DJI Mini 3 Pro Beginners Guide | Getting Ready For First Flight

Good day, folks! Shawn here from Air Photography. This is my beginner’s guide for the DJIミニ3プロ. I’ve made beginner’s guides for all the Mini series, and now with the Mini 3 Pro, it’s drastically different, with quite a few new features. So, I thought I’d make an updated guide. Now, this beginner’s guide is geared towards those who have never flown a drone before, and what we’re going to do is go over all the hardware and software to get you familiarized and comfortable with the equipment so that you’re ready to take your first flight.

These beginner guides can get a little bit long, so you may want to watch it in different segments or even bookmark it so that you can always come back and reference it later. With all that out of the way, let’s just jump right in and get started.

Now, this year, DJI has done things a little bit differently when it came to the release of the Mini 3. What they’ve done is they’ve set up three different packages that you can purchase. The box here in front of me is the one that comes with the DJI RC, which has a built-in screen. They also sell another version that comes with the DJI RCN1 controller. This is one where you have to mount your smartphone in order to get the FPV display. With this controller, the package is a little bit cheaper, and as we go along in this beginner’s guide, we’ll talk about which controller may be best for you.

They also sell a version of the Mini 3 Pro that comes with no controller. You might be upgrading from something like the Mini 2, and you already have the RCN1 controller. That way, you don’t have to repurchase it, and you can just bind the aircraft to the controller, and away you go. For this beginner’s guide, I’m going to be bouncing back and forth between the DJI RC and the RCN1, and I’ll make sure we cover all aspects of both. Lastly, the other thing that they’ve done differently this year is that when you purchase the aircraft base kit, you can’t get it as a fly more combo like they have done in the past with other drones.

The fly more kit is something that you purchase separately, which is a good idea because you may want to start with a base kit and then add the fly more kit later on. That way, you still get the discounted bundle. Now, when you open up your drone, this is basically everything that’s going to be inside the box. We’re going to have the aircraft, a controller (depending on what package you get, it will be different – as mentioned, this one here is the DJI RC, but you may have the RCN1), two spare propellers (as you can see, they are in halves, and inside there are also new screws to attach them to the drone). On top of that, we get a tiny screwdriver, which is how we change the propellers, and a USB-C to USB-C charging and data transfer cable.

If you’re coming from something like the original DJI Mavic Mini or the DJI Mini 2, one thing you’re going to notice right away that’s missing from the box is a charger. So, that is something you will have to purchase separately, or most likely, many of us already have some laying around.

DJI recommends a 30-watt charger, but you can use a charger that’s higher wattage or lower wattage. I don’t really recommend going lower because it will take longer to charge the batteries, but if you have a 20-watt charger kicking around from something like an iPad or an iPhone, that will definitely work.

Personally, I’ve been using a 65-watt charger. This is the one that actually comes with the Mavic 3. Although this is 65 watts, it will not damage the drone when you’re charging it because these devices have a lot of safety features. The battery will only take a maximum charge of what it’s rated for. So, if you have a 60-watt charger kicking around, you can use it as well. DJI also sells chargers on their website. If you go to the DJI Mini 3 page, you can purchase them directly from there.

So before we get too far into things, let’s take a closer look at the hardware that comes inside the box. This is the DJI RC and basically, with it, we have a built-in screen, which is a really good thing because some people have problems with compatibility with their phones or getting software to run on their phones. So when you purchase this kit, you don’t have to worry about any of that, you know it’s just going to work. On top of that, it has a decently bright screen of 700 nits. Now, that’s important when you’re flying out on bright days. The higher the nit value of the screen, the easier it will be able to see out in direct sunlight.

Something like an iPhone has a high nit value as well, but what happens on bright sunny days as the iPhone gets warm, it starts to get very dim and it can be very difficult to see what you’re filming. So this is a nice all-in-one solution and you never have to worry about any of those aspects.

