so ive been flying my Air 3 for about a year now and honestly im pretty happy with it but i keep seeing the Air 3S pop up everywhere and people seem hyped. my main thing is i mostly fly on weekends, some travel, occasional family stuff i want decent footage of. nothing crazy professional.

the sensor upgrade sounds nice on paper but like... will i actually notice it in real world use or is this one of those things where you only see the difference if you pixel peep on a big monitor? also the price jump is not nothing. curious what people who have actually used both think, not just specs sheet comparisons

honestly? for casual weekend stuff the Air 3 is more than enough. i had the same debate with myself and ended up keeping the Air 3 and putting the money toward ND filters and a good bag instead. the low light on the 3S is better yeah but unless you're shooting golden hour stuff constantly or doing a lot of indoor adjacent flying near treelines at dusk, you probably wont notice much difference in normal daylight conditions.

the thing that might actually matter more to you is the RC2 controller situation - if you dont already have one from a bundle, factor that into the real cost. the 3S bundle pricing can be weird depending on what you already own.

i went from Air 3 to 3S a few months ago and tbh the footage does look a bit nicer but my wife who i make all these family videos for literally cannot tell the difference lol. so theres that. the autofocus on the 3S does feel snappier to me but again, weekend casual use, hard to say if it matters