Best DJI Drone for TikTok in 2024

Weighing in at just 249g including battery, incredibly small in size, and boasting 4K image quality, DJI’s micro drone is sure to excite many buyers. But it’s the camera’s ability to rotate and shoot true vertical video that makes it especially appealing to social media content creators.

In addition to the new vertical camera, the drone is equipped with downward sensors to automatically avoid obstacles, has a flight time of up to 34 minutes, and can shoot excellent 4K HDR video. Not bad for a lightweight package that can easily be folded into any backpack. When folded, it is not much larger than a standard Coke can. This is a big plus for solo videographers, as it fits alongside lenses, camera bodies, and tripods without adding significant weight to your bag.

The drone that shoots true vertical video for the best sharing on TikTok and Instagram

The popularity of vertical videos on TikTok and Instagram Reels has made it fairly common for people to shoot vertically with their phones, even when the situation would otherwise dictate otherwise. Most of DJI’s recent drones, like the Air 2S or Mavic 3, however, mount fixed cameras in a horizontal position, which is the most reasonable choice when shooting panoramic shots from the sky (or is it?). So if you’re going to post your videos on social media, you’ll have to crop the footage in post-production, sacrificing some resolution.

With a quick switch to Vertical Shooting, however, the Mini 3 can rotate the camera, allowing you to take vertical videos and photos using the full resolution of the sensor. Not bad, huh?

Your footage will look its best, because you’ll have seen and thought about it in its final format. You can record in 4K at 60 frames per second, it has an f1.7 aperture, and it can use HDR techniques to maximize dynamic range. It has a 1/1.3-inch sensor, which is smaller than the 1-inch sensor on the Air 2S, but it still allows you to shoot well-exposed footage even in high-contrast situations. Colors remain true to life, and images show plenty of detail thanks to the 4K resolution.

It can also shoot 48-megapixel still images, in DNG raw format, which gives photographers many more options for making lighting and color adjustments in apps like Adobe Lightroom.

That 249g weight also means it falls under the minimum requirements for drone licensing and registration in some countries, although in Europe you still have to register and label it because it has a camera.

It’s incredibly quick to pack away and deploy when you get to the scene, so you can be in the air in no time. The small propellers fold inward for easy bag storage, but it also means they’re less likely to break if you crash into something. Changing the battery is just as easy: just pop it out of the back of the drone and pop in a new charged one.
It supports high-speed microSD cards up to 512GB, more than enough for all the beautiful footage your TikTok fans can view.

Despite its small size, DJI claims that you can get up to 38 minutes of flight time with the standard battery. Of course, a lot depends on environmental conditions and piloting choices: if the drone has to fight strong winds or if you push it at full speed in Sport mode, touching 16 meters per second, then it is possible that the battery will drain more quickly.

In any case, you can expect an average of 25 to 30 minutes per charge and with the Fly More package, which includes three batteries, you can comfortably shoot video for well over an hour each time you go on an expedition.
The many automatic flight tools allow even the less experienced to venture into piloting with a series of guarantees, starting with Automatic Takeoff. The Return to Home (RTH) function allows your drone to return by itself, without needing your commands, when it happens that it loses the radio signal or the battery is too low. Furthermore, this model is able to integrate the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) with the downward vision system and the infrared detection system to hover precisely and without wobbles and thus fly with greater safety.

It may not have the same image quality as DJI's larger, more expensive models, but if you're looking for a lightweight model to take on your travels and then fill your Instagram feed with when you get back, the Mini 3 is a great option to consider. And, as we said, it's more than affordable considering the specs and competition on the market.