DJI Mini 3 Pro | Still The BEST Budget Drone?

So the DJI Mini 3 Pro is officially one year old. I've taken this drone all over the world, filmed a ton of different locations with it, just honestly spent a bunch of time using it. And in this video, I'm gonna be answering the question of whether or not this drone is still the best mini drone on the market. ♪♪♪ Like I said, I got this drone about a year ago and I've been constantly impressed. But there's also a few not so great things about the drone that I've kind of discovered over the past year. In this video, I'm gonna be covering a bunch of the good things about it, the bad things about it, and the overall goal of this video is to just let you know whether or not you should buy it. To start off, let's talk about the things that I love about this drone. But before we get into that, if you guys could do me a huge favor and obliterate the like button, it honestly does a ton for the channel. And if you hit the like button, I will put a photo of a really cute baby lion at the end of this video. Now back to it. The first thing I'm gonna talk about is honestly probably my absolute favorite thing about this drone, and it's just how easy it is to bring around everywhere. This thing is just so small, and even with the little carrying case, you have the controller, batteries, and the drone in this tiny little package. Before I had this, my main drone that I was traveling around with was my Mavic 3. And after I got this drone, I used it for about three weeks and I decided to sell my Mavic 3 because I just wasn't using it at all. Now, that being said, most of my commercial drone work is all FPV. So I wasn't using my non-FPV drone as anything more than just kind of like for social media, for fun. It wasn't like I was going on super high budget production jobs with this drone. And for a while, just because it's big and kind of bulky and takes up a bunch of space, I just wasn't bringing my Mavic 3 really anywhere with me. Sure, it had a much better picture than the Mini, but I wasn't bringing it. So therefore like the shots that I would get from the Mini are better than the Mavic 3 because the shots from the Mavic 3 just didn't exist at all. And as soon as I got the Mini, I just wanted to fly it all the time. So I did. Back in February, I went on a motorcycle trip from LA down to the Guatemala border through Mexico. And because space was so limited, like we literally had to pack everything we needed to survive on our motorcycles. Space was super limited. So I probably wouldn't have brought the Mavic 3, but the Mini is such an easy decision just because it's so small. This brings me to my next point in the video, which is actually the video quality. So obviously this drone isn't gonna come close to something like the Mavic 3. This is the Mavic Mini and this is the Mavic 3. So comparatively, this thing is an absolute tank. But for what it is and the size of the drone, it's really amazing quality. This thing shoots 4K 30, 2.7K 60, and even 1080, 120. And the colors in good lighting situations are actually really solid. That being said, if you shoot like midday where the lighting is kind of poor, the Mini does fall apart a little bit. But overall, I've gotten some amazing images out of this drone, which with color grading and just making it look nice, you honestly couldn't tell that it was this drone or a Mavic 3 if you were watching it on social media. Another massive advantage to this drone is that because it's under 250 grams, you can fly it in locations where you literally just can't legally fly the Mavic 3. Places like over crowds of people or roads, you're technically not supposed to be flying over that with bigger drones, but with sub 250 gram drones, you can in a lot of places. On top of that, it is ridiculously quiet. Just because these props are so small and narrow and thin, as soon as you're like 20, 30 feet away from yourself, it kind of just disappears. You don't hear it at all anymore. Last week, we were doing a shoot at a pool for a hotel that we work with, and I was flying it kind of over the pool, getting a shot of our friends in the pool, and there was a bunch of people kind of sleeping around. And normally I would be really worried about flying a drone like just to upset all the people that are trying to take a nap, but I just walked like 20 feet away, launched the drone, flew it back over the pool, and sitting at the pool, you literally didn't even know it was there, and it was only like probably 30 to 40 feet up. So it's much less intrusive for situations like that. Next up is the vertical shooting, which I've used a ton this past year. It's wild how popular vertical video is at this time in our world. A lot of the client work that I've done the past year actually called for vertical video because it was just for social media videos. So to be able to have this drone, to bring it out, just be able to flip the camera just like that super easily was really helpful. Even if I was shooting on the Mavic 3, you'd get a really wide image. And when I need to crop in for social media, it'll crop in like most of the data out. So I don't even think you'd be getting a quality increase if you shot a lot of vertical stuff on the Mavic 3. Here's a few other quick things that I wanted to mention before we hop into the negatives. And one of the things I really love is this charging case. This thing is freaking awesome. Obviously one other battery goes here, but it's just so small, holds on to all your batteries. You can charge it via USB-C, and it's actually a power bank. And I cannot tell you how many times this kind of saved my ass when I forgot to charge the controller or something and didn't have a power bank with me, but I had this, so I just plugged it into here and crisis was averted. Next thing I want to talk about is the pro controller. This is the first time I've had a DJI controller with the screen built in. And I kind of didn't think I would like it that much, but I absolutely love this thing. It's just like one less thing to worry about when you're flying is just dealing with your phone and all the cords and everything. And then lastly, this thing is incredibly durable. Because it's so light, crashes just don't affect it as much. So especially for beginners where you're probably gonna crash, this is a great pick. There was one situation last fall when we