DJI announces Mavic 3 Pro with three camera array

DJI has announced the Mavic 3 Pro, the company's newest flagship consumer drone with a triple camera system housing three cameras with different focal lengths - 24mm, 70mm and 166mm.

Like its predecessor the Mavic 3, the main camera (24mm) on the Pro is built around a 4/3 CMOS Hasselblad-designed sensor. The camera supports 12-bit RAW photos and has a native dynamic range of up to 12.8 stops. In addition, video capture is possible at up to 5.1K at 50fps or DCI 4K at 120fps. 

The second camera (70mm) features a 1/1.3-inch CMOS Hasselblad sensor and has a 70mm equivalent focal length lens. This camera has a 3x optical zoom with a fixed maximum aperture of f/2.8 and is capable of shooting 48MP photos.

The third camera (166mm) has a 1/2-inch CMOS Hasselblad Camera with a 166mm equivalent lens. It offers a 7x optical zoom and a 28x Hybrid zoom at a fixed aperture of f/3.4. It's also capable of capturing 4K/60fps video.

All three cameras support Apple ProRes 422 HQ, Apple ProRes 422, and Apple ProRes 422 LT encoding. The Mavic 3 Pro also has a built-in 1TB SSD and a 10Gbps lightspeed data cable.

Additionally, a High-Speed QuickTransfer option allows image and video downloads direct from the drone to a mobile phone over Wi-Fi 6 at speeds up to 80MB per second without connecting to the remote controller.

The Mavic 3 Pro allows up to 43 minutes of flight time, along with omnidirectional sensing and sight wide-angle vision sensors which sense obstacles in all directions and can plan a safe flight route to avoid them.

DJI says the drone's DJI O3+ transmission system can transmit a 1080p/60fps HD live feed at high frame rates at a distance of up to 15 km. 

Three new additional features promise to improve the automated flight experience:

Waypoint Flight automatically plans a flight route based on the user's preset waypoints and can precisely repeat routes;

Cruise Control lets the drone fly in any direction without continually pressing the control sticks for smoother camera movement during long-distance manual control and;

Advanced RTH automatically determines a safe and efficient flight route back to its home point, bypassing obstacles on the RTH path.

There's also a number of new 'intelligent' features, including FocusTrack, which enables stable tracking shots in multiple directions, MasterShots where the drone automatically shoots, edits, and adds a soundtrack to automatically generate cinematic footage, a 100MP Panorama mode and QuickShots where the drone performs different camera movements like Dronie, Rocket, Circle, and Helix.

DJI Mavic 3 Pro is available to order from store.dji.com and usual retail partners with shipping starting in May. In its cheapest configuration, the drone itself and an RC controller will set you back $3,099.

The DJI Mavic 3 Pro Fly More Combo (DJI RC) is $4,199, the Fly More Combo (with DJI RC Pro controller) is $5,329, and finally the Mavic 3 Pro Cine Premium Combo is $6,939.