiger.
These lenses will be a lot of fun for people who want to get into wildlife photography for less than $900, especially if you have a Canon EOS R5, EOS R6 or newer. I imagine this experiment would have been a little more challenging with the Canon EOS R or RP, as those cameras have older sensors and don’t have Animal Eye AF.
Keep in mind I was photographing animals in broad daylight on a beautiful, sunny day. If it was darker outside I would expect autofocus to be slower and less accurate at f/22, and I would have to make some sacrifices with ISO or shutter speed with increased risk of noise or motion blur. For that reason I would imagine it could be difficult to shoot wildlife in the woods with these lenses, but that is an experiment for another day!
Conclusion
Pros of Canon’s 600mm & 800mm f/11 IS Lenses
Glass is surprisingly sharp considering the price & focal length
Stabilizers allow for hand-held shooting
Extremely affordable
Great for learning the challenges of super-telephoto photography
Lots of fun for bird & wildlife enthusiasts who don’t want to drop $13,000+ on a lens
You can add an RF extender for extreme telephoto focal lengths
Autofocus works great in the bright daylight
Cons of Canon’s 600mm & 800mm f/11 IS Lenses
You’re stuck at f/11 (can’t go lower or higher)
Diffractive optics with no aperture blades means lightbulbs at night could flare and won’t have pointy stars like people may prefer
No lens hood or case included
No rotation collar for using camera in vertical position on a tripod (you’d have to put some type of L-bracket on it)
No weather sealing like the higher-end Canon “L” lenses (don’t use outside if there’s a possibility of precipitation)
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