I think your right. It is. The Air3S images look a lot more digitized to me (if that’s the right description), processing in drone maybe? The Air2s look a lot more natural and detailed.
I was going through me hdd binning stuff I don’t need and came across Windermere. I hadn’t seen them since last summer, untouched, I was truly gobsmacked at the colour and detail.
I’d put the 2S up for sale just after buying the 3S, after using the 3S a few times that week, the 2S came off sale. The night shots with the 3S arnt as good. I’m going to trial it tonight properly, I’m in Anglesey at the mo, and first chance of proper comparison.
I only have the Air 2S, but a guy I follow on Flickr recently got an Air 3S, and we were comparing notes. He sent me some files to play with. Not tried any night shots. The Air 3S 24mm 50MP shots have a lot of tonal detail, but also a lot of colour artifacts like noise, aliasing, moire and colour fringing. A DNG shot of a gravel pit lake he sent me had a load of seagulls floating on the water. At 100%, they looked like multi-coloured party balloons! The 12MP pixel-binned shots deal with some of the colour artifacts, but seem to lack detail and sharpness, and are a bit small for general use. I’ve heard tales of people up-ressing 12MP files and getting good results. DJI presumably might improve the output with a firmware update at some point. Lightroom Classic still lacks an embedded profile for the 24mm camera for some reason, but has one for the 70mm. The Air 3 and Mini Pro 3 and 4 seem to get better results from their Quad Bayer sensors with fewer artifacts at the 48MP setting. All a bit of a faff compared to the honest and remarkably clean Air 2S 20MP files.
A few photos from Cardiff Bay on Saturday. I’m a little disappointed with how a lot of these photos turned out as they were overexposed, but I’ve included a few.
Many thanks for the in depth description. I’m not by any means and a country mile any type of experienced photographer, but have read God knows how much just to try and get along with it and do the best I can, so I can understand what you mean to a point.
All I knew when I saw the files coming out of the 3S they didn’t look as clean and crisp as the 2S. They looked ‘dirty’. Even me being a noob could notice the difference.
The 12mp files aren’t worth bothering with, I totally agree that there’s lack of detail and sharpness.
Here’s hoping for an update firmware wise to address a couple of the issues, although I won’t hold me breath. In the meantime I’ll persevere. I here DxO pure raw will have a profile for the 3S soon, it was supposed to be out in Feb, maybe that’ll sort some issues out in post a little easier.
Just a few from Anglesey and North Wales from the last couple of days or so. Was on the trail of the RTF comp, be rude not to seein there’s a shed load of disused boats and a ship lying about…
First up the Duke of Lancaster, near Mostyn, North Wales.
Great video though, well done, buddy. 
