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Are my expectations too high? or....

jasonb777

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Well this is my first post with the mavic on this forum, but as some of you DJI p2+ and P3 guys remember I was part of those ....pilot.com sites for the last few years. Last month I took the plunge after selling my P3, with a boat load of accessories, and I bought the mavic with a spare battery. I have experience in DJI cameras and setting up the camera for the best possible pictures/video but I just don't see the quality in my pictures compared to some of these others posted on the site, so I ask myself 'are my expectations too high? or do I have a rare, but possibly defective DJI product. I remember back in the day when the P2+ had its crazy gimbal issues and the leaning camera causing tilted horizons, but then later resolved with firmware updates, and then...um.....crashing into the face of a wave while filming a low flying high speed video with a hair of WiFi lag too late. And then the P3 had the shell issues which was easily fixed with bondic, though I didn't like fix, and now I ask, does the mavic camera have a potential issue that will eventually be ironed out in firmware or is it that lens problem some have sent in for warranty to receive a new model, indicating a defective bird? I don't know...If these pics look right, please let me know. First off, I am using a polar pro ND16 CP filter with the polarized portion in the right spot. Pics are taken RAW and are generally taken with the mavic's back to the sun. Settings are +1,0,0, white balance set to 'sunny'. Usually use 'Normal' color, and pics are taken with both 2.7 and 1080 because I was told that 4k is compressed too much for quality pictures. My shutter is double frame rate and ISO is 100. I have fiddled around with some other settings but no luck...And I should add that these pictures have no post production. If it is absolutely necessary, then O.K., but I would a nice pic right off the SD card if possible, like my P3 could produce. The bird is really fun to fly and the videos look pretty good, but those pics just don't do there justice. Any help would be great. Thanks. EDIT- I had to convert the RAW pics to JPEG so I could resize them and post them...Now you can barely see them, which makes this whole lost useless without you seeing the soft, fuzzy, smeared pictures....sux....
 

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hi jason and welcome. they do look a little soft to me but hard to tell with the small size. are you flying with the plastic dome off ?
make sure you are always hitting focus before each shot mate. ive had quite a few occasions where i forget and the pic is ever so slightly OOF.
 
The resolution is too low to tell much in the way of quality except that these photos look very beautiful. Some of them have too much green in the sky.
 
When recording RAW sharpness setting isn't applied to the saved file.
It's only affected by the exposure really.
Raw files are always going to look somewhat flat until you make adjustments, and can be expected to require sharpening usually as the last step after any resizing.
Raw is definitely the way to get best results though as the Mavic JPGs tend to look a bit muddy especialy in low light though you would probabaly have been OK with these scenes.
 
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hi jason and welcome. they do look a little soft to me but hard to tell with the small size. are you flying with the plastic dome off ?
make sure you are always hitting focus before each shot mate. ive had quite a few occasions where i forget and the pic is ever so slightly OOF.
Definitely flying with the dome off. People fly with the dome on?!? Huh? Yeah I do hit focus every time for sure; I have it set to my C2 button for centering, considering this is imagery that is 500 yards away on centering I just don't get the whole focus thing...
 
When recording RAW sharpness setting isn't applied to the saved file.
It's only affected by the exposure really.
Raw files are always going to look somewhat flat until you make adjustments, and can be expected to require sharpening usually as the last step after any resizing.
Raw is definitely the way to get best results though as the Mavic JPGs tend to look a bit muddy especialy in low light though you would probabaly have been OK with these scenes.
O.K.. that was pretty much what I was after; I figured the only way you guys were getting these nice pics was with post work...I just wish they would look somewhat decent without it. Is the 4k compression to much for the pics as I mentioned, or was that bogus information?
 
I guess what I need to know is, is this a bad mavic? I have seen a few others on here with crap pictures and then they send it in, get a "new" one and voila! the image is spot on.
 
The Raw files were 'too large' according to the website...I couldn't figure out how to resize the raw without converting to JPEG first...Is there an easy way of doing this?
 
Thanks man. When I get home, where my pics are at, I will do that. Do you have any recommendations for a good RAW-converter, something that doesn't have a monthly fee? Also, I tried saving a picture from the videos I made and it looks really nice...Is there a reason not to use the video for our pictures? Is info lost or whats the deal? I mean just comparing the stills vs the video stills is comparing apples and oranges.
 
  1. I work since years with Adobe Lightroom, you stil can have it for local installation without monthly fee. I'm very happy with it. There are also any free Converters like RAW Therapee but I don't know them.
  2. Lightroom is a bit complicated because it's possibilities are very rich. Maybe a good alternative could be Photoshop Elements.
  3. When you safe from Clips, you will not have the Metadata und its just a Frame with less solution I guess.
  4. A RAW-File, here in DNG Format, is not developed by the Drone (no Stiles, not sharpened and nothing....), that's why it looks not good when you don't develop it in a RAW-Converter. Did you store the Photos as RAW+JPG. Then what about the JPG's they should look ok because they are developed by the Drone.
  5. The advantage of developing in a RAW-Conv ist that al what you do is lossless and there are more Color and brightness Information in. It's not compresses with loss as the JPG. There are a lot of pros and cons. Here more information: https://digital-photography-school.com/raw-vs-jpeg/
This Infos are just a little piece of much more. And you also have do the right settings in the Drone for the Fotos. But don't forget, these will only be applied on JPG's.

Hope that's a bit helpfull. And sorry for my poor English :)
 
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  1. I work since years with Adobe Lightroom, you stil can have it for local installation without monthly fee. I'm very happy with it. There are also any free Converters like RAW Therapee but I don't know them.
  2. Lightroom is a bit complicated because it's possibilities are very rich. Maybe a good alternative could be Photoshop Elements.
  3. When you safe from Clips, you will not have the Metadata und its just a Frame with less solution I guess.
  4. A RAW-File, here in DNG Format, is not developed by the Drone (no Stiles, not sharpened and nothing....), that's why it looks not good when you don't develop it in a RAW-Converter. Did you store the Photos as RAW+JPG. Then what about the JPG's they should look ok because they are developed by the Drone.
  5. The advantage of developing in a RAW-Conv ist that al what you do is lossless and there are more Color and brightness Information in. It's not compresses with loss as the JPG. There are a lot of pros and cons. Here more information: https://digital-photography-school.com/raw-vs-jpeg/
This Infos are just a little piece of much more. And you also have do the right settings in the Drone for the Fotos. But don't forget, these will only be applied on JPG's.

Hope that's a bit helpfull. And sorry for my poor English :)
Man that article was a 'hit the nail on the head' read! That should be a sticky on the mavic forum. I will research a little to see if lightroom is the best alternative for me...It is 150 bucks but it could be worth it for sure. I have tried JPGs and they look average at best, just not as nice as my iphone 6 which isn't saying much. Is there a benefit using JPG stills