Let us capture. Let us compare. Let Us Drone. It's as if DJI was saying “happy birthday, Trevor” by releasing the Mavic 2 Pro and the Mavic Zoom on the day I was born. We were graced with the two incredibly capable drones on August 23, 2018. Both new Mavics have new exciting features that I'll dive into on upcoming posts, but I would like to focus on one word today: Hasselblad.
The iconic brand that has been around for the better part of a century has partnered up with DJI, working together for two years to equip the new Mavic 2 Pro with an L1D-20c Hasselblad camera. Here are nine reasons why that's just downright fantastic:
- Swedish craftsmanship since 1941
- 20-megapixel 1-inch CMOS sensor
- Hasselblad Natural Colour Solution (HNCS)
- 10-bit
Dlog -M Color Profile - 4K 10-bit HDR support
- 4K at 100 Mbps
- f/2.8-f/11 adjustable aperture
- H.265 encoding
- Hyperlapse video
- Click to check current Amazon price for Mavic 2 Pro
- Click to check current DJI store price for Mavic 2 Pro
#1 Swedish craftsmanship since 1941
Hasselblad is a Swedish company that was founded in 1941 that is well known in the professional photography sphere. To this day they have been handcrafting cameras and lenses aimed at the professional photographer, with price tags that have kept them out of the realm of possibilities for amateurs
In early 2017, we learned that DJI acquired the majority stake in Hasselblad, which came as a shock to many but made sense for both parties. Advances in technology had many photographers turning to more cost-effective alternatives to Hasselblad's world-renowned, but high-priced cameras. It would seem that DJI having such a large stake in the Swedish company would appeal to the quality minded drone users and photographers out there while helping the iconic brand to stay afloat.
To be fair, the above comments are the speculation and opinion I have after reading about DJI's involvement with Hasselblad, coming from the standpoint of a passionate drone user with an appreciation for photography. What does it mean to me that DJI's newest drone has a Hasselblad camera on it? I am pumped. The quality of the camera with capabilities that far surpass the previous Mavic Pro make the Hasselblad L1D-20c a serious upgrade in my book.
#2 20-megapixel 1-inch CMOS sensor
The new Hasselblad camera is capable of shooting 20MP stills with a 1″ CMOS sensor, which is an upgrade from the first Mavic Pro which came equipped with a camera capable of shooting 12MP stills with a 1/2.3″ CMOS sensor.
For those new to photography, you may be wondering what megapixel and CMOS mean. Simply put, a megapixel is 1 million pixels (bits of information). Pictures that you see are millions of pixels stitched together. So the 20MP camera on the Mavic 2 Pro essentially captures about 20 million pixels of information per inch, which means more detail than that of the Mavic Pro which takes 12MP stills.
The CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) sensor is the electronic “eye” of the camera, and its job is to record what is seen through the lens. Larger sensors are able to take in and record more information than smaller sensors, which in turn produces higher resolution images. Again, the Hasselblad's 1″ sensor is a big upgrade over the original Mavic Pro's 1/2.3″ sensor.
#3 Hasselblad Natural Colour Solution (HNCS)
The process of applying different disciplines of mathematics to have basic RGB
-Hasselbladcolour values allows for consistent and propercolour matching to what the human eye sees. With the use of HNCS, the needs for choosing a specificcolour profile in order to capture accuratecolours correctly is gone. The HNCScolours simply come out correctly.
Getting into different color profiles (RGB, CMYK, etc.) is beyond the scope of this blog post, but what Hasselblad has done is created a solution to the need for choosing between different color profiles to correctly display colors. Basically, the idea is to accurately capture the colors of a photo so less editing has to be done in post-production.
To learn more about the HNCS, click here where Hasselblad will give you much more information than my one paragraph summary.
#4 10-bit Dlog -M Color Profile
You may be wondering what the heck this gibberish means, so let's break it down.
The Mavic Pro has an 8-bit color profile, which means that each pixel had 24 bits (8 bits for each of the 3 primary colors). If you cube the 256 possible 8-bit binary numbers, you get over 16 million colors (256 shades of each red, green, and blue color).
Hasselblads camera has a 10-bit color profile, which allows for 1,024 shades of red, green, and blue. When cubed, you get over 1 billion different color combinations.
| Mavic Pro | Mavic 2 Pro |
| 8-bit | 10-bit |
| 16 million colors | 1 billion colors |
If you've flown one of DJI's drones before, then you've probably noticed
#5 4K 10-bit HDR support
The Mavic 2 Pro is able to record 4K video at 30 fps. Additionally, the drone can be hooked up to HLG (hybrid log gamma) TV's to display 4K 10-bit HDR (high dynamic range) videos that don't need fixing up in post-production.
#6 4K at 100 Mbps
The higher the bitrate, the more information your Mavic's camera can record per frame. The Mavic Pro is capable of recording 4K video at 60 Mbps (megabits per second), with the Mavic 2 Pro now being capable of recording 4K video at 100 Mbps.
Where the higher bitrate will shine is when capturing moving objects, allowing you to still get highly detailed shots.
#7 f/2.8-f/11 adjustable aperture
Hey, would you look at that, we get adjustable aperture with the Mavic 2 Pro. So what is
When you walk outside on a bright sunny day, the iris contracts to limit the amount of light that enters your eye, and it expands when the sun goes down and it's dark out. This is the mechanics of the aperture in a camera.
The smaller the number, the bigger the aperture.
Have you seen those pictures where the foreground is in focus and the background is blurred out? This effect is achieved by setting the aperture to a larger value.
On the Mavic Pro, the aperture was fixed at f/2.2, but we now have the option to chose an aperture between f/2.8-f/11 with the Mavic 2 Pro. This addition really makes the “Pro” stand out in my opinion. Keep in mind that ISO values and shutter speeds will need to be adjusted as well to get that perfect picture.
#8 H.265 encoding
High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 is available on the Mavic 2 Pro, which is a step up from the outdated Advanced Video Coding (AVC), or H.264 that was available on the Mavic Pro.
What does the better video encoding mean? While in H.265 you will be able to record video quality that is equal to that of H.264, but about half the file size. Or you can record video at equal bit rates but have a resulting video of about twice the quality.
#9 Hyperlapse video
How cool is this? We can now make those cool hyperlapse videos with a few swift clicks on the DJI GO 4 app. You have probably heard (and made your fair share) of timelapse videos, but hyperlapse videos are a bit different.
A timelapse video is generally captured from a static camera, and a hyperlapse video is captured while the camera is in motion. The result is a refreshing change to the common timelapse videos we see across the internet.
DJI has enabled the Mavic 2 Pro to create four different types of
- Free– Like the name implies, you are free to fly in any direction your little heart desires while the app/drone does the work of creating your
hyperlapse video. - Circle– If there is a landmark you'd like to get a 360-degree view of, set that landmark as the point of interest and watch the drone circle it while it makes the
hyperlapse video. - CourseLock– Maybe you'de like the drone to fly in a particular direction without you having to control it, allowing you to focus on the yaw while making the video.
- Waypoint– Prerecord your waypoints and watch your Mavic 2 fly around to the selected spots while making a
hyperlapse video.
Watch this tutorial video made by DJI that walks you through the process of creating
Trevor's Take
I think that if DJI was really saying happy birthday to me by releasing the new Mavic 2 Pro and Zoom on my birthday, they would have sent me one for free *sigh*. I guess this blog isn't quite big enough for that yet. Even still, one of these two quadcopters may very well be the next drone to join my collection. Do you have the Mavic 2 Pro? What are your thoughts on it and the Hasselblad camera?
