Active Track on the DJI Mavic 2 Pro | Can it keep up? By Potato Jet

- Today we are gonna be doing a little bit of drone flying. (loud buzzing) (dramatic music) (engine revving) (high-pitched buzzing) Anyways, before that, I wanna show you guys something real quick. Yeah! Oh, gross, there's still food on this knife. But this is actually pretty sexy. Where should, where should I put this? Huh? Huh? I have to put this somewhere where everybody that comes through that door will see it and realize that I'm the (bleep). The main reason why the Mavic 2 Pro is such an awesome camera is because as of right now, it's gotta be the best image quality out of a drone this size.

Every time I do anything outdoorsy, I wanna be able to take this, throw it in the backpack like this and bring it out to places like this. By the way, it's Mika's birthday today. So say happy birthday. But actually by the time you see this it'll probably be like two weeks past her birthday, so tell her happy late happy birthday. Happy late happy birthday.

Lotta happys. (soothing music) Just don't, don't slip off. You look like you're about to slide off or something. So don't slide. Alright, here we go.

We are gonna go for a flight. (high-pitched buzzing) (soothing music) Okay, that's enough risking our lives for now. We are now recording. We got us in the frame. What's up? Say hi to the camera.

Alright, so I'm gonna try to switch this over into Active Track mode. Here we go. So it automatically detected Mika, and I think I can move and it'll just literally keep her in the center. Which is pretty cool. Okay, go ahead and just, I'm just gonna see how long it can track her for.

(electronic beeps and buzzing) Hold up, it's getting really close to these rocks. It's making me kinda nervous. I mean it's tracking her. I'm still steering the drone. I'm not brave enough to just like, let it completely fly without my input.

It's got sensors on the sides active right now, but I'm still way too nervous to let this thing just kinda fly on its own. So I'm still steering it. But even when I'm not steering it, it'll fly on its own. It's just making me really nervous. So it's still tracking her.

She's gonna come past me. Oh, okay, there we go. And I'm just gonna let it follow her. I'm gonna see how long I can keep this up without touching this remote without getting too freaked out. (high-pitched buzzing) That's making me nervous.

It doesn't just like, slowly follow her. It like, it'll follow her for a little bit and then just like fly really fast at where she is. It's doing a pretty good job flying on its own right now. I'm gonna lower it just to make the shot look a little bit cooler, but. There's Mika over there and it's looking pretty cool.

Look out that way. Yeah, look out that way. Right there. Stay there, and look out. (dramatic music) And what's awesome is that with Active Track, I can still control the drone, and it still follows her pretty nicely.

So I don't have to worry about controlling this joystick, I can literally just control the drone with this joystick. And it's doing a pretty good job of just getting a nice centered shot of her. So this is pretty sweet. (intense, high-pitched buzzing) You know, Active Track is actually really cool. I think I'm gonna start using it more than I did before.

I used to always fly in Manual mode just so I had the most control. But when you have this drone doing all the tracking of the subject for you, and you can just focus on flying the drone, I mean that's really convenient. As of right now, whenever it's on Active Track, it tracks right in the center of the frame. It would be really cool if you could designate a spot on the frame where it will keep that subject. Like, it would be really awesome if you could keep the subject on like, the bottom right.

But hey, maybe that could be a future function. Hey, a little spider decided to join this drone. I wonder if that spider was on there for the flight. Could you imagine? (chuckles) The goal of this was to test out the Active Track without touching the remote at all. Just letting it go.

I just wanted to turn on Active Track and then just not even touch the controller. That was my plan, so here we go. Okay, so we're playing through the footage now. Carrie's on the bike, and again here, I am not touching the remote at all. You're going past the containers here.

And I was a little bit concerned about it hitting the containers. But it kinda cruised right over them. But here, okay, so, look at that. Oh! It's, oh my God, okay and then you're about to take-- - Oh you can see it adjust right there though. - Yeah, but look at that.

- Oh! - No! - Oh my gosh. - And then again. - That was so close. (Gene screams and chuckles) - That was terrifying. I straight up had a heart attack there.

That's not it. Okay, so I tried, I'm like okay we're in-- - That was really close. - Yeah, so I'm like, okay, we're in the clear. I started sliding it to the right. And then oh my God! - Oh my God! (screams) - Look at that.

Second I was like, oh it crashed. I should have got DJI Care, I should have. Even though I'm pretty sure that DJI watches my videos and they're like, oh let's void that guy's DJI Care. Even if I bought it, so. What freaks me out is the sensor didn't even come on.

I mean, I think it knew (rapid electronic beeping) it was there, but I'm not sure. But eventually it just said aircraft too low. I don't know. I don't know if that was luck. Like, there is a chance the Mavic didn't see that plank of wood at all.

