DJI Air 3: why 3x compression is important for your aerial shots and footage

Good day, folks! Shawn here from Air Photography. Just a quick little video today, and we’re going to be talking about the 3x camera on the DJI Air 3 drone.

3x Compression with the DJI Air 3 Drone

I’ve had some questions and I’ve seen some comments on my channel about what the point is of having a 3x camera on a drone.

A common thing I see quite a bit is, you know, drones are very easily moved up in the sky.

Why film with that 3x camera when you can just move the drone closer to the object that you’re trying to film?

And there is some truth to that, you know, that’s one of the benefits of a drone: you can place it anywhere up in the sky.

But there is quite a bit of difference between the two cameras and the two lenses, and a lot of it’s to do with something called compression.

You’ve probably heard that term quite a bit. Now, I am nowhere near a professional when it comes to cinematography, so if you have anything else to add to this subject, please feel free to add it down in the comments, maybe perhaps something that I’ve left out.

So, with the Air 3, we have the regular wide-angle camera, and then we have a telephoto camera.

Basically, it has three times zoom, and it’s a little bit different than digital zoom.

When you digitally zoom into something, essentially it’s just cropping in; you’re not getting that compression.

Basically, compression is when it draws the background in, and that can be really beneficial in some scenarios. It can help make your shots a little more dramatic.

If you’re filming something and you just fly the drone in closer, the background isn’t really going to be drawn in.

Whereas if you keep the drone back a little bit, you switch over to the three times camera, you’re going to notice that compression right away.

Most of the time, I am filming with the wide-angle camera myself, but there are those times where that 3x camera does come in handy, especially I like to use it when filming at sunset and sunrise.

Quite often, when there’s a nice sunset, there’s some nice color in the sky, but quite often it’s not the whole sky, it’s just maybe right at the horizon.

If you’re using that wide-angle lens, you can still get some nice color, but you get a lot more of the sky. If you switch over to that 3x camera, either on the DJI Air 3 or on the Mavic 3 Pro, or even that seven times camera, you’ll get the same effect.

But as you can see in this shot here, it just makes the sky look like it’s full of color, the whole thing, because it’s drawn it in a lot closer.

And as mentioned, if you’re filming with the main camera, the wide-angle camera, and you just zoom in digitally three times, you’re not going to get that same effect.

As mentioned, essentially you’re just cropping the image, so you’re not getting that full true compression.

Well, folks, like I said, just a quick little video going over the difference and why that three times camera can be very important on something like the DJI Air 3 or the DJI Mavic 3 Pro drones.

It’s a great tool and a great way to get creative with your shots. I’m really hoping DJI can somehow figure out how to add that to the next Mini series and still keep it under that 249g.

I think that would be an excellent addition, another creative tool on a mini drone.

Thanks a lot for watching. Hopefully, you enjoyed this video and got some value out of it. Give it a thumbs up if you did, and we’ll see you in the next one.