DJI Mavic 3 Classic Active Track Ultimate Test Ride – Unedited!

All of these trees are fairly clear. So, it should not have any trouble seeing these trees. If it was another month or so…. AWWW, OHHH! [dramatic pause] Oh yes… You saw the tree alright…

DJI Mavic 3 Classic testing Active Track

Now, this video is sponsored by Surf Shark. More about them once we get this drone out of the tree.

Ok, today we’ve got a simple test of the DJI Mavic 3 Classic in Active Track mode. I’m just gonna ride.

And I’ve got the DJI RC hooked up to this little mount here. It’s not an awesome mount but it’s an acceptable amount.

It’s a third-party mount, I’ve got a whole video on it up in the corner somewhere there the Mini 3 and RC accessories and it’s like I don’t know $20 bucks or something.

Now first, here are some quick things to know about Active Track on the DJI Mavic 3 Classic.

Number one is to ensure that you’re in normal mode and not in sport mode.

So you see if you turn on sport mode right there it turns off obstacle avoidance so when you get more speed, you’ll basically just get more speed to hit that tree, at full speed.

Number two is that you want to make sure that you’ve got bypass enabled in the upper right-hand corner. The little dots right there. And there’s the safety tab, you’ll see bypass, breaker off, so this is again for obstacle avoidance. With ‘off’ it will just run into things.

With break, it’ll stop as opposed to going around a tree. Whereas bypass will go around the tree, above the tree, to the left or the right. It’ll basically go around any objects that it sees in order to keep on going.

Next in the lower right-hand corner, you need to make sure you change the resolution. By default it’ll actually be low would be 1080p, so you want to kick it up to 4K.

Inversely if you’re at 5.1K, Active Track does not work in that mode, so it needs to be one of the 4K modes where you can be less than 4K, but 4K is kind of where you want to be.

Once that’s all set and ready to go, make sure you start recording so press the recording button on the right-hand side there. And then from there you go ahead and highlight yourself for the object you want to track. You can also tap on an object if it detects it as a person. I’ve highlighted myself.

DJI Mavic 3 has Active Track, Spotlight, POI and more…

You have three modes at the bottom Active Track, Spotlight or POI. We’re going with Active Track and once you do that, you’ll basically get to choose which direction you want to track. From the left. The right. The top, etc.

We’ll get into that more in just a second. Make sure you press that go button. The green go button and then you’re basically ready to roll.

So with this voiceover done, let’s try this all for real.

Here we go. Highlight myself. I’m right there. There we go. Active Track back. Yep, and let’s go. Just see how this rolls.

Hopefully, the controller doesn’t fall with my handlebars. That’s the only part that’s not super awesome here…

Once we get to smooth the ground I’ll pick up the pace a bunch, but I’m a little concerned about the controller to be honest.

Come on… Apparently my shoes too. It’s not clipping in. Just gonna hold the controller with my hand on the mount. It’s mounted but I don’t trust it.

Just a lot of bounces. You probably can’t tell this is actually gravel. It’s not really asphalted at all. Not really. It’s just simply not asphalt. There we go, now we transition to asphalt. Get shifted. Come on pedal clipping. The pedal is displeased today. Time for some new cleats.

Got a runner-up ahead. We’ll see which way she’s going. She’s going left. Cool, I will go right. Ah, here we go. Smoothness. Okay, we’re chugging along now once we get up there.

I have no idea my speed right now. I know it’s speed but we’re cruising. Got a little bit of a gap right here.

It’s (The DJI Mavic 3 Classic) got to kind of shoot the gap or go above it. We’ll see what it does. And now this is a good time to know if you are finding this video interesting or useful just go and whack that like button down the bottom there because it really does help with this video and the channel quite a bit.

Whatever it wants here. Now it’s set to track from behind me you can see that option there. Once we get out here around this corner, I’m going to change this to the left because it’ll be a prettier shot and we’ll see how well that works. There we go.

Just a second. I’ll clear this. We’ll set it off to the left. There are some occasional warnings. There we go.

So I just simply tap myself and choose left and that’s it. And now it should go off to the left of me. I’m here to catching up.

Keep in mind, there are some winds here but it’s not too bad. It’s relatively protected right now.

Also, this bike is clearly too small for me. It’s a loaner bike for testing some other stuff. That’s all right.

There we go now I can bring it down a bit in altitude using the sticks just to kind of make it a more interesting angle. Still going to keep tracking from that same side but there we go. That’s a cooler shot.

Lower, oh no it doesn’t like that. Come on little buddy. Catch back up again. Subject moving too fast. Come on you can go 46, 43 miles an hour.

I’m not moving too fast for you on flat ground into a wind, a bit of wind. There we go. Okay, now this is where it’s gonna get dicey. I’m gonna put it behind me again.

