DJI AIR 2S
This drone packs a pro-sized camera into a compact frame
The DJI Air 2S redefines what’s possible with drone photography, putting a oneinch 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, 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 5472 x 3648 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 (5472 x 3078) would impress on any drone, even if it is at 30fps. Drop down to 4K (3840 x 2160), and not only ia the entire image zoomed 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 different shell elements in order to accommodate the extra sensors top-front – depending on your taste, you may think it looks all the better for having a few more ‘eyes’.
The three-axis gimbal behaved without issue in our testing. Looking back at the room afforded to the gimbal on the Air 2, it seemed entirely plausible that DJI could build a model with a bigger camera, 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 we were aware that we were able to get slightly less done in the air.
The controller is the same as the one introduced with the Air 2, which marked a significant improvement in terms of battery life and phone grip.
Performance
Video quality is remarkable, with the image processing algorithms going 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 feel like they make this experience more coherent than with previous drones.
The ease of tapping and dragging to frame a subject, or even allowing the
FocusTrack system 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 we were able to use ActiveTrack to follow us as we moved around obstacles; the aircraft kept the camera on us, and didn’t crash into horizontal or vertical obstacles, taking avoiding action even as we turned, and continuing to follow us.
There are quirks in some of 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. We also found the Hyperlapse waypoint flight path tricky to define, although a software update could fix that.