Review: DJI Mavic 3 Pro Cine

The “Pro” moniker gets thrown around a lot on gadgets that are, at best, built for hobbyists with some disposable income. Not so with the DJI Mavic 3 Pro Cine. The original Mavic 3 was already a fantastic drone, but the newest variation packs an entire film studio into a small, flying package (and a high price to match its power).

At $4,799, this drone is not cheap, but you can capture high-quality aerial shots! This is just not something that's really feasible without spending tons more.

The most stark change in the Pro Cine variant of the Mavic 3 is its triple-camera array. The primary camera has a 20-megapixel Four Thirds CMOS sensor, paired with a 24-mm equivalent lens that supports up to 12.8 stops of dynamic range. It’s capable of capturing footage at 5.1K-pixel resolution at up to 50 frames per second, or 4K at up to 120 fps, and the results look just as crisp as the footage out of the Mavic 3.

Photograph: DJI

Flanking it are two other camera modules. First, there’s a 166-mm equivalent lens over a 12-megapixel sensor. This is similar to the 162-mm equivalent lens that the base Mavic 3 uses, which our tester didn’t like as much. However, the added support for Apple ProRes recording meant I was able to coax much better results from my footage than before.

The third, brand-new camera module on this drone is a 70-mm-equivalent lens paired with a 48-megapixel sensor. In my testing, this was the most useful new addition, since it allows you to get a little more distance from your subjects, but the 3X optical zoom still allowed for closer shots.

The result is a veritable Swiss army knife of options for shooting with this drone. The Cine model also packs a built-in 1-TB SSD, and the kit I tested came with two spare batteries, which gave me a decent amount of breathing room while shooting. DJI claims about 43 minutes of flight time on a single battery, though in my experience it was a little less than that. The spare batteries still gave me plenty of flight time to get the shots I wanted.

Photograph: DJI

Operating a drone can be a special kind of nerve-wracking on a normal day, but it’s the kind of stress you don’t want when you’re trying to shoot footage for a big production. The less you have to focus on piloting the drone, the more you can focus on your subject.

This is why I’m so appreciative that the Mavic 3 Pro Cine is smarter than me when it comes to piloting itself. During one of my first test flights, I was using the drone in a public park with plenty of open field space, but there were patches of trees, people, and their dogs.

At one point, right after launching the drone off the ground, a nearby dog got excited to check out what could be its newest chew toy. As the dog came bounding across the field in a murderous rush, I briefly panicked and slammed a control stick in the wrong direction. What I thought would launch the drone higher into the sky, outside of the dog’s reach, sent it careening sideways toward some nearby trees instead.

Before I could even wrap my brain around the mistake I thought I made, the drone stopped itself from hitting the trees. It was like it bounced off an invisible, several-foot-wide bubble. As the dog got near, it lifted itself into the air—while avoiding trees—and I narrowly dodged “a dog ate my review unit" as a valid excuse.

OK, it wasn’t quite that dramatic. The situation was real, but I doubt the drone was ever in any real danger. Still, in those brief milliseconds where my dumb human brain struggled to get control over the drone, I was relieved that the obstacle detection system knew better than I did.

Photograph: DJI

One of my favorite features on this drone is one that’s technically on a couple of others, but really shines here: the Waypoint flight mode. With this system, you can set a series of positions you want the drone to fly between, and it can automatically execute that flight. Moreover, it can repeat the flight as many times as you need (at least as long as the batteries can last.)

This has been a feature on previous Mavic 3 models already, but the triple camera system turns it into a playground of cinematic options. I was able to set up paths around a subject—be it a person or a landscape—and experiment with different zoom or exposure levels to see what looks best. All without worrying about restaging the camera moves.

It felt a bit like I was able to delegate some of the work to someone else on a shoot. I could spend more time figuring out exactly how I wanted a shot to look, and then ask my robot director of photography to run the shot again. It’s not the same as having an actual human crew to work with, but for someone who often shoots on a shoestring budget, the flexibility to accomplish so many different variations of a shot with minimal extra work was a godsend.

That said, the Mavic 3 Pro Cine isn’t for those on a shoestring budget. The kit, which includes the drone, remote control, three batteries, and a carrying case, starts at $4,799. It’s not the kind of drone you buy to pick up as a hobby. However, for smaller studios looking to extend their capabilities into aerial footage, you get a ton of power for your money.