DJI's Mavic 4 Pro: A 100MP Hasselblad With Wings, and What 51-Minute Flights Mean Up Here

DJI launched the Mavic 4 Pro on 13 May 2025, starting at US$2,699, and it’s the most capable folding drone the company has made. Two specs matter most for the kind of aerial work a Northern BC studio actually does: a 100MP Hasselblad main camera and up to 51 minutes of flight time. Everything else is gravy on top of those two.

The tri-camera system

The Mavic 4 Pro carries three lenses on a redesigned gimbal. The wide-angle Hasselblad main camera uses a 100MP 4/3 CMOS sensor, with an adjustable aperture, up to 6K/60 HDR video, the Hasselblad Natural Color Solution, and a claimed 16 stops of dynamic range. Alongside it sit a 48MP medium telephoto and a 70mm-equivalent tele, both shooting 4K60 HDR. In practical terms: one aircraft covers the sweeping landscape establishing shot and the compressed, flattering tele perspective without landing to swap anything.

The 360° infinity gimbal

DJI dropped the old hanging gimbal for a ball-shaped 360° Infinity Gimbal at the front of the body. It rotates a full 360 degrees and tilts 70 degrees upward — meaning true vertical shots for social, and upward-looking angles (a cliff face, the underside of a bridge, a building rising overhead) that previous Mavics simply couldn’t get. For a creative working real estate, tourism and event coverage, that’s a genuinely new set of compositions.

Why flight time and range matter so much in the north

Here’s where the spec sheet meets our reality. 51 minutes of flight, a 90 km/h top speed and a 41 km transmission range are headline numbers everywhere — but in Northern BC they’re transformative, because our distances and our light are both unforgiving.

• Distance: subjects here are big and far apart — a remote lodge, a stretch of the Skeena, an industrial site spread over acres. Longer flight time and range mean you can actually reach and cover them on one battery instead of leapfrogging landing sites.
• Light: in winter our usable window is a few hours of flat light. A drone that flies 51 minutes per charge lets you nail the shot inside that window instead of burning it on battery swaps.
• Cold and low light: 0.1-lux nightscape obstacle avoidance and front LiDAR matter when you’re flying in dim, marginal conditions — which, half the year up here, is most of the time.

The part you can’t skip: the rules

A capable drone doesn’t exempt you from regulation. In Canada, commercial drone operation falls under Transport Canada’s RPAS rules, and operating for a client almost always requires the appropriate pilot certification, registration, and attention to airspace — particularly around the industrial sites near Kitimat and Terrace, which carry restrictions you must check before every flight. The drone is the easy part; the compliance is the part that protects your business. Treat certification and airspace checks as non-negotiable, not optional.

Is it worth it for a small studio?

At $2,699 the Mavic 4 Pro isn’t an impulse buy, but the value proposition for a remote market is strong: one aircraft replaces a separate landscape, tele and vertical-social setup, and the flight-time and range gains directly attack the two things that make northern aerial work hard. If aerial is already a meaningful slice of your deliverables — real estate, tourism, industrial documentation, event openers — it pays for itself quickly. If you fly occasionally, last-generation hardware or a rental still makes more sense.

What this means for shooting in the north

The Mavic 4 Pro is a reminder that aerial is no longer a specialist add-on — it’s a standard tool, and the hardware has finally caught up to the demands of a place like this. The honest caveats: respect the weather (cold and wind cut real-world flight time below the rated figure), and respect the regulations absolutely. Get those right, and a single drone unlocks a category of imagery — the scale and grandeur of Northern BC from above — that nothing on the ground can match.