I’ve got to go through this little cut-through here and I don’t think it’s gonna like this much. Follow leaves. I’m gonna slow down. I’m gonna give it its best shot here. See what happens. Gonna follow me, my little buddy

You can do it. Don’t hit the trees. Please. No, not that tree. Oh. You got it. You got it. You got it. I’m here. I’m here. You can find me. Come on. I’ll back up into your view. Oh, it’s right there. Look up gimbal, up, I’m up there straight to the game below. See, there I am. It highlights me again.

There we go. Active Track. Go from behind. Obviously, you know, it’s like resetting a level in a video game at this point. But don’t hit that three either, please.

Okay, to be fair, that spot is right there. That little spot has taken out many of the DJI drones. Skydio has made it through there. Oh, I hate this, these cleats needs to get replaced.

Okay, we’re back up. We’re cooking now. I wonder what it’s going to do with this gap. I can shoot it’s got this gap we can do this. This is plenty big to drive a truck through. Like a literal truck can go through this gap so let’s see what’s gonna happen.

Here, I’m cruising. I’m guessing, I don’t know whatever it says in the bottom left-hand corner there, probably 18 miles an hour so a little on a 30 km an hour. Is anything around the corner? Nope, we’re good.

Okay, it’s not super thrilled, but you can do it. You can do it. Don’t lose me. Don’t lose me. Don’t lose me. Don’t lose me. Good job!

I had to slow down but you know that’s the name of the game here. This is not a Skydio.

You know essentially with the Skydio you got amazing tracking but not amazing video quality.

With a DJI Mavic 3 Classic, you’ve got amazing video quality generally speaking but not amazing tracking.

I’m going to bring this gimbal down a little bit to make it look a little prettier, and I’m going to go this way on the Farm Road.

Let’s see if it just cuts through. What’s it gonna do? Here it got me. Okay. I’m going to pop it out to the right-hand side because that’s prettier. There we go. And now I’m goning kick up the notch. Speed a little bit here.

Hello, bird. Goodbye, bird.

Subject moving too fast. Oh, come on.

At least it looks cool, though. This is an awesome shot right now. I actually like that quarter shot through to the back. Let me see if I get back to that with all these bumps.

it’s not as, oh, I guess I put it there. We got this one. Hey, how are you doing? So yeah this shot right now, with the sun kind of angle the trees, and everything. That’s awesome right there.

Still, you can see I’m holding on to this RC to keep them from jiggling too much.

It is technically a farm road. It’s a decent one but nonetheless. It’s, you know, got some bumps to it.

It’ll be behind me. Good, oh. Which way? I could go that way. I don’t know it that way. I just, oh, that didn’t sound good. Oh, that was a headwind. Oh, nay, not what I wanted.

Okay, now let’s do an orbit. Anything coming? No. Here we go. Let’s see if I can orbit around me into this headwind. This is a stiff headwind, by the way. It’s the same wind for this morning.

We’re going to gimbal down a little bit. I mean, up the elevation just uh… I hear you, little buddy. I hear you. Attention with this too-small bike. There we go it’s completing that. Oh, a little jiggle there for you. I saw that.

Now it’s gonna whip around the back side probably or it’s gonna lose me. Let’s see. Don’t get too far behind. It’s like a Peloton, you fall off the back, and you’re out of luck.

It’s trying. It’s struggling. Uh-oh, and it lost me. I’m up here I’m up here little guy. No, no, not there. I’m up the road.

You keep circling like search and rescue, but I don’t think you’re going to find me there.

Let’s see, if I come back here, will you see me? I turn around there we go. See, I’m up here. Hey, come on. You can find me. Are we gonna plunk into me one of the two… See, what if I just I’m gonna roll in front, middle of you in your loop? Will you see me now?

There we go. See, good job. Now we’ll head back the fast way. Now you have a tailwind, you should be able to pull this off. Come on. I’m gonna beat you. I’m gonna beat you. Oh, you’re confused about this. You are. Come on, you can do this loop. You’ve got it. We’re running out of real estate here. Our Runway is about to end.

Oh, you’re just. You’re wimping out. It looks pretty, though, I’ll give you that. Whoa. A sign you almost gonna punked yourself, my friend. Let’s go back to the beginning.

Don’t go that far away. Now, this is dangerous territory. The orbit with the trees. In theory, it has not there.

It definitely does have sideways protection, and all of these trees are fairly clear, so it should not have any trouble seeing these trees.

If it was another month or so. Down. Oh yes… you saw the tree, all right.

Oh, this is gonna be a pain in the back. So it should have easily seen that tree. Here let me get in the frame. Back here. Right there. Hi. Okay, now, uh, let’s get you out of there. This is going to be a pain in the back.

As you can see, it should have easily seen this tree. And now it’s about two and a half three meters. About three or four meters up there. I’m not sure how I’m going get out of there, but I will figure this out one way or another.

We’re way up there, my friend. Got it. Boom baby. Put it there for a second. Now I’m stuck… And there we go. Gotcha, little buddy. You thought you were escaping… Nope.