When you take it out of the box, as you can see, there are no sticks installed on it, that’s for travel purposes. If you’re going to be throwing this in a backpack or something, that way you don’t end up damaging the gimbals inside. The sticks are stored at the back here, you can see they’re pressed down into that rubber holder. All you have to do is pull them out and then they just screw in.

Now one thing you may have noticed this year is that they didn’t give us any spare sticks, and these things can actually be fairly easy to lose, so it is something you may want to do at some point is order a spare set just to keep in your drone bag.

Let’s go ahead and take a look at the buttons here. The first thing here in the middle, we have our flight mode selector, we can go from syn smooth to normal to sport mode. On the right-hand side here, we have a power button. On the left-hand side here, we have a return to home and pause button. On top of that, we have our LEDs, and that signifies how much power is left in the controller.

Down here at the bottom, we have a USB-C port which can be used for a couple of different things. First of all, it’s how we charge the controller, but it can also be used for updating firmware by plugging it directly into a computer. Beside that, we have a door, and if we open it up, we can see on the right-hand side that we have a memory card slot where you can put a memory card in. The only time you really need to do that is if you’re going to be doing a lot of screen recording or screen captures. Then, it’s a good idea to put a memory card in it.

Beside that, we have another USB-C port, which will mainly be used for accessories down the road. If we flip it over here, you can see we have two customizable buttons. By default, the C1 button will turn the gimbal up and down, pointing it straight ahead or straight down depending on what position it’s in.

And the C2 button is programmed to turn the camera into vertical mode if you want to capture vertical-style photos and videos.

If we take a look at the very top of the controller, you can see we have a couple of buttons and a couple of scroll wheels. When you’re holding it, the one that’ll be on your left-hand side is to angle the gimbal either up or down. Depending on how far you move it over, it will dictate the speed at which it moves.

The one on the right-hand side or right-hand when you’re holding it is for your zoom feature. Above that, we have a record button for recording video, and on the other side, we have a shutter button for taking photos.

Now, when the controller is powered off, you can press that power button with a quick press, and that will show you how much power is left in the battery. To power the controller on, it uses a double press like a lot of DJI products. Basically, you’re going to do a short press and then a long press. So, short press and then long press and hold. As you can hear, you’re going to get those beeps, and then the controller is going to start to power up.

When it powers on, it’s going to launch the Fly app, which is the app we use to fly the drone, and then it’s going to wait for the connection to be made with the drone. There are a lot of different settings within the controller that we can adjust. I’m not going to get into that in this video, but I might make a separate video going over all the functions of the DJI RC.

Just a few quick tips here for you: if we swipe down, we get this bar along the top giving us some basic information, but if we do another swipe down, we get some other tools. This is where we can do a screen recording or screenshot. It’s also how we can connect to our Wi-Fi, adjust the volume and brightness.

Just a swipe up will get rid of that screen as well. To power the controller off again, we’re going to do a quick press and then a long press, and then it will go ahead and power off.

When it comes to charging the controller, you can use the cable that comes with the kit, just plug it into the same charger that you’re using to charge the drone. As mentioned, you plug it into that USB-C port on the very right-hand side, and the LED lights are now flashing signifying that it’s charging.

RCN1

Now, if you purchase the kit with the DJI RCN1, we’ll do a quick overview of it as well. On this one, the sticks are stored at the bottom, and they just screw in the exact same way. The only difference is that with this one, you are going to mount your own phone instead of using the built-in screen. By default, there is a cable for a lightning connector installed, but if you’re using something like an Android, it does have other cables that come in the box, so you can switch them out. You just mount your phone in there like that. It has spring tension in it to hold it in there firmly, and then you just attach the cable.

If you’re using the RCN1, you will have to download the DJI Fly App yourself manually. For iPhones, you go to the App Store and just do a search for DJI Fly.

If you’re using an Android device, I do believe you have to go directly to the DJI website, go to the Mini 3 Pro page, and at the top, there’s an option for downloads. From there, you’ll be able to download the Fly app.

