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Parrot Anafi to make the Spark obsolete (and pricey mavic Air). :(

spartavel

Active Member
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Jun 20, 2018
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39
Age
45
Parrot announced its Parrot Anafi just after I bought the Spark.
Same price as the Spark Combo. Needless to say I would have bought that one instead
What is better on the Anafi :
- High quality camera 21MP with same mechanical features as the Spark. And with all RAW capabilities. Not that the Spark takes bad and insufficiant quality pictures. It's just much better.
- no anti-collision but that doesn't work great on the Spark and finally misleads you (you shouldn't rely on it).
- same speed BUT low noise blades.
- around the same weight as Spark and mavic Air (less than 400 grams) but 25 minutes of official battery life. And that being said Parrot seems to provide closer to official autonomy than DJI.
- no instrusive nofly zone. You have to take care even if the nofly zone system is very poor at DJI. Fact is DJI wanted to avoid use of DJI Phantom by terrorist using grenades and the kind, but Spark wouldn't be of any use since it cannot lift that load and has too poor battery life.
My bet is DJI needs to upgrade the Spark with RAW pictures, and with all the in App features of the mavic Air, plus dropping the price of the Combo to stay in the race.
Also mavic Air combo needs to be brought to Parrot Anafi price.
 
Looks decent on paper but there are no user reviews to speak of yet, so...and they still have the horrible "fisheye" pictures of the Bebop 2 in RAW so they're useless unless you waste time (trying) to straighten them up.
 
The fisheye wasn't bad but not made for quality photos but to cope with a fixed camera. The principle was great for what it was ment for (moving video cam from fixed hardware).
I am also waiting for real tests. However, I already spent my money on a Spark and not drone addicted (yet) to buy another.
However i'm quite confident that the Anafi is what it shows to be. The camera is not a fisheye any more and made for real photography.
Fact is I wouldn't have bought a Spark at the price sold on Amazon knowing about the Anafi and would have waited for Anafi tests. Already a tiny drop in price since then. (was 700, now 620).
The biggest problems on the spark among the other little ones is battery autonomy really too short. So you really are very limited on what you can do on your flight.

The photos are okay. Real 12MP for sure (meaning good optics and good electronic treatment and low jpeg compression). The results are of the kind of a good camera on a smartphone. The lack of RAW can be replaced by AEB
 
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Check out the sample pics, the raws have a curved horizon unfortunately. In any case we have to wait for real life user reports to get a feel for how the Anafi really performs. Shouldn't be too much longer now ;-)
 
The Anafi has a camera around 24mm like the Mavic Air and Spark. You don't get straight lines right from the hardware by using this kind of optics(24mm is wide angle) and by the way the horizon should never be straight on earth, above the ground. :)
When you correct a wide angle to straighten the lines by software it may result in a very wrong flat picture.
What would be interesting is to see if the Sony sensor has contained noise, especially in lower light, and if the optics renders all the 21MP in a sunny day. This is really what needs to be seen and which will make the value of the Anafi. Also test the battery real world autonomy.

Another feature is the 4K movie with all the features like zooming in and anti-shake features. have to see how the 4K quality is. With option for low compression and best quality if needed.
Good quality 4K movie makes 8M pixel image extraction possible.
Found that review:
Parrot Anafi
However the samples are resized to 16MP and over compressed with artefacts by the author.
Since they have a beta, they may be on non-disclosure. The original pics seem to show very good optics on all the image.

Not that I'm dissatisfied from the Spark but the Parrot seem a lot better regarding photos and movies even compared to Mavic Air and Pro. I have bought the spark for distraction (I do like all those kind of gadgets) but also marginal professional use, when I can't get good photos from the ground. So the better the picture, with more details, the better it is for me, because I can crop inside it and still get a usefull image. In this regard I consider the 12MP Spark equal to Mavic Air and Pro (but there are leaks of a Mavic Pro 2 with 20MP too).
 
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I hope the Anafi is all that it's advertised to be. Unfortunately, my experience with Parrot products puts a huge hunk of salt in with my expectations. It seems to be designed as a competitor to the Mavic Pro, which is a few years old as a platform and will probably see a replacement model ship soon. Currently, I think there is a clear line between portability and camera quality, and I think the first to get a quality 1" sensor up on a portable platform will own the next generation. Admittedly anecdotal, but I know a handful of Mavic Pro owners (myself included) who won't be moving on until someone ships P4P quality optics in a portable package.
All that said, the 180 degree up on the gimbal is appealing to me as it adds some creative possibilities to drone shots.
 
I hope the Anafi is all that it's advertised to be. Unfortunately, my experience with Parrot products puts a huge hunk of salt in with my expectations. It seems to be designed as a competitor to the Mavic Pro, which is a few years old as a platform and will probably see a replacement model ship soon. Currently, I think there is a clear line between portability and camera quality, and I think the first to get a quality 1" sensor up on a portable platform will own the next generation. Admittedly anecdotal, but I know a handful of Mavic Pro owners (myself included) who won't be moving on until someone ships P4P quality optics in a portable package.
All that said, the 180 degree up on the gimbal is appealing to me as it adds some creative possibilities to drone shots.
On the contrary I would like to have a camera with 180 degrees under the drone. The Spark under windy conditions faces the wind and you may get photos far from vertical. I believe you need the heavy duty Phantom for that case, Not sure about the Anafi.
 

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