We’ve had the new DJI Mavic Air for about a couple of week now and aside from the “pretzel puzzle” folding arms, we’ve really enjoyed getting to know it better.
But even a well equipped kit like the Mavic Air Fly More Combo doesn’t include what you really need to be capturing the best footage.
So we’ve put together our top “must have” accessories for the DJI Mavic Air.
Freewell Neutral Density Filters
If you’re filming with a drone, especially in 4K, you want to achieve a cinematic effect that makes your videos buttery smooth. If you leave your camera settings in Auto you’ll be disappointed both from the washed out highlights on bright days and constant flicker that comes as the Mavic Air adjusts exposure.
We won’t go into great detail about why you need ND filters (we wrote at length about it here and DJI has a good piece on it here) other than to say it allows you to slow the camera down and use the highest quality ISO setting possible….which leads to the best results.
And what we love about the Mavic Air filter setup is that they screw onto the lens just like a proper camera.
We use the Freewell ND All Day 8 Pack for DJI Mavic Air ($129) that are available at B&H Photo. We like this combo because it includes ND4/8/16/8PL/16PL/32PL/64PL/CPL which gives you a wide range of filters for just about any situation.
Many ND Filter kits top out at ND16 which isn’t high enough for those bright beach or snow days.
We prefer to use an iPad Mini as the screen for flying our DJI drones. We find an iPhone too small and the iPad Mini gives us a screen that’s large enough to easily manage our flight.
But you may have noticed that the cord that plugs into the side of the iPad Mini lands right where your hand holds the controller making your grip slightly less than perfect. Repeated bumping of the plug could also break the connection at some point.
Elevating the iPad above the controller allows for easier viewing as well, rather than having to hold the controller higher.
We use the Powerextra Tablet Holder (less than $21 at Amazon) because of it’s quality construction and price. The is made from machined aluminum and the tablet holder has a spring mounted clamp that grips the iPad firmly. It breaks down into two flat pieces that fit perfectly inside the internal storage compartment of the Mavic Air shoulder bag.
SanDisk Extreme 64GB MicroSD Card
The Mavic Air doesn’t include an SD card, so you have to buy one separately. If you’ve owned other DJI drones (like the Spark) before you bought your Mavic Air, you might be tempted to use the SanDisk Ultra microSD card that shipped with your drone.
You can use the smaller 16GB microSD that shipped with your Spark but you’re going to notice a “slow card” warning in the DJI GO 4 app because the write speed of the 16GB Sandisk Ultra isn’t high enough for the 4K video writing that the Mavic Air does.
Also, if you’re going to film in 4K you’ll quickly realize that 16GB isn’t enough storage for any significant length of footage. And there’s nothing worse than having to suspend filming because you filled up your card.
DJI recommends the SanDisk Extreme 64GB and we keep a couple of them in our shooting bag. After a few batteries of flight it allows us to swap out the card for a fresh one and also take some comfort in not worrying about losing valuable footage to a crash or flyaway.
You’ve heard us mention DJI Care Refresh a lot in our articles. We won’t go into great detail here, but it’s super cheap insurance that replaces your drone twice if you crash it or run into other perils. It costs $89 and you can purchase it when you buy your drone at DJI.com or it can be purchased after.
If you attempt to buy DJI Care Refresh more than 48 hours after you activate your drone, you’ll have to upload some video to DJI to prove your drone is fully functional. Full details on that process here.
DJI Care Refresh is good for one year and is digitally attached to your drone, so if you sell your drone it will transfer to the new owner.
Related: What You Need To Know About DJI Care Refresh
Have a favorite Mavic Air accessory our readers should know about? Let us know in the comments.
