Robert wants to get a drone for his son. He bought a cheaper $150 model, but it's harder to fly. What's the best one to get? Leo says to pick up the DJI Mavic Mini. The cheaper model is good for flying and crashing, but without sophisticated GPS control, it'll fly away sooner or later. The Mavic Mini not only has GPS control but also collision avoidance. And it gets better with every update.
Vanessa has a two-year-old 27" iMac. She uses it for her drone photography editing, but her SD card adapters aren't reading. Leo suspects that the SD cards aren't reading because of the format they've been formatted in. It may be due to formatting the card in the drone itself. Leo recommends Disc Utility on the Mac and format the card with ExFAT. Copy off the data first though with a Windows machine. Also, make sure you use a card that the Mac supports.
Leo says some of the best photos he took on his vacation wasn't with his Sony A7IV, but with his iPhone 11 Pro Max. The Deep Fusion feature does an incredible job. Chris also wanted to talk about the DJI Mavic Mini. He's impressed with its navigation features, and it shoots 2.7K video, which is just fine for most people. And it's very affordable at under $400. Chris uses a DJI Mavic Air and even though he's a pro photographer, he only uses it a few times a year. So the Mavic Mini is a good buy for the casual drone enthusiast.
Jay called in to talk about a new service that's a portable cell phone system, that can be set up with drones immediately. The drones can be tethered, and be up within minutes. The drones can stay up in the air for up to ten hours. The service is also agnostic, being an unlocked tower. The service us called 34 North Drones.
Jeff dropped his DJI drone out of the sky for no reason. Leo says he hasn't heard of that problem with DJI drones just dropping out of the sky, but DJI should fix it for free if it isn't operator error. Here's a forum post talking about it though.
Scott went to NAB this year, and there was a massive shift in the industry. No drones: VR was practically invisible: and Chinese manufacturers weren't there either. Also, Panasonic's broadcast stuff was shoved in a corner in favor of 8K cameras. Artificial intelligence was also huge.
Josh would like to educate himself on consumer electronics and technology. Leo says that tablets and mobile have really moved into the game, even in the corporate arena, where Bring Your Own Devices is a thing now. Voice technologies like the Amazon Echo and Google Assistant are really hitting the mainstream, and with that, so is home automation. Drones are also big. And looking over the horizon, AI is going to be big.
Victor wants to buy a DJI Mavic Pro drone. Leo says it's best to start small and cheap to learn how to fly one. Then he can upgrade. Leo has learned the hard way that he can easily lose his drone because of crashes and it flying away. But the Mavic is a different animal because it's easier to fly, has better GPS, can come home automatically if it gets lost or starts to lose power. It can even read hand gestures, and it's quieter. Then again, it's around $1,000, too.
Greg has a Mavic Pro Drone and he wants a new tablet to pair with the controller for a larger screen. Leo says that the Mavic is a very nice quadcopter with a nice camera in it. Leo says the iPad Mini is a good one, but the standard iPad would also be good, and larger. He should look to spend between $300 and $400 for it. Sadly, Samsung has stopped upgrading the software for their Galaxy Tab line, so that really won't be a good idea.
Joe is frustrated with replacement iPhones because they keep failing with the dreaded touch screen disease. So he bought a brand new one for navigating his DJI drone. How does it restore the old apps? Leo says it doesn't. It always goes out and gets the newer version. If he prefers the older version, he may be out of luck. But he doesn't want a SIM card for it. Leo says to use his own SIM card to activate the phone. Then pop it back out and it should stay activated.