We could take it up in the air. It looks like it’s fine. I don’t see any. No, no cracks, uh, a little scrape but no crack, no cracked props. Well, we’ll fly back home but, um rolling.

Now, as I mentioned earlier this video is sponsored by Surf Shark. Now unfortunately I do not have a t-shirt with a Shark surfing, but I do have a t-shirt with a Shark on a bicycle, and I can only presume the Shark was out surfing and now he’s riding home, or something like that.

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This looks nice and pretty again. You can see the DJI Mavic 3 Classic is much happier over the road. I don’t know what to say like it’s good when it’s good.

Obviously, this image quality is great. Right now, this looks really nice. You wouldn’t get this out of a Skydio drone. But then again, the Skydio would not have hit that tree in any way, shape or form. But this is also pretty easy lighting right now.

As you saw in other parts, when I’m kind of towards the light, it’s not super awesome. Surprising, actually, but it is low sun at this point, you know, mid-fall or so.

Okay, we’ll go the way we came. Seems like a bad idea. Now we’ll go straight. It almost looks like the construction down here though we’ll see.

Oopsies. I’m trying to avoid any mud here, mostly, so I don’t fall. It’s my… I normally do this fast, but with this mount on right now, it’s just not awesome at all. Like I said, I just don’t want it to snap off, and then I need to do something stupid at the last second to try to save it, and then I’m crashing. We’ll probably fast-forward to this section here.

Okay, this is our turn here. Hopefully, see if we got a clear shot all the way back to home. Yeah, we did we got one guy biking, but he looks like he’s going the opposite direction.

Now let’s see how this handles. It should go down to avoid the trees. That’s a little close, dude. Let’s bring this guy down a little bit.

Now personally, I prefer the lookout to the left, so I’m going to stick this out to the left. At this point, it’s just you can see it’s slowing down in here because of the fact that it’s so close to these trees.

A lot of these trees have lost their leaves, and it’s getting really close to a tree it doesn’t need to get to. Just go out there. Thank you.

Anyways in here, I’ve done this test many times and on this little stretch here because it has a tolerance. I’m on the other side of the tree, dude there we go.

Because of the tolerance, when it gets within two meters or something, it slows down pretty dramatically to basically like running speed.

And so by staying here, I it would be pretty slow from behind me it’s again like running speed, walking speed.

I’m gonna bring this down a bit. It should just stay out there there it’s pretty safe right now.

It’s basically got a wide shot all the way down, so unless it does something last-second, stupid, it shouldn’t run into anything because there’s nothing for it to run into.

Where I can get in trouble is if it were to go back very quickly into trees behind it, but they’re like five meters behind it or forward very quickly into trees up here. But again, it’s at least five meters or so away. So anyways, this is a cool shot. It looks pretty. I like it.

I’m going reasonably fast right now, and now it’s (the DJI Mavic 3 Classic) got nothing behind it. It should really be able to fly through here. There we go. See, you give it the right opportunities, and it does well.

And this is actually a really good example of something where the DJI does better than the Skydio would.

The Skydio would like pump in and out of this a lot. Get a little close my friend, here.

The Skydio will pump in and out, so each tree will go like… There’s a little bit of micro-adjustment, that’s very visible on the camera after the fact versus the DJI.

For better or worse. Just simply says, send it and go straight down on a line. So this distance between me and it outside of that right there is staying very constant.

Now, this is our turn, and you just completely missed our turn, buddy. I’m over here. Get behind me. Okay, there we go.

We’ll bring it back to starting here, and I can’t imagine it’s gonna hit anything now nothing left to hit. Okay, there’s someone right over there, so we won’t go bug them. We’ll just end it right here if you… meters short.

Bring it over here and into the sun this is where we… Do not hit that sign come on this is it. Okay, so there we go our loop is complete.

DJI Mavic 3 Classic versus the Skydio 2

Now my goal for this video is not to do like a crazy Skydio 2 versus this versus whatever the case is.

I’ve done that before, and the DJI Mavic 3 Classic is the same drone as it was a year ago when I did the DJI Mavic 3.

And by and large, the same results, as we just saw without the Skydio, because we know that’s a well-proven understood beast at this point.

Now overall, my thoughts remain largely the same, which is that if I’m going out like all this past summer I use the Mini 3 Pro as my go-to drone for almost everything when it came to a sports tracking standpoint.

The Mini 3 Pro does not have the full sideways obstacle avoidance, but it kind of makes up for it because of the fact that it’s so light. And that even when it does hit a tree or something, the damage is relatively minor.

As long as you keep the drone filming from behind, there are no issues at all. And even on side-tracking in wide open spaces, I had no issues either, so with that hope you found this interesting, useful.

If so, go ahead and whack that “like” button there or hit “subscribe” for plenty more sports technology goodness. Have a good one!