The button configuration on it is very similar. We have our flight mode selector, we have our return to home and pause button. Our LEDs are located below that. At the bottom, we have a USB-C port for charging the controller and, again, for updating firmware if you decide you want to update it via computer.

And at the back here, at the top, as you can see, we only have one scroll wheel, and that controls the gimbal movement up and down. And then over here, we have a record and shutter button built into one. Now, this button can also be used for zoom, but you do that by pressing in this function button at the side and then using the scroll wheel, and that will zoom the camera in and out.

Charging this up is exactly the same. Just plug in the USB-C cable that comes with it, and it will charge the controller.

DJIミニ3プロ

So now that we’ve looked at the controllers, let’s go ahead here and take a look at the aircraft. Just like all DJI drones, it is foldable, and that makes it super convenient for travel. Now, this one folds out a little bit differently. If you’re coming from something like the Mini 2.

Those front arms fold down and out, and again, the other side does the exact same thing, and these back ones just fold straight out.

Now, when you take your drone out for the very first time, there’s going to be a series of stickers, kind of protective stickers, on it that you will need to go ahead and remove.

They have a newly designed gimbal cover here, and to take it off, we’re just going to press up from the back here. As you can see, it comes right off. Getting it back on can be a little bit fidgety. You just want to make sure your camera’s pointing straight and just line it up inside there. As you can see, there is a little tab there at the top, so you just want to put it under the front lip there by the obstacle avoidance.

And again, you just want to make sure your camera remains straight because otherwise it can prevent it from clicking in. Then there are two little holes there and it just clips right in.

So let’s go ahead and take a look around the drone. Here, as you can see, there’s our camera at the front. DJI’s newly designed gimbal, and that allows the camera to turn completely vertical. So, if you want to shoot vertical video for social media like TikTok.

There’s also this cover here that can be removed and that’s for putting on accessories like the wide-angle lens or ND Filters. We have a power button here at the top, right above that we have some LEDs and a single press will show us how much power is in the drone.

Now, when you take your drone out for the very first time and you press that power button to see how much power is in the battery, you won’t get any lights lighting up on your unit. That’s because the battery inside is in a hibernated state. They do that for shipping purposes. It will need to be activated first.

To activate the battery, it’s as simple as just plugging it in to charge it. That will activate the battery and then it will just continue to charge.

Obstacle avoidance

One of the new features on the Mini 3 Pro this year is the obstacle avoidance. As you can see, we have two here that’s for the rear-facing obstacle avoidance. Of course, on the front, we have these two big ones. Then, at the bottom, we have two more. At the back here, we have our memory card slot, and we’ll talk about memory here in a minute. Then we have a USB-C port again that’s for charging the battery internally while it’s in the drone, but it can also be used for updating firmware.

Now, the battery design is quite a bit different this year. With the Mini 2, the original Mavic Mini, and the Mini SC, we actually had a door that we had to lift up first, and then we could remove the battery. But with the Mini 3 Pro, the battery’s kind of built right into the back.

We have two buttons on either side here, so to remove the battery, all we have to do is press on them and then pull it out. To reinstall it, same thing, just slide it in and you’re going to hear a nice click.

Now, to charge the Mini 3 again, we’re going to use the data cable charging cable that came in the package. Like I said, you may have to purchase a charger, a charging block, and what we’re going to do is just plug it into the back there, and that’s going to charge the battery while it’s installed in the drone.

If you end up purchasing one of the Fly More kits, it actually has a charging hub in it that can charge three batteries. Then, what you would do is just take all three of your batteries, put them in the charging hub, plug it into the charger, and they will charge that way as well.

So, I’ll just show you that here quickly. We’ll take the USB-C cable, we’ll plug it into the back there, and as you can see, the LED lights will light up. That’s now signifying that it’s charging.

Now, it’s a really good idea to make sure you fully charge your batteries and fully charge the controller before you power it on the first time. That’s just because when we power it on, there are going to be some things we need to do, some setup, we have to update the firmware, so you want to make sure you have a full battery charge before you do that.

