DJI Air 3S – Here’s Everything New About This DJI Drone!

Here we have the brand new DJI Air 3S. Being an S model, it brings incremental updates to an already well-developed platform, which was the Air 3, a very successful drone that DJI is now taking to the next level. Today we’ll take a look at everything new you need to know about the Air 3S.

Visual Inspection

At a quick glance, you might not see a major difference between the two. However, the Air 3S is now slightly longer than the Air 3, a little bit bigger, and just a tiny bit taller as well. There’s a good reason for that, which we’ll explore when we look at the drone from the front.

New Features

When you take a look at the drone from the front, you will see some new improved things and new features:

Improved Cameras

We have two new cameras that we’ll talk about in-depth in just a second.

LiDAR Sensor

Before that, let’s mention the LiDAR sensor which we have here on the forehead of the drone. This LiDAR sensor is going to be extremely crucial for nighttime operations if you’re flying the Air 3S. It will help you to detect obstacles in its way, and the Air 3S is now significantly smarter to return home and to avoid obstacles because of this sensor.

Enhanced Obstacle Avoidance

Combining the LiDAR sensor with all of the obstacle avoidance sensors which we have on this drone (two on the front, two on the back, and two on the bottom), I think the Air 3S is probably the smartest and the safest drone that DJI has ever released.

LiDAR Sensor in Action

So what is this LiDAR sensor and why does it matter so much on this drone? Well, first of all, if I power on the drone and I start filming it with my camera, you will see this sensor actually working. There’s a red blinking light all the time which is sending a signal back and forth at all times, and that’s kind of a way for the drone to know if there is an object approaching.

Even in situations where you have almost no visual visibility from the drone when it’s really dark and there are obstacles in its way, even if the drone cannot actually see those obstacles with the obstacle avoidance sensors (those cameras), it will be able to detect them with this LiDAR sensor and of course prevent a possible crash, resulting in a safer flight for you and everyone else.

This can also be used in another scenario when you don’t have GPS signal. For example, in areas where you have weak GPS connectivity or you don’t have one at all, the drone can use the pre-built map model from its outbound flight to trace its way back to the home point. This is going to be super handy to have and it will save a lot of drones from breaking on their way back when using return home at nighttime, not being able to detect some obstacles in their way.

Battery Compatibility

Before we get to the cameras, I just want to point out that from all other angles, the drones are pretty much identical. The batteries from the Air 3 work on the Air 3S and vice versa. They’re not exactly the same capacity – the ones from the Air 3S are just slightly bit bigger – however, they are exactly the same in terms of form factor.

Camera Specifications

Let’s get to the cameras because this is what makes it really interesting. At least for me, this is the most exciting part of this brand new release.

Similarly to the Air 3, again we have a two-camera setup:

Primary Camera

• 1-inch sensor
• 24mm focal length
• f/1.8 aperture
• 4K 60fps HDR videos
• 4K 120fps slow-motion videos in D-Log M
• 50-megapixel photos
• 14 stops of dynamic range

Secondary Camera

• 70mm equivalent focal length
• 48-megapixel 1/1.3-inch sensor
• f/2.8 aperture
• Same video specifications as the main sensor
• 14 stops dynamic range

Both cameras feature a whole new image processing platform and a new algorithm for better quality and performance, preserving more details in low light environments.

Image Quality and Performance

The footage that I was able to get while checking out the Air 3S for my first couple of flights was definitely very enjoyable, very crispy, and very smooth. I have to say these drones come out of the box extremely well-tuned. I don’t have to tweak any settings for the flying performance itself. I don’t change the EXP settings, I don’t change the sensitivity settings – they come great straight out of the box.

As far as the footage goes, I think the footage itself is very nice, very smooth, and also very crispy, especially if you drop the sharpness a little bit to minus two and the noise reduction to maybe minus one. Those are my go-to settings, and then you will have very nice footage that you can just throw a LUT on and you will be golden.

With the D-Log M color profile, DJI is definitely streamlining all of their products to use this color profile, and now it’s easier than ever to just grade your footage and extract the most out of it by using the most flat color profile that this drone has.

The normal color profile is of course also usable, especially at nighttime when you don’t really need to have that flat color profile applied to your footage. You can use the normal profile, and that will also allow you to use a higher ISO value. If you want to shoot at nighttime and want to really maximize the light that you can record in your video, you can use an ISO of 6400 and even 12,800 if that’s something that you find necessary.

