DJI announces ‘Chase the View’ event for next week Tuesday

DJI has announced its next product launch event for next Tuesday, October 15, called Chase the View. This is believed to be the announcement of the new DJI Air 3S, a major refresh of one of DJI’s most popular and powerful drones.

Like almost all of DJI’s announcements since the pandemic, the “event” will likely be just a video posted to YouTube showing off the product and sharing key details. This will be followed by all the drone and camera YouTubers dropping their reviews for us to drool over.

But what is the Air 3S? Well, if you’ve been living under a rock for the last few days, leakers have once again all but confirmed the existence and all the details about the DJI Air 3S ahead of the company’s launch.

The refresh of the wildly popular Air 3 is believed to introduce camera spec bumps, including the return of a 1-inch 24mm wide-angle camera and 14 stops of dynamic range.

The DJI Air 3 has become an almost pseudo-flagship camera drone for DJI, offering many of the advantages of the more expensive Mavic 3 Pro but at a lower cost. Its dual-camera payload allows for both wide and zoomed-in shots; the 70mm focal length is the perfect drone camera, in my opinion. This allows you to “chase” your own shot, some would say.

According to leaks, we should also expect the cameras to support 4K/60, 4K/120 slow motion, 10-bit DLOG, and HLG support. Finally, we expect the drone to have an overall boost in its smart flight capabilities, like obstacle avoidance and Return-to-Home.

For prices, a source has shared with DroneDJ that UK pricing for the Air 3S is as follows:

• Air 3S (RC-N3) – £959
• Air 3S Fly More Combo (RC-N3) – £1,239
• Air 3S Fly More Combo (RC-2) – £1,439

Using the current conversion rates, that gives us:

• Air 3S (RC-N3) – $1,253.41
• Air 3S Fly More Combo (RC-N3) – $1,619.37
• Air 3S Fly More Combo (RC-2) – $1,880.77

Now this doesn’t remove the UK’s VAT tax or take into account the US’s tariff on Chinese drones. That means the real prices could be quite different. If I had to guess based on some basic math and rounding, here is what I’d come up with:

• Air 3S (RC-N3) – $1,199
• Air 3S Fly More Combo (RC-N3) – $1,449
• Air 3S Fly More Combo (RC-2) – $1,649

Basically, a $100 increase across the board, but that assumes our source’s prices are correct and the math is as simple as reducing their VAT tax and adding in our tariff; sales tax has to come into play somewhere.

Are you excited for the DJI Air 3S? Let us know what feature you’re most excited for in the comments below.