Let’s go ahead here and we’ll talk about memory. You will have to purchase your own memory card, there’s not one that is included. There are all different types of memory cards that will work. The one I like to use is the SanDisk Extreme Pro. I use these in all my drones. You can also use just the regular SanDisk Extreme as long as it’s not an older model. You want to get one that’s fairly new and capable of high-speed 4K video. If you do have one that you want to use, there’s a full list on the DJI website going over which cards are compatible and will work.

To insert the memory card, we’re going to put the graphic logo facing down, slide it into the back, and then push it in until it clicks. You do have to be a little bit careful because there’s actually a pretty strong spring inside of there. Sometimes when you’re pushing it in, if your fingernail slips, the card can actually eject out and go flying across the room, so just be careful of that.

Now, if you decide you do want to put some memory in the controller, it doesn’t have to be as fast of a card. Here, I just have a regular SanDisk Extreme. And again, with this, you’re just going to slide it in. This time you’re going to have the graphic facing up and just push it in until it clicks.

And as mentioned again, you don’t really need to put a memory card into the controller unless you plan on doing some screenshots or screen recordings because you’re making ユーチューブ videos. All the high definition 4K footage is going to be stored on this card here in the back of the drone.

Now, just like the controller, to power on the aircraft, it uses a double-press sequence: a short press and then a long press. So, short press and then long press. You’re going to hear it make some noise. It’s going to do some beeping and then power on. During the startup procedure, you’re going to see your gimbal move around a bit. It’s just doing an auto-calibration, so that’s nothing to be alarmed about.

So now what we’re going to do is power on our controller. Right out of the factory, your controller will be bound to the aircraft, so you don’t have to do any kind of binding.

First flight preperations for the DJI Mini 3 Pro

But there are going to be some things we need to do before we can fly for the very first time. And one of the most important things we’re going to need to do is activate the aircraft and we’re also going to need to update the firmware. So you want to make sure when you’re doing this, you do it at a place where you have a good internet connection. You don’t want to buy this kit and take it out on holidays where you don’t have internet because then, unfortunately, you won’t be able to do anything.

The other thing you’re going to need to do is possibly create a DJI account. You may already have one; if so, then you can skip that step. But if you don’t have one, during the setup procedure, it will give you the option to create an account. Now, I’ve already got my setup already activated and updated, so I’m just going to show you some footage here of me doing that.

Basically, what you want to do is just power on your controller, make sure your drone is powered on as well, and you’re just going to wait for everything to fully boot up. Now, I don’t know if you notice there, but you’ll know that the controller is connected to the drone when this light over here on the very left-hand side turns from red to green. When it’s red, that means it’s disconnected. Once it turns green, that means it’s connected. And same with these lights here at the front of the drone: they were flashing fast. Once it connected, they started flashing slower.

At this point, you’re going to come up to a few different screens. One of the screens will ask you to create an account or log in with your existing DJI account. It will then ask you to activate the aircraft. Both the aircraft and the controller will need to be activated. Once it’s activated, you will get a confirmation that it was activated successfully.

Update the DJI Mini 3 Pro Firmware

The next step is going to prompt you that there is a Firmware Update. Again, this is a forced firmware update, so you will need to go ahead and update that firmware before you can fly for the very first time.

So what I’m going to do now is just give you a basic overview of the Fly app, some of the more important things you need to know. I’m not going to go through everything because we could be here for a long time if we did. It doesn’t matter whether you’re using the DJI RC or the RCN1 with a phone attached, the DJI Fly app works basically the same. Another important thing to note is that I will have to move quickly because the DJI Mini 3 doesn’t have an internal fan, so it can get quite warm and overheat if it’s just sitting on a desk like this.

But that’s nothing to be concerned about because when you’re flying in the air, the movement of the air and the propellers keeps everything cool and functioning normally.

