Dji Mavic 4 Pro review from Pro Photographer (+download RAW samples)
I’ve been a professional drone photographer for over 10 years and am well-known in my small country. I mostly shoot architecture and urban environments, so I place a high value on technical quality.
This review focuses on the new DJI Mavic 4 Pro, especially from a photographer’s perspective. Spoiler: another next-level (photo)drone has hit the market. The improvement is quite significant. I won’t dive deep into the drone’s general specs—there are likely already tons of YouTube videos about that by the time you’re reading this. So, the focus here is on the cameras.
Thanks to the kind support of DJI’s Estonian dealer Droon.ee, I got my hands on the DJI Mavic 4 Pro nearly a week before launch. If you know me, you’ll understand how this excited me like a little boy—and with good reason. This is the DJI Mavic 4 Pro Fly More Combo, which includes the drone, RC 2 controller, 3 batteries, a charging hub, a bag, and a bunch of propellers.
Cameras
This time, the drone features three cameras again – with 28mm, 70mm, and 168mm full-frame equivalents. All of them now support vertical shooting in true 90° portrait mode. However, in this mode, the camera’s up-and-down tilt range is much more limited – only 10° in both directions.
In reality, the gimbal tilts much more, apparently up to 450°, and that range is also usable for video. I didn’t go digging for the exact figure right now. When shooting in landscape orientation, the tilt range is actually more than you’d usually need – the camera can point completely downward and almost completely upward – as much as 70° (M3 had 30°).
With the older Mavic 3 Pro, the camera situation was like this: the main camera was very good, the 70mm was quite good, and the 166mm was rather poor, as its colors were from a completely different world and the resolution was only 12 MP. I honestly could almost never use it in my work. The 70mm, however, was quite usable.
This has now changed, because the cameras produce a much more similar image, even though the sensor sizes haven’t changed. There are still some color differences between the cameras (most notably on the 70mm), but they are relatively easy to correct compared to the previous model. I also noticed that autofocus sometimes missed, especially in the dark. This will likely improve with firmware updates.
There are a lot of megapixels. Perhaps even too many for these sensor sizes, but you can always downscale the image if it becomes an issue.
One thing I already know – I’ll have to create all-new presets, because the dynamic range and overall image characteristics are different with the new drone.
Main Camera – 28mm
The main camera with the Hasselblad logo – 28mm – is noticeably narrower (the previous one was 24mm). I noticed this in a few familiar spots where I’ve shot before – I could no longer fit the same composition into the frame because trees got in the way. It’s a bit of a shame, because often there’s no space left to move back, but it is what it is.
The main camera captures at 100 megapixels (MP), resulting in DNG RAW files over 100 MB in size – even up to 140 MB in forest scenes with lots of fine detail. You can also shoot in 25 MP, where four pixels are binned into one, which should provide better low-light performance and lower noise. You can switch between these modes on the fly.
The aperture now ranges from f/2.0 to f/11, which is a full stop wider than before. I haven’t yet tested thoroughly to see at which aperture the sharpness peaks – usually it’s somewhere around f/5.6–f/9. A wider aperture means better low-light possibilities. For now, I can’t fully tell whether the low-light quality has significantly improved, since the Mavic 3 was already very good in that regard. In any case, the image is razor sharp and quite clean. Personally, I rarely go above ISO 200 to preserve maximum detail. If needed, I use Lightroom’s AI denoising.
Here we arrive at perhaps the only clearly negative point I’ve found with the Mavic 4: the 28mm main camera shoots in 3:2 aspect ratio, while the other cameras use 4:3. That’s really not ideal, because when shooting with different focal lengths in the same series, you end up with images of different dimensions. Why this is the case, I don’t know. Maybe it’s a pre-release issue, I’m not sure.
If the main camera eventually gets a 4:3 option (which I personally prefer), then it would become even narrower. Maybe they’ll instead add a 3:2 option to the telephoto lenses, which would be welcome — there’s enough room for cropping anyway.
Mid-Tele – 70mm
The mid-telephoto lens is just right, offering a 2.5x magnification. It gives a completely different sense of space and scale, especially for architecture and details, and has been one of my favorites in recent years. As mentioned earlier, the telephoto cameras now produce a more consistent image with the main camera, so I’ll probably be using it even more from now on.
It captures 48 MP images, or 12 MP when binned. The aperture is fixed at f/2.8.
Telephoto – 168mm
Finally, the longer telephoto now feels like a real camera—something you can actually use. It captures 50 MP / 12.5 MP files and has a fixed f/2.8 aperture, which is noticeably brighter than the previous version. Most importantly, the image no longer looks like color soup. Finally!
It’s great for creating cool parallax shots in video.
168mm parallax example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SW37Y1_h3c
Other
The Mavic 4 Pro is somewhat heavier and has a bulkier shape. It rests on three legs, which are surprisingly stable. The drone itself is very stable, especially the gimbal. It flies beautifully, and I haven’t noticed even the slightest anomalies.
The kit includes the DJI RC 2 controller, which is technically a step below my previous RC Pro, but it’s lighter and, thanks to Ocusync 4, offers vastly improved signal range. The screen is very good, with brightness just slightly below the Pro series. In short, it does its job very well. The new DJI RC Pro 2 was also released, but I haven’t had a chance to try it yet.
The internal storage is now 42 GB, so in most cases, it’s no big deal if you forget your memory card. I usually keep a spare card in the controller’s microSD slot—just in case.
This model also supports the 4G add-on (DJI Cellular Dongle 2), and it works brilliantly. Although line of sight is still required by law here, there are still situations where signal drops. With this, it doesn’t, as long as there’s any mobile coverage. The 4G dongle isn’t included—you’ll need to buy it separately. It mounts underneath the drone: just unscrew a small panel. Easy.
The Mavic 4 is well protected from all sides. At the front, on the tip of the right arm, there’s a lidar sensor. There are no more side cameras; instead, there are sensors underneath and on the back, working together to ensure omnidirectional awareness. You can also see this coverage on screen, which helps avoid side collisions. I had hoped the sensors would be of higher quality on this model, but I’d actually say the opposite might be true.
The battery lasts up to 51 minutes, but in practice, you get about 35 minutes of real flight time before the warning beeps start. The Mavic 3 gave around 27–28 minutes in real use. So the difference is definitely noticeable. The 3-bay charging hub outputs 100W, and a 240W charger is expected to be released, which would charge all three batteries simultaneously.
I’m not a video expert, but I’ve included a few samples. The video looks very stable and has a smooth, pleasing image. It supports D-Log and similar profiles on all cameras. For now, some video settings are still missing, so I haven’t gone deep into that side yet.
Night video sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AMmIOjMmxo
Conclusion
This review is honest and not sugar-coated. The DJI Mavic 4 Pro is genuinely a fantastic workhorse for me, and I can confidently recommend it to all photographers. I believe videographers will love it too. All the cameras are now very good, resolution is higher, there’s portrait mode, longer battery life, lidar—everything is just better, and in some areas, significantly better.
Buy DJI Mavic 4 Pro from dji.com
Download from Dropbox: DNG RAW photos and some video samples here (please don’t abuse files).
See also Benjamin Hardman's review:
