With the release of the Mavic 3 Pro, there has been a lot of talk about some of its amazing features and one of the most popular features is “Active Track”. Active Track uses an Autopilot like function to help you focus on getting the perfect shot, while the drone does all of the flying.
There are 3 options for the Active Track features and they include: Active Track, Spotlight, and Point of Interest. For this video, we are going to highlight the “Active Track” This feature tracks the subject at a continual distance and altitude, while tracking you have the option of “Tracking” from the front, back, left or right of the subject that you are filming.
Changing the tracking direction mid-flight is as simple as selecting your desired option if you need to change up the look and feel of the shot. This feature is enabled on the Mavic 3 Pro Cine which has amazingly high quality Cameras that allows you to select from the standard 24mm wide lens or the newly available 70mm focal length while using “Active track”.
We knew that we had to put this to the test and share our own experience with you all, so we headed out to our “Training Compound” here in Fort Myers, Florida. Okay so once you've taken off remain hovering near the subject you're wishing to select to “Active Track”.
As you can see on the screen capture we’ve selected myself as the subject, so once your subject is highlighted select the “go” option. Once you're locked on to your target you will have the options to track from the left side, right side, or the front & back.
As we mentioned before, you can change this orientation during the flight. As I began to walk across this field you can see that the active track seamlessly went into effect, making adjustments as needed according to my speed and direction. While mid-tracking we manually changed the orientation and without hesitation the tracking persisted to an impressive degree and then eventually lost sight of me as I disappeared into some trees.
The Active Track feature may not pick back up on your subject once they come out of the tree line however it did take some time to attempt to relocate me but never did. Next we tested tracking of a vehicle, at first we tried a random truck in sight however we noticed that the truck's movement made it difficult to select, but once it locked on it was quickly lost into a tree line.
We did attempt multiple speeds of the vehicle's movement, mostly on the slower side and once you hit go that drone will shift , bob and weave its way to capture your subject to the best of its ability. We even thought it was a goner in this clip with what appeared to be too close for comfort, so thankfully we didn't crash,and please ensure that your obstacle avoidance is on while maintaining that line of sight when using this feature.
A few days later we headed back out to “The FDS Training Center” and we ran a second test of me riding my E- bike in the early morning hours. We even sent up the Inspire 3 to film the M3Pro in action, so you all can see the unnerving movements this drone takes in order to get the shot.
At one point it appeared to have a near collision once again on a fairly sharp turn however we were capturing this time solely using the 70 mm focal length which makes objects appear much closer than reality, but here are the results. It is important to note that being aware of your surroundings is crucial to having a safe flight. The Mavic 3 Pro does an amazing job at avoiding obstacles such as trees, poles, buildings, etc. It is not perfect and it is still very possible to have a collision.
Make sure that your flight area and subject are well lit as the obstacle avoidance system on the Mavic 3 relies on cameras to see and know where it is going. When using the Active Track mode we highly recommend that you do not have the obstacle avoidance switched off.
We love this feature on the Mavic 3 Pro and there are countless applications where this can be used and we know that you will get the perfect shot that you imagined. To Purchase The Mavic 3 Pro Click Here: https://www.floridadronesupply.com/collections/dji-mavic-3-pro