DJI Fly app

So, let’s start up here in the top right-hand side. We have three dots that go into our advanced settings, and we will take a quick look at that here at the end. Beside that, we have our satellites, how many satellites we’re connected to, and right now you can see mine says zero because I am indoors, and it can’t really connect to satellites when you are indoors.

As soon as you’re outdoors, it will start to acquire satellites, and it’s a good idea not to take off until you have 12 satellites. Satellite acquisition is important because that will keep the drone stable up in the air, keep it from drifting, but it’s also needed to set an accurate home point in case something happens, and the drone needs to come home.

Beside that, we have our obstacle avoidance. Right now, it’s red. When it’s red, that means it’s disabled, and the reason it’s disabled right now is because we are not flying. As soon as we put it up in the air, that will turn white and that signifies we have obstacle avoidance enabled.

Now since we’re talking about obstacle avoidance, right now you can see I’m in C mode, that’s the cine-smooth mode. If we were to put it over to Sport mode, that will automatically disable obstacle avoidance. You only have obstacle avoidance when you’re in C mode or N mode, not in Sport mode.

Beside that, we have the RC strength. That’s the signal strength between the RC and the drone, and all those icons at the top can be clicked on, and it will give us more information. It gives us some information about our satellite connections, our signal strength, so you can just click on them to bring up more detailed information.

Now, the next set of icons there are to do with our battery. The one right in the middle there says 0000, and that’s basically how much flight time you have left. It kind of estimates how much flight time you have when you’re up in the air. Right now, because we’re not flying, it’s just saying zero-zero.

Beside that, we have a circular graph, and inside there it says 52%. That means we have 52% left in the battery. And again, we can click on that, and that’s going to bring up more detailed battery information about flight time, how much time we have until it goes into a return to home. Again, it’s not going to list anything there because we’re not up in the air.

Over beside that, it gives us our flight status. Right now, it’s saying GPS signal weak because we’re indoors, and you can actually click on that to go through all your safety settings. It’ll give you any errors if it’s detected any problems. We can adjust our return to home altitude, we can set our max altitude and our max distance. Beside that, it gives us a little indication of what mode we’re in.

And as you can see, as we switch to normal mode, that will change to an N. If we put it in sport mode, that changes to an S. Basically, the different modes, C mode is called Cine-Smooth mode, and that’s when the drone will fly the slowest, and people use that if they’re trying to get nice slow cinematic shots.

N mode is normal mode, that’s just your normal flying mode, and sport mode is what it sounds like, it’s sport mode. The drone flies a lot faster, and it can be a little bit more agile. As mentioned though, you do have to be careful because you have no obstacle avoidance when you’re flying in sport mode.

Over on the very left-hand side here, we have our takeoff button. If we press on that, it brings up another dialog box, and we just have to press and hold on that, and that will allow the drone to take off. Once we’re up in the air, that button actually changes to a landing button, and we will take a look at that when we are out doing a test flight.

Bottom left-hand side, we have our map, and that can be very important. If we click on it, you can see it brings up a map, and that’ll show us where our home point is, where we have flown, where the drone is, and we can click on that to make it bigger.

To go back to our regular live view, just click on the picture there. And if you want to make that smaller to get it out of your way, just click that little arrow in the bottom left-hand side.

Next to that, we have all our telemetry data. That’s our speed, basically how high we are, how far we are. Now over here at the very right-hand side, down at the bottom, we have all our camera settings, and we have two different modes. Right now, it’s in auto mode, and if we click on that, it goes into pro mode.

Pro mode basically gives us access to some more in-depth camera settings like shutter speed, white balance, ISO, but for the most part, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Wait till you’ve learned to fly the drone, and then you can go in and get a little bit creative there.

In auto mode, it gives us our basic settings. For example, we can click there in the middle, that’s our resolution. We can set whatever resolution or frames per second that we want. Right now, it’s set to 4k 30, but we can adjust that to 4k 60 or if you want to film in 2.7k, you can as well.

