As the departure for the Crimson Trail draws closer, I decided to make a major change in the setup of my photo and video gear. It has been updated with a DJI Mavic Pro, as it is pretty compact and light, packs small and shoots both 4K video and RAW photos. There’s only a little snag; I don’t know anything about drones, let alone about flying them. So I rode out yesterday with my friend Derek, and did some dronin’. I guess I should have read the manual beforehand, but it seemed really low on pics and instead full of tiny print. Either way, the flying part was pretty easy, except when the controller lost the connection with the aircraft. Luckily it returned back to the takeoff point and hovered there for a while until the RC controller reconnected.

There are several great reviews online about the Mavic Pro, along with endless debate about video and photo quality. I’d rather avoid that debate and sign off by saying, that the Mavic Pro is harsh on highlights, so it needs quite a bit of underexposing to get the image fairly acceptable, especially if you are shooting a white bike in full sunshine. Other than that, it seems like a nice addition to the video gear.