DJI Air 2S
This drone combines a pro-sized camera and a compact frame
This compact camera drone with a pro-sized camera has aerial photography enthusiasts in its viewfinder
but newer photographers might have to do a little head-scratching at first.
The Fujinon XF 27mm f/2.8 R WR kit lens deserves a closer look, too. This is a reworked version of a lens Fujifilm has had in its X-mount line-up for a while. This version adds a physical aperture ring and weather sealing, two small steps that are really welcome. It’s a bold move for Fujifilm to bundle a prime lens with this camera rather than a zoom, but it shows the company is aiming this camera at a particular type of camera enthusiast. You can, of course, use any X-mount lens with the X-E4, and you can buy it body-only for use with lenses you’ve already got.
It’s worth pointing out that this is not Fujifilm’s only classic rangefinder-style camera. There’s also the Fujifilm X100V, with its hybrid optical/digital viewfinder and fixed 35mm f/2 equivalent lens, and the more advanced Fujifilm X-Pro3, also with a hybrid viewfinder and the ability to swap lenses.
Build and handling
The X-E4 handles well, and the slim rectangular body is a good match for the XF 27mm f/2.8 kit lens. If you switch to a larger lens, however, it doesn’t feel quite as well-balanced; if you want to use longer Fujinon zooms, you might be happier with the X-S10
or the X-T4, both of which have integrated grips. We paired the X-E4 with a Fujinon XF 16-80mm f/4 for our video tests, and that did feel a little large for the camera body.
The electronic viewfinder isn’t the highest-resolution display out there, but with 2.36 million dots it’s still perfectly crisp and clear for a camera like this. The rear screen is very good, too; it even has a tilting mechanism, though it doesn’t incorporate a sideways tilt like the X-T4, and the X-S10 is better still, with a fully articulating screen.
The X-E4’s rear screen is touchsensitive; it’s really useful to be able to tap the screen to switch focus points, especially with the camera on a tripod and filming video. What is annoying, though, is that the screen flips upside down if your ‘tapping’ finger gets close to the EVF’s eye sensor. It’s as if the camera imagines you’re shooting a selfie, even when the screen angle
is quite shallow. This proved pretty annoying during our video tests. In fairness, although the X-E4 can shoot 4K video perfectly well, it’s not really a video specialist – there isn’t even a dedicated record button.
Round the back there is no four-way controller, just a small joystick. That’s fine – you don’t really miss the D-pad at all (the buttons on previous models have been a bit too easy to press by accident), and the joystick takes care of all the menu navigation and focus point settings.
On the front there is a single control wheel, which is all this camera really needs. This does have a central ‘click’ action that can be a little too easy to activate unintentionally.
Performance
The X-E4’s still image quality is everything we’ve come to expect from Fujifilm cameras. You can use the in-built Film Simulations for capturing JPEGs, or you can shoot raw if you want to choose a colour profile later.
The X-E4 has an interesting Dynamic Range Priority mode, which adjusts
the camera’s ISO and tone curve to match the brightness range of the scene; if you’re shooting JPEGs, it will tweak the highlight and shadow curve regions to provide the kind of wide exposure latitude you might once have got from colour negative film. Camera JPEGs can occasionally look a little anaemic as a result, but you do get a wide range of tones to work with during editing. It’s almost like the stills equivalent of log modes in video.
Speaking of video, the X-E4 shoots oversampled 6K to produce its 4K video files, which are sharp and full of detail. We did take a few hours out of the office to shoot some sample video, but with no in-body stabilisation this is a camera that’s best used on a tripod, or perhaps on a gimbal. Rod Lawton
“The X-E4’s still image quality is everything we’ve come to expect”
The DJI Air 2S redefines what’s possible with drone photography, putting a one-inch sensor in a tiny package and surrounding it with sophisticated safety and compositional aids. On the other hand, it could be seen as just taking the already extremely capable DJI Air 2, released only 12 months ago, and bumping the specs a bit.
Key features
The Air 2S’s predecessor, the Air 2, sported a 48-megapixel camera with quad-Bayer filter, which many would see as effectively 12 megapixels at 1.6 microns. The new camera beats that with 5,472 x 3,648 pixels (20MP) at 2.4 microns. This is thanks to an upgrade in the image sensor size from half an inch to one inch.
The Air 2S’s aperture is fixed at f/2.8, but the lens design means that this is where you get the best results for drone-based shooting.
Turning to video, the bump to a maximum of 5.4K (5,472 x 3,078) would impress on any drone, even if it is at 30fps. Drop down to 4K (3,840 x 2,160), and not only does the entire image zoom in quite significantly to match the crop, but frame rates rise to 60fps.
Build and handling
The Air 2S is clearly built on the Air 2’s frame (with replacement shell elements to accommodate the extra sensors top-front). Depending on your taste, it looks all the better for a few more eyes.
The three-axis gimbal behaved without issue in my testing. Looking back at the room afforded for the gimbal on the Air 2, a model with a bigger camera seemed like it was distinctly plausible, and though the
overall weight climbs 25g to 595g, the drone feels just as nimble in the air. The loss of three minutes of flight time, to 31, doesn’t sound significant, but I was aware that I was able to get slightly less done in the air.
The controller is the same as introduced with the Air 2, which marked a significant improvement in terms of battery life and phone grip.
Performance
Video quality is remarkable. The image processing algorithms go a long way to make post-processing largely unnecessary for most.
Using a drone to capture interesting action, especially video, is hugely appealing to outdoor enthusiasts, and the improvements to the Air 2S felt to me to be making this experience more coherent than previous drones.
The ease of tapping and dragging to frame a subject, or even allowing it to select a target (it identifies humans on its own) for the drone to follow or otherwise focus attention on still surprises, even though this isn’t new to DJI drones.
Where the Air 2S moves things along significantly is with the addition of its upward-facing obstacle avoidance sensors. The drone can see forward, whether it’s leaning into speedy flight or moving more sedately. This is a much more effective design than the simple distance sensors at the back of the DJI Mavic 2 series, for example, which can do little more than spot a ceiling or branch above the rotors.
The upshot is that I was able to use ActiveTrack to follow me as I moved around obstacles; the aircraft kept the camera on me and didn’t crash into horizontal or vertical obstacles, taking avoiding action even as I turned, and continuing to follow me.
There are quirks in the tools, too. That the MasterShots mode drops the system down to 1080P – easily unnoticed – before it begins its sequence of captures might seem cheeky, but the load on the edit which the DJI Fly app will provide will be reduced, too. I also find the Hyperlapse waypoint flight path tricky to define, but a software update could fix that. Adam Juniper