However, it is important to note that some of the features, you must be in 4k 30 in order to make use of them. For example, if you’re going to be zooming.

And then beside that, another important one is your storage. We can click on it, and it’s going to show us how much storage we have. We do have a little bit of internal storage with the Mini 3, but it’s not very much. So I would never really count on that for recording video.

Now over here on the right-hand side, we have a play button. If we click on that, that’s going to give us a preview of everything we have filmed. Now it’s important to know that if you’re previewing any of this footage, this is just a low-res preview. All the original 4k footage will be stored on the memory card in the drone.

Above that, that big red circle, that’s our shutter button or record button depending on what mode we’re in. Over to the left of that, we have a few buttons there. First, we have automatic focus or manual focus. Again, as a beginner, I would leave it in automatic focus.

And above that, we have our zoom. You can see right now it says one times, but we can click on that to zoom in two times. If we click on it again, it’ll go back to one times. And there’s a couple of different ways we can zoom on this. We can pinch, you can see there, we can zoom in by pinching. We can press and hold there, that gives us more precision zooming, so if you just want to zoom in slow, you can do so. But as mentioned, you can also use that wheel at the back, and that will zoom in as well.

Right above that, that’s how we switch to vertical mode. So if you want to film for social media, you can put it into vertical mode. And as mentioned, you can also use your C2 button at the back here. That will do the exact same thing.

And above that, that’s how we change our different filming modes. Right now, it’s a little film strip, signifying it’s in video mode, but we can switch it over to photo mode, master shots, quick shots, hyper-lapses, or pano. Again, I’m not going to get into all that for this video. We’re going to make some other videos and tutorials down the road where we dive in a little bit deeper into some of those features, but that’s how you switch to the different filming modes.

Now, let’s go back to those three dots because this is where we can dive in and change things a little bit more advanced. The first is some of the safety features. Now, this is where we can set the behavior of our obstacle avoidance. We can turn it right off if you want. You can set it to brake, so if it detects a tree in front of you, the drone will just come to a complete stop. It won’t go forward or backward, depending on where it’s detected it. Or, we can have it to bypass. With bypass, it’s going to use what’s called APAS and it’s going to try and find a safe route around the obstacle. It’s not always perfect, but can come in handy.

Now, below that, we have a couple of other options. We have our max altitude, so if you don’t want to fly higher than 50 meters, you can set the maximum altitude. You can set your maximum distance again. If you don’t want to go out more than 500 meters, you can set that. If we slide it all the way to the end, it says no limit.

Return to home

Now, the other really important one here is your auto return to home. Now, this is one you should always check. It’s always a good idea to set it higher than the tallest obstacle. So, if you’re flying around trees and they’re all about, say, 30 meters, then you might want to set that to 40 or 50 meters. For the most part, I leave mine at about 100 meters, and that way, I know it’s going to be pretty well higher than any obstacle I’m flying around.

Control the Mini 3 Pro with the sticks

Now, quickly before we go out for a test flight, I’m just going to show you the sticks here and their movements because this could be the very first time you’re flying a drone.

Now, when it comes to stick configuration, there are different modes called Mode Two and Mode One. You can also set some custom modes. By default, most controllers come shipped with Mode Two, so that’s just the standard that most people fly with.

Basically, in Mode Two, if we take a look at the right joystick, if we push forward, the drone will move forward. If we pull back, the drone will move back. If we push from side to side, the drone will go side to side. On the left control stick, that controls our altitude and our yaw. If we push forward, the drone is going to raise in altitude. If we pull it down, the drone is going to get lower. If we push from side to side, basically the drone is going to spin from side to side. So it is a combination of the stick movements that allows you to fly in different directions and configurations.

Now, getting comfortable on the sticks is just going to come with time. The first couple of flights, you’re going to probably have to really think about what each stick does.