Missing Features

Two small things that I have to say that I’m missing on this drone:

1. There is no night mode, as we have seen on previous drones such as the Mini 4 Pro or the Mavic 3 Pro. The night mode, the dedicated night mode, enables the drone to automatically clean up the noise from your footage and also to brighten up the image to a large extent by using a really high ISO value. Here, I didn’t find it, so that was something that I think is missing from this drone as of right now.
2. The other thing that really bothers me sometimes, which of course is normal for a drone and also happens on the Air 3, is those two little green dots that you can see when shooting directly at the sun. These are reflections from the camera lenses and they are pretty much impossible to remove if you shoot towards the sun. They could be quite annoying to be part of your footage – they’re very visible and kind of take away some of your attention when you take a look at your footage.

Flight Performance

On top of that, we have the same maximum flight distance of 20km with the Air 3S. We have a battery life of about 45 minutes in perfect conditions, and since we are using the same or almost the same batteries as the Air 3, the battery life is very similar as well. I believe it’s 1 minute less than the Air 3, and that’s due to the processing power that this drone requires.

In terms of flying performance, you already know the Air 3 and the Air 3S are again very, very similar. The Air 3 has been fantastic since I own this drone. It’s been through a lot of different things and very strong winds, and the general performance of the drone has been rock solid ever since I have started flying this drone. I have experienced nothing but the same with the Air 3S.

New Panorama Feature

There’s a new feature that has been introduced for the Air 3S. Similar to all of the other drones from DJI’s lineup, you can of course make panoramas with this drone. You can have a lot of different ways to capture different images and the drone will stitch them for you. But here we also have a new feature which is called Free Panorama.

This feature allows you to kind of draw your panorama yourself. You can set the drone to start stitching a panorama from a specific angle that you decide you want to start from, and then turn it around to a different point and set it to the last point of your panorama. The drone will automatically detect the whole scene and make a panorama of this exact location that you have selected.

So it doesn’t have to be a flat panorama, it doesn’t have to be a sphere panorama – you can draw in the sky yourself and you can set your panorama to be the way you want it to be. That feature works on both cameras, so whether that’s the 24mm 1X camera or the 70mm 3X camera, you can take advantage of this new Free Panorama mode on both of these.

Then you can decide whether you want to have a JPEG output with the stitched panorama, or if you want to have RAW photos and stitch them yourself. Maybe in Lightroom you want to stitch them yourself, you want to color grade them and process them as you wish – you’re free to do that as well. You have a lot of different output variations when using panorama mode, and that’s something that you get on the Air 3S.

ND Filters

Here I have the ND filter set for the Air 3S, and this time the Filters are kind of different. First of all, they come with a very weird variation. We have ND8, ND32, and ND128. So personally, I think the most necessary filter in this case would be the ND64, but it’s missing from this kit. I’m not sure why they introduced this exact selection of filters, but maybe there’s a reason for that.

Also, the filters themselves look different in a way that they have this coating on the top, on the front, which kind of looks like glasses, like a real glass. So it’s kind of reflective and it looks different as opposed to any other DJI filters that I’ve ever seen. None of them have ever come with this coating on the front that is so reflective. It’s fine, it looks nice, it looks interesting on the drone – it’s just an observation that I had to share with you guys.

Pricing

Now let’s take a look at the price list which I have here on my phone. We have three different bundles that you can buy the Air 3S with:

1. DJI Air 3S RC-N3 Single Version: This is pretty much the drone with one battery and the remote, the RC-N3. That’s going to be $1,099 and that’s also the same in Euros, so €1,099.
2. Air 3S Fly More Combo with RC-N3: That gives you the drone, ND filters, three batteries in total, and this carrying bag. It’s $1,399 or €1,399, again the same price.
3. Air 3S Fly More Combo with DJI RC2: That’s the remote controller with built-in screen, which I personally think is the better deal. You get it for $1,599 US or €1,599.

Those are the prices for the Air 3S and the three different bundles that you can order it from. I’ll throw a link in the description if you want to check it out from DJI’s website. If you want to support my channel, buy yourself an Air 3S and help me produce more videos like this one.

Conclusion

Now, whether I think this is a justified upgrade if you’re coming from the Air 3, I will save for another video. I’m actually releasing that video tomorrow, so stay tuned for that and subscribe to the channel so you don’t miss it.

However, if you’re coming from any other model, I think upgrading to the Air 3S is going to be justified as this drone brings a whole new set of improvements in the internal side of things: the processing power, the algorithms, the way the drone processes your images, the photos that it can shoot, the videos that it can produce especially at low light, the LiDAR sensor, the flight time – everything is great.

So there is really a no-brainer if you’re going to upgrade from a smaller drone, from an older drone that you need to upgrade from. I definitely think the Air 3S is going to be a great, great workhorse that can just do it all.

With that being said guys, this is everything I have for today’s video. Don’t forget to drop a like and ask me anything about the Air 3S down in the comments below. I’m really looking forward to hearing back from you. This is Mike from Drone Supremacy. Take care, and I’ll catch you in the next one. Ciao!