so ive had my Air 3 for about a year now and honestly love it, no real complaints, but my brother keeps telling me to sell it and get the 3S because of the low light stuff. we mostly fly on weekends, kids soccer games, hiking trips, occasional sunset stuff from the backyard. nothing crazy professional or anything like that.

the thing is im not sure the sensor upgrade is actually going to make a noticeable difference for how i shoot. like i dont shoot much at night and i dont do any serious color grading, i just pull the footage into premiere, do a quick LUT and call it done. does anyone actually have both or switched from one to the other? the price difference is pretty significant and id rather put that money toward more batteries or a decent ND filter set.

also side question - does the Air 3S still use the same RC2 controller because i really like mine and dont want to deal with a new setup

yeah same RC2 works with the 3S, thats one nice thing about that ecosystem right now. as for the upgrade honestly for your use case i'd probably skip it. the Air 3 footage in good daylight is genuinely excellent and if youre not pixel peeping or doing heavy post work the difference is going to be pretty subtle for soccer games and hikes. the bigger sensor on the 3S shines when you're pushing ISO or recovering shadows in tricky lighting and it sounds like you're not really doing that.

i made the switch mostly because i do some paid real estate and event work on the side where clients sometimes want usable footage from golden hour or later, and for that the 3S is noticeably better. but for personal family use? get the ND filters, grab two more batteries, and enjoy the money you saved. the Air 3 is still a fantastic drone.

i went from the Air 2S to the Air 3 and skipped the 3S so cant directly compare those two but what i will say is the dual camera setup on the Air 3 changed how i shoot way more than any sensor upgrade probably would have. being able to switch between focal lengths mid flight is just so useful especially chasing kids around a field lol. if your Air 3 is working well i wouldnt stress about it