At this point, let’s just go out for a quick test flight, and I’ll just show you a few things that you may need to know as a first-time pilot. If you’re going to be going for your very first flight, I highly recommend picking an open area, something that doesn’t have a lot of obstacles or people. That way, you can fly the drone around, get to know how it moves and how it behaves without worrying about colliding with something.

It’s also a good idea before you go for your first flight to make sure you check all your local laws and regulations for your country because every country is a little bit different, and you don’t want to run into any problems. Down there in front of me, you can see I have a landing pad. That is something you may want to invest in because these drones are so small.

The Mini 3, the Mini 2, the clearance of the motors and the camera is not very high, so it’s always good to take off from a flat surface. Ideally, you can take off from concrete or asphalt, or as mentioned, get something like a landing pad, and that way, if you’re taking off from grass or sand, you don’t have to worry about it.

You can also do a hand launch and hand catch, but as a beginner, that’s not something I really recommend. So, I’m going to go ahead here and power on the drone and the controller, and then there are a few things we need to check before we take flight.

Pre-flight check list

I’ve powered on the aircraft, and as mentioned, there are a few things here we want to check before we put the drone up in the air. The first thing is our satellites. You can see there that I’m now connected to 14 satellites. It’s a good idea not to take off until you’ve acquired at least 12 satellites.

The other thing you want to double-check is to make sure your home point is set. As mentioned, we can bring up our map there, and that shows us that we have a home point because we have that big “H.” You just want to make sure it’s in the general location of where you’re flying.

Lastly, it’s a good idea to check some of your safety settings, and we can do so by clicking at the top there where it says altitude zone. If there are any issues with the compass or the IMU, that’ll appear there. It may tell you that you need to calibrate your compass, and I’m going to go over that in a separate video. So, if that’s something you need to learn how to do, just keep an eye on my channel. Once it is available, I will link it down in the description of this video.

The other thing we need to check, as mentioned, is set our return to home altitude. I have mine set there to 108 meters, so that’s what I’m going to leave it at. We have our satellites, we have our home point, so we’re ready to go up for a flight.

Taking off with the DJI Mini 3 Pro

Now when it comes to taking off, there are two ways of doing it, and I’ll show you both methods here.

The first method is by using a series of stick commands. What we can do is pull down on both sticks, push them in, as you can see there the propellers on the drone started but it’s not taking off yet. To take off, all we do is press up on the left control stick. As you can see there, the drone went up and it’s going to hover about half a meter to a meter off the ground.

When you’re done and you want to land it, you can land it using these sticks as well, just by pulling down on the left control stick. It’s going to check the ground to make sure it’s suitable and then it’s going to go down and land.

The other way is by using the takeoff button on the screen. It’s on the very left-hand side in the middle. We can press on that. You can see we get this dialog box that says “Takeoff”. What we have to do is press and hold that. The drone’s motors will start up and then it will just go up and hover.

Now you’ll notice that button changes. It’s now the landing button. So if we press on it, you can see it says “Land”. Now, if we were out say, 100 meters, there would actually be an extra option there for returning the drone back to where it took off from, but I’ll just show you that here. We’re going to click on “Land”. So, the drone is now going to go down and land back on the landing pad.

Now, before you take your very first flight, there’s one tip that I want to give you, and it could potentially save your drone. And that is: let go of the sticks. I know it sounds like a very simple tip, but it can really save you.

These drones are held in place by GPS. So, if you’re ever flying around and you start to panic or you get too close to an obstacle and you’re not quite sure what to do, just let go of the sticks, and the drone is going to stop in place and it will just sit there and hover.

That allows you time to get your composure, you can figure out the orientation of the drone, and that way you don’t make an accidental movement and end up flying into the object.

So, that’s something really important to know. Like I said, just don’t panic, let go of the sticks, and assess the situation.

Flying the DJI Mini 3 Pro

So let’s go ahead here, we’re going to put the drone up. There we go, we have the drone out in front of us. Now, at this point, it’s a good idea, before you go for a long flight or send it too far, to just maybe do some subtle stick movements on the drone. I would maybe recommend putting it in C mode because that’s the slowest mode, and just go from side to side using the stick commands that we talked about earlier.