'Cause if you look at this, it flew right over that plank of wood. Like, I think the bottom sensors just like detected that real quick and was like, whoa, okay hold on. In my head, I hope that the Mavic knew it was there and was like, yeah, I'll just cruise right over it. But, there's a pretty good chance that it was just like, whoa, oh my God, there's something under me. Flight session number two.

So we switched off. And my mission on this was to evade. You can lose the drone pretty easily on a motorcycle. Especially when there's an object in front of you. Whenever you go underneath the drone, it's hard for it to like, follow you.

But like, for all this stuff, like here, it's staying up pretty, like no problem. But I think it also helps that everything is a bright orange color, and I'm like a dark object. So I think it makes it easier for the system to keep me tracked. I'm riding up these hills, and I ride by this rod. Like, does it know that there's a rod right there? Would it have crashed straight into it if that was in its path? I don't know.

I think you should be super cautious of doing Active Track. But watch this right here. - Oh my gosh that scared me, it was - Yeah. - so close. - So there, for a second it said, wait, 21 feet.

- It was not 21 feet. - That's not 21-- - 'Cause I was right over there. Freaked me out. It was literally, it had to have been like, - Yeah. - about a foot.

- Does Active Track know that sign is there? - It did. I did see it adjust right there. - Okay. - Like, it sensed it, and then it kinda like, you could see it when it adjusts. - It doesn't give me a ton of confidence.

(Carrie laughs) I feel like Active Track was like, yeah, we're just gonna cruise, oh my God! Oh, good, that was a close one. And the stuff like this, there's lots of like, hills and trees, big objects that are very easy for the camera to see. I think it does a pretty good job of recognizing a lot of that. Here, it lost me for a second. Yeah, it just, I think I just rode away a little bit too fast.

And again right now it's on Safe mode, so it's not gonna fly as fast. So you can switch it over to Max mode. If it goes on Max, it's not gonna be as safe. On Safe mode it flew so close to so much stuff that, I'm like, I'm not even gonna test Max mode. Obstacle Avoidance is not available after 12 meters per second.

I'm not gonna risk that. - That freaked me out when it was by the trees. But then, (rapid electronic beeping) I was like, let it do its thing. - It got so close to the tree. I remember thinking, like, again, about a foot over the tree.

I feel like it knows not to crash, but it's scary. When you're not in control of it, it really is scary. Like you're just watching this expensive thing float around in the air, and you're like, I think it's smart, but if it's not, I'm basically out like 1,500 bucks. So. (chuckles) So like here, stuff like this.

Like, you know, no problems at all. Woo! (Carrie chuckles) That's a crash. I need to take some lessons on dirt bike riding. - (chuckling) You failed so quick. (Gene laughs) - I've gotten in a motorcycle accident riding down this freeway by the ocean.

The car came out right in front of me, and it didn't see me, and I hit the front of the car and I flipped over. And as soon as I landed, I was like, where's my shoe? It got tossed like 20 feet away. And then I look over at my motorcycle and it's on fire. And I was like, oh my God. And I checked my body, and I was like totally fine.

I was wearing gear, by the way. This was irresponsible. I should have been wearing gear. All the gear all the time is the responsible thing to do. - Didn't you tell me, it always happens when you don't thing it'll happen.

- Exactly. Always be prepared for an accident. And for your shoe to go flying super far. See, and... - Oh you can see it fly.

- Exactly. But, this is a good opportunity to check out the 4K capabilities of this camera. Let's look at what it looks like at 1,000 percent scale. (Carrie laughs) Now this is a real good test on how good the 4K capability of this (Carrie laughs) camera is. - It was fantastic.

- Ten times cropped in. And again, this is on full FOV mode. And then look at my shoe. Boink! - (laughing) Literally like, and as soon as you get up you're like, where's my shoe? - Yeah. Resolution-wise, I mean like, that's some good resolution.

But yeah, I mean, other than those close calls, it, like, flew so good. And because of all the sensors on the back and the sides, I felt a lot more confidence. I mean there's a lot of times where, like I know the old Mavic would have crashed, for sure. Because the old one didn't have sensors on the sides or on the back. Alright, so what did we learn today? Well, I'm more likely to crash than the Mavic's Active Track system.

So thumbs up for the Active Track system. It's gotten a hundred times better than the original Mavic Pro. I mean, the Mavic Pro, the first one, would have crashed like 20 times during this test flight. And the Mavic 2 has not crashed yet. Although, I feel like it got close calls.

