I’ve always felt the DJI Mini series was too big a step down from its more premium drones, but the Mini 3 Pro changes that.
Every camera is a compromise, and drones are no different – but after spending hours with the tiny DJI Mini 3 Pro, I’m convinced that it’s good enough to finally replace my DJI Mavic 2 Pro. For a professional landscape photographer who likes to travel as light as possible, that’s a pretty big deal. If you missed DJI’s launch, the Mini 3 Pro is the closest thing in the drone world to premium compact cameras like Fujifilm X100V, which pack pro features into small form factors. It’s a palm-sized drone that fits neatly into the sub-250g category (which has some important knock-on effects), while offering features that have never been seen in the Mini series before. I sold my DJI Mavic 2 Pro, a much larger drone that weighs just under 1kg, last year in an anticipation of the release of the DJI Mavic 3. I’d been using the Mavic 2 Pro less and less, because of the burden of carrying it alongside my other photographic kit. I was also concerned about how the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) drone regulations coming into force on January 1 2024 might affect where I could fly it in the future. But the DJI Mini 3 Pro is the replacement I’ve been waiting for. The Mavic 3’s price, which starts at US$2,199 / £1,879 / AU$3,099, was just too hard to justify. And while I considered the Mavic Air 2S, which is an excellent drone in many ways, it just didn’t get me excited. In the Mini 3 Pro, though, I think that I’ve finally found my drone soulmate. One of the most attractive things about the Mini 3 Pro is that it’s a palm-sized drone that weighs only 249g. Extra batteries weigh just 121g and the new DJI RC controller comes in at 390g, so carrying this drone alongside other photographic kit is going to be far less back-bothering than carrying a Mavic 2 Pro or Mavic 3. To put this in some context, the Mini 3 Pro and Fly More Bundle with three batteries and an RC controller weighs just 881g. That’s enough battery power for over an hour of flying, and the kit still weighs less than a Mavic 3 without a controller or spare batteries. As I discovered on my trip to the Dinorwic Slate Quarry in Snowdonia (above), the Mini 3 Pro is very comfortable to carry around. But that doesn’t mean image quality or features have suffered. The new 1/1.3-inch 12.1MP sensor is capable of shooting 48MP raw files and JPEGs and offers superb high ISO noise handling with virtually no noise visible even at ISO 6400.