You can go forward and back, side to side, just kind of get a feel of how the drone is going to react to your stick inputs. Use the left stick to spin the drone around and push it up and down to raise and lower the altitude.

Now, one thing you have to be very cautious of, especially as a new drone pilot, is your orientation, and what I mean by that is, for example, I have the drone out in front of us here. If I use the right stick and pull to the right, the drone is going to go to the right. If I push left, the drone is going to go to the left. But when I spin the drone around to face us, if you watch the drone out in front of me, if I push right, you can see the drone’s actually going to start moving left. So that’s something you have to be very cautious of, especially as a new pilot, and that’s where you can inadvertently fly into an object.

If you’re too close to a tree and you’re not sure which way the drone is orientated, you could end up inadvertently flying right into the object. And that’s where I said earlier about don’t panic, let go of the sticks, figure out the orientation, and then adjust your movements accordingly.

Obstacle avoidance

Now, I’m going to put it into normal mode here, and I’m just going to do a quick demonstration of the obstacle avoidance. As mentioned, this drone has forward obstacle avoidance, rear obstacle avoidance, and downward obstacle avoidance, but there is no side obstacle avoidance, so you do have to be very careful of that. Flying sideways, you could go right into an obstacle.

So what we’re going to do here is go into our settings and under safety. Remember, we took a look at this briefly earlier, we can set our obstacle avoidance to brake, bypass, or off.

If we set it to break and it encounters an obstacle, it’s just going to come to a complete stop. If we turn it off, there’s going to be no obstacle avoidance, and it will end up flying right into the object. If we select bypass, it’s going to use the APAS technology to try and find a route safely around the obstacle.

So I’m going to demonstrate both here. Right now, we have it in brake, so let’s go ahead and try to fly into that tree. I’m just going to push forward on the stick, and as you can see, the drone just came to a stop. So let’s back it up here.

Now, what we’re going to do is select bypass, and again, let’s just go back a little bit. So again, I’m going to push forward towards the tree, and as you can see, the drone went up and around it.

So that obstacle avoidance will work if you’re going forward or in reverse, but it will not work if you’re moving side to side.

Before I go here, there are a couple of things I want to go over quickly when it comes to intelligent flight modes. There’s a ton of things you can do with the Mini 3. Of course, we can capture videos and photos, but they have things called Master Shots, Quick Shots. We can create hyperlapses and take panoramas. Now, I have made several videos going more into detail about what those features are, and I will include links down below in the description of this video.

Some of them are for other drones, but they work exactly the same on the DJIミニ3プロ, so they’ll still be beneficial to watch. Of course, with the Mini 3, one of its new features is we can shoot vertical video as well, and again, we can do so by clicking that button on the screen. As you can see there, we’re now in vertical mode. It’s important to note that not all features are available in vertical mode.

And again, at this point, we can return to home if you lose your orientation up in the sky, or you just want to come home. We can do so by pressing the button on the controller here or the button on the screen. So let’s go ahead and do that right now. I’ll select “Return to Home.” The drone is going to spin around, as you can see, and it’s going to come back to the general location. Usually, it will land within a few feet from where you take off from.

Well, folks, that’s basically it for this video. Hopefully, you learned something and are a little bit more confident to take your first flight. I know there can be some anxiety associated with flying. After all, these drones cost a lot of money. You don’t want to crash it or wreck it. But that usually goes away fairly quickly once you get comfortable with the equipment.

The best thing to do at this point is just practice, get out and fly. And you’ll find that these DJI drones, because of all the built-in safety features and flight controls, are quite easy to fly, and it can be quite a fun little hobby.

Hopefully, you enjoyed this video and got some value out of it. Give it a thumbs up if you did. Don’t forget to subscribe to my channel so you don’t miss any of our upcoming videos. And we’ll see you in the next one.