The New DJI Inspire 3 Drone – An 8K Aerial Imaging Beast!
DJI have released a host of compact, lightweight and affordable drone models over the years, many of which have been targeted more towards amateur filmmakers and drone enthusiasts. That is not the case with DJI's Inspire model of drones. With the upcoming release of the DJI Inspire 3 drone, successor to the Inspire 2, professionals in the film industry will be chomping at the bit to get their hands on one of these!
Although the Inspire 3 may look quite similar to its predecessor, DJI's newest member to their drone family delivers quite a punch in terms of the upgrades and versatility that this package has to offer. In essence, the Inspire 3 is a professional movie-making 8K quadcopter with bottom mounted cameras and retractable landing gear. The bottom mounted camera is probably one of the most notable differences between the Inspire series and DJI's other models of drones, which allows for complete 360 degree camera rotation enabling users to capture some amazingly cinematic shots that most entry level drones simply can't replicate.
The Inspire 3 hosts a brand new camera, the Zenmuse X9-8K Air Gimbal, and as the name implies, supports up to 8K recording capabilities at 25 FPS in CinemaDNG Video as well as 8K at 75 FPS in Apple ProRes RAW. Although camera limitations may have been apparent in some of DJI's past drones, such as the Mavic series, the Inspire 3 can record ultra-high resolution aerial footage in video codecs that allow users to get the most out of their footage for visual effects and color grading. Another new upgrade to the Inspire 3, is that the new X9-8K camera supports dual native ISO at EI 800 and 4000, which further extends the utility of this drone to excel in low-light cinematography situations with the introduction of minimal noise to the footage.
The Inspire 3 is also fully compatible with the DJI PRO Ecosystem which includes their DJI High-Bright Remote Monitor, DJI Three-Channel Follow Focus , DJI Master Wheels and DJI Transmission. When paired together, the versatility of the DJI PRO Ecosystem is extremely impressive and has definitely stepped up their functionality in the professional movie making market. Keeping devices under the same umbrella comes with a lot of advantages in terms of compatibility, user-friendliness and support. This relates to the upgrades DJI brought to the multi-control experience of the Inspire 3, where two remote controllers can receive live feeds and control the drone independently , and can even allow for a third controller to be utilized with a live feed by daisy-chaining one of the gimbal controls to either the Master Wheels or Three Channel Follow Focus. Compared to the limitations of the Inspire 2, drone pilots and gimbal operators for the Inspire 3 can now be at completely different positions on set, and even in the event that the pilot loses control of the done, the gimbal operator can now easily take control of the aircraft to safely return it home.
As with most new released models, the Inspire 3 comes with the standard upgrades in most areas that users would expect. This includes more storage with the introduction of an internal 1TB SSD, better live feed quality coming at 1080p/60 FPS, more lens versatility options with the introduction of the new 18mm F2.8 full frame ultra-wide lens and much more, not to mention the many in-flight control options that DJI have curated to capture more challenging shots.
As one may expect with a drone package of this caliber and capability, it comes with a price tag that may scare away a lot of interested consumers. Starting at $13,000 USD ($18,400 CDN) for the base package, which basically comes with everything you would need to get flying immediately, excluding lenses that users will have to purchase separately. All-in-all the Inspire 3 looks like a beast of a drone package, more than capable for almost any aerial cinematography challenges and is now available for pre-order!
*Pre-Order the new DJI Inspire 3 in Canada at Lumio Electronics.