were shooting the fall colors where I accidentally just flew it into a tree and it fell from like 30 feet in the air, which usually I would be like super freaked out about and I would think for sure a heavier drone would break, but I ran over there and the thing literally just like bounced off the ground and was totally fine. Next, let's finally hop into the downsides of this drone. Because as they say, what goes up must come down. Except for Elon's Tesla that he launched up to space, maybe. I think most things that go up must come down. That was a horrible analogy. I'm sorry. Before I hop into what I don't like about this drone, I wanna take a quick second to talk to everyone on here that's planning on making videos with your drone. I'm sure there's some people buying this just for photography, but if you like making videos, this is for you. Because the gear that you use to shoot videos on is definitely a super important part of the equation. But the other half of things that's equally as important is actually editing and creating your videos. The sponsor of this video today is basically a platform that will allow you to turbocharge the entire edit process and that is Artlist. I've talked about Artlist a bunch in the past and the reason being is because it's something that I actually use in my workflow every single day. And what it is is basically a massive library of resources for filmmakers and videographers. They have everything from copyright free music to sound effects to stock footage, templates, motion graphics, plugins, and even their own editing software. The music that you're actually hearing in this video is actually from Artlist as well as a lot of the sound effects. They have a ton of different plans depending on what you specifically need. Or you can bundle it all together in one big plan they call Artlist Max. They even have specific plans for just social media usage or literally unlimited use for anything else. Like I said, the gear that you use to shoot the videos on is only half the equation and Artlist has you covered for the entire rest of it. So if you think it's something that can help you with your videos, go ahead and start the free trial. You get two free months if you use the link down below and just see if it's something that will help your workflow. And guys, sponsors like Artlist are how I'm able to make videos like this. So it would mean the world to me if you just signed up with the link down below and just tried it out, see if you liked it. Thank you again, Artlist for sponsoring this video. Now let's get back to what I freaking hate about this drone. Maybe just slightly dislike. Let's get back to it. The first downside that I wanna talk about which is also somewhat of a positive is the video quality. With a smaller drone comes a smaller sensor and with that you get a loss of image quality. Like I said, I'm incredibly impressed by this drone considering its size, but if I was doing more high-end commercial productions I'd use something like a Mavic 3 or even a DJI Air 2S or a Mavic 2 or something like that. But for YouTube videos, personal videos, social media videos, the Mini does the trick. The Mavic 3 has a variable aperture but this drone is locked at F1.7 which is pretty decent if you're shooting at night. But if you're shooting in bright daylight you're definitely gonna wanna get some ND filters to kind of bring that exposure down. I use Freewell filters and I'll link those down below but there's a few good companies that make them. Another thing that makes it kind of tough with this drone in some situations to be honest is how it handles the wind. Because it's light it's obviously gonna get blown around a ton when there's high wind situations. And sometimes that can make the difference of whether you can get a shot or not. Several times the fact that this thing didn't perform super well in the wind it actually made it completely impossible for me to get specific shots that I needed to get for clients. For example, earlier this year I was trying to get a top-down shot of a cove by a hotel we were shooting for. Shout out Turtle Bay. But I was basically trying to get this shot of my girlfriend snorkeling and I just wanted to raise up above the beach. But because the wind was so gnarly it kept tilting. So it would go up and it would be smooth but then all of a sudden the camera angle would just kind of go like this just because the drone itself is actually like at a much steeper angle than a bigger drone. So if you're gonna be flying primarily in a place with super windy conditions some other heavier drone might be a better choice. Or you could just deal with it and kind of wait until you get lucky. So does this thing hold the test of time after a full year? Short answer is yes. This drone does have some quirks that kind of make it hard to use in certain situations. But there's definitely not another drone that's come onto the market that really competes in this sub 250 gram category. Another important question to ask is who is this drone for and who is it not for? Because there's definitely a fair amount of people that this drone definitely wouldn't be a good choice for. If you're someone looking to pick up their first drone there is not a better choice out there on the market in my opinion. It's simple, it's durable, it's easy to bring around with you and the video quality is really good for the size. For beginners this is 100% my number one recommendation. And the video quality is super solid for most people's usage. And even if you are someone who's just shooting for social media or YouTube videos this also could be a great option. Like I said earlier in this video I brought this drone on our motorcycle trip through Mexico and I used it all the time and footage from it is 100% gonna make it into the final cut of that video. And I use footage that I took on this for Instagram reels all the time. But if you're someone who's already into drones or you're looking to get hired on at like high-end production companies and stuff you're definitely gonna wanna get something else. I actually put together a full Mavic 3 Pro review if you wanna check that out here. Thank you guys so much for watching this video. If you are someone that hit the like button earlier here is finally the photo of the cute baby lion. And if you didn't hit the like button there's still time. Peace.