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"upgraded" from a mavic pro

Welcome to the forum! :)
 
Hello from the Hoosier Heartland, namja.

Welcome to the Forum. ?
 
I grew up in Southwest Michigan. 30 minutes north of South Bend. Always nice to meet someone from the Midwest.

Central Indiana Hoosier here, but I have snowmobiled in South Bend a couple of times and I have been up in Michigan from Cadillac and across the U.P.

Lots of snow to play in, but sucks driving in it.

The Mackinac Bridge is something to see up there.
 
Don't you miss the range and battery life? The battery life is really an annoyance as you have to start thinking of flying back pretty quickly with the Spark to swap batteries!

The difference in flight time is insane.

The MP just keeps going and going and going and going and...

And MP with low-noise blades is much much quiter than Spark. Pleasantly surprised

But the Spark is still lovable. It has the "fun factor" even though batteries keep it on a short leash
 
Howdy. Flew the Mavic Pro for like 2 years (same username on mavicpilots.com). Then I got bored. The MP sat in the closet for a while, so I sold it like a year ago. Bought the Spark last week. Feels like an "upgrade" because it's easier to take it with me everywhere. Fun little toy.

A "fun little toy" is what you buy in the toy department at Walmart for $60. ;)
 
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And some people call it a Tello. Lol :p

View attachment 9363

I just broke down and bought a refurbished Alpine Pro bundle so it seems I'll soon be able to take the same picture as you ;-)

How are you getting along with your Alpine coming from the Spark ? Anything specific to pay attention to ? I suppose focusing is going change although I seem to remember they enabled AF at some point vs the original MF.

Any good MODS ? I wonder if the Pro ever got the "asteroid" mode of the Air, sort of doubt it ;-)
 
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I just broke down and bought a refurbished Alpine Pro bundle so it seems I'll soon be able to take the same picture as you ;-)

How are you getting along with your Alpine coming from the Spark ? Anything specific to pay attention to ? I suppose focusing is going change although I seem to remember they enabled AF at some point vs the original MF.

Any good MODS ? I wonder if the Pro ever got the "asteroid" mode of the Air, sort of doubt it ;-)

From the first flight I felt the MP1 was better than my Spark in just about every way. The only think I miss is hand launch and hand landing. I know there's videos of people doing that on YouTube but one gust of wind would end you. The MP1's biggest disappointment is that despite having a 4K camera the Spark's footage looks about the same.

The only mod I've done is low-noise props from a MP Platinum. The MP was quieter than the Spark right from the factory but now it whispers. The Alpine White Special Edition MP is too darn pretty to mod - the Mona Lisa don't need no stinkin' moustache!
9406

The flight time and RC connection are the most noticeable differences with the MP. My bundle came with three batteries which is easily 60 minutes of flight time. The MP1 is in the are in the air forever whereas the Spark I'm watching battery level from the moment I take off. And the OccuSync means strong video feed and control even at ridiculous distances and obstacles. Bigger profile of MP gives farther VLOS too.

My Tello is just for indoors or introducing kids and friends to droning.

Thanks for asking... You will love it.
 
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Sounds good, can't wait to try mine out ! Will look into getting these Platinum props too.
I've looked videos on YT for hand launch/catch and it doesn't seem to bad. Not very different than with the Spark actually except you can't map a button to the remote but of course it's bigger and can cause potentially mode damage !
I might get a charging hub to avoid having to switch the batteries manually for charging.
 
So I've had the MP Alpine for about two weeks now and there are some PROs...and CONs as always ;-)

The PROs are of course the battery life (although it still seems too short ! At around 20 minutes without the sports mode) and Ocusync, wow that thing cuts through anyting (like a forest) at "VLOS+ distance" and noise too I suppose although that never really bothered me. It's great to be able to fly fast and maintain role stabilization for videos too. Not a PRO but I was worried about hand lauch/catch and that's not been a problem.

The CONs (other than the extra weight/bulk) so far are photography. I never really missed a shot with the Spark, be it single, AEB or Panorama, but I haven't really liked any of the pictures I've taken with the MP so far. All the Spheres have had completely washed out skies (need to try manual exposure) and single pictures haven't been great either, AE is not great and the focus seems soft (yes I did press the screen center). Of and for the 9 picture panoramas you can't get it to start "vertically" where you want, it always centers around the horizon.

So mostly PROs but since I use my drone mostly for pictures (and fun flying from time to time) I'm sort of in two minds about it. I'd hate to give up on Ocusync so I don't think I'd want to look at the MA and a M2 with two extra batteries is really 2x the price I paid for the DJI refurbished Alpine so sort of hard to justify. On the other it's got some nice features like the stellar avoidance for tracking, hyperlapse, Asteroid.
 
The difference in flight time is insane.

The MP just keeps going and going and going and going and...

And MP with low-noise blades is much much quiter than Spark. Pleasantly surprised

But the Spark is still lovable. It has the "fun factor" even though batteries keep it on a short leash

Sadly I sent my MP Alpine back. I'd figured how to do Spheres without massive overexposure but the 3x3 Panos cannot be centered on the current position and that's a bummer. Worst of all though was the tilted horizon with even very slow rotation as it seems it always took the gimbal several seconds to settle down and offer a straight horizon again. Doesn't that bother you on yours ?
 
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Sadly I sent my MP Alpine back. I'd figured how to do Spheres without massive overexposure but the 3x3 Panos cannot be centered on the current position and that's a bummer. Worst of all though was the tilted horizon with even very slow rotation as it seems it always took the gimbal several seconds to settle down and offer a straight horizon again. Doesn't that bother you on yours ?

No. I haven't had any of those problems.

My horizon was off kilter on day one but I found the adjustment in Settings menu and it's been fine since. Zero gimbal or exposure problems. I use manual exposure with histogram exclusively.

Sorry you had issues. Sounds like DJI quality control took a snooze that day. Bummer
 
Having researched it a lot, here and on YT, it seems that the "horizon tilting" on yaw/turn is pretty much present on all Mavic 1s due to the gimbal design, it's more problematic on some models than others, maybe due to the motor wear on the gimbals.

This video looks into it in detail :
 
Sorry if this seems like a hijack, but the MP's video is same as the Spark? @Andre Levite I am quite surprised you would say that. Can you share a comparison that would support that, Spark at 30fps 1080 and MP at 1080 96fps with that third axis...
 

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