But it's definitely possible that the Mavic 2 just knew exactly what was going on and I'm just freaking out because it flies so close to things. I am still working on that full in-depth Mavic 2 video. Those generally take me a pretty long time to make 'cause I like to really fly and get to know the drone so I can give you guys real world experience knowledge on what it's like to have this drone and it is worth it for you. But anyways, that video will be coming next week. And the Mavic 1, my original one, I will be giving it away in that video.

So, (Carrie whoops) you know, pretty cool. I actually have a sponsor for that video, so I can give away cool expensive stuff, so yeah. But this video's not sponsored so, you ain't getting anything right now. I'll see you guys next week. Maybe one of you guys could be the lucky ones to have a brand new, actually a heavily used Mavic 1 Pro.

It's gone through some (bleep), but-- - So it has like a salvaged title? - Yes, it's a (Carrie laughs) salvaged title Mavic Pro. But you know, it still flies awesome and still gets really good footage, so. Ooh, and by the way, I have a question for you guys. What is your favorite camera bag? I would love to have a compact bag that fits all my general YouTubing stuff. This camera, couple different lenses, and a drone.

Let me show you what I just got. Alright, so here's my current go-to backpack. It's a North Face Surge. It's super duper comfortable. It carries a lot of stuff, and it's super rugged.

I beat the crap out of this thing, and it is tough. The problem is that it's not a camera bag. I had to put some custom inserts in there to fit cameras in there and help protect it. So, here's the next contestant. K&F sent this to me.

It is not a perfect backpack, but it's pretty good for the $80 price range. It's designed for cameras, and I'm hoping this is gonna be my go-to bag. Overall I think the design's pretty cool, and the back is pretty comfortable, so we're off to a good start. (zipper zips) Up front I got my ND filters and some little extras. (zipper zips) Next up we have 15 inch MacBook Pro.

We have hard drive and MacBook charger. On the side is a little tiny pouch just good enough for something like lens wipes. And here's where all the good stuff is. Some extra batteries, chargers. Mavic fits right in there.

Remote, charger for Mavic. You have a 50 mil prime lens and a 22 mil prime lens. Usually you would put this divider thing right in the middle so you could put your camera here and maybe a little long lens down here, but I like to keep it open just so that I could fit a nice good sized doggie in there. Perfect fit. The camera I'm filming with right now, it's a Canon M50 with a GorillaPod and a microphone on top of it.

And the ideal way to pack this up is to take everything apart, the tripod, the camera, the microphone. But if I'm like vlogging and shooting YouTube videos, sometimes I just want that camera to be like super quick access. So I really wanna find a bag where I can just fit this whole thing as one just straight into the bag. So I'm gonna take down the Canon M50. This is what my setup looks like.

I'm gonna take it and stick it into the bag. It just kinda jams this microphone down a little bit. Yeah, I mean if this bag was just like, a few inches taller, it would be a perfect fit. And again, the quality out of this bag, definitely not bad for $80. I do have a few issues with this bag though.

This sleeve up here, nothing will ever stay in this pocket without a zipper. Every time you close it, open it back up, it's gonna just spill in. If it's something hard, it's gonna scratch your camera. Next is this little tripod holder right here, where you're supposed to take a tripod leg, stick one leg in there, and then clip it down onto here. The problem is, they didn't make this a buckle.

I mean, this definitely should have been a buckle. So you could unbuckle it, take your tripod, stick it in here, and then buckle it in. But instead, it's just an adjustable strap so you have to try to squeeze your tripod in there all the way, and then get it in there and then tighten it up every single time. And it should have just been a buckle or something. And it would have been so much easier.

But yeah, generally overall, I'm really digging this bag, especially for the $80 price point. I'm gonna link it in the description in case you guys want one. But I think I'm gonna make this my everyday carry for a little while. Man, one day I wanna design my own camera bag. You know, it would have a quick-release camera that you could pull out all built up like this.

I would want like a red and green pack in here. Red ones for dead batteries, green ones for good. This would be like a bottle opener. I don't know, would could I talk to about making a backpack? How does that even work? I don't know, I know how to make videos, no idea about how to make bags. But for now this will work.

I really like the fact that I can just pick this up in the morning and know that I've got a camera, a drone, extra batteries, laptop, basically everything I need to make a YouTube video and be ready to go. Oh, man, another thing I really wish this bag had was buckles down here. I know it can be kinda nerdy, but when you're doing hikes or riding a motorcycle or something, it helps to have that extra security. But just like my North Face one has, you know? But these are all gonna be features of the Potato Jet bag coming in 2028. Anyways, this video is very quickly turning into a video about backpacks and not drones, so I should probably end it here before I get too distracted.

(smooth funky music).

Source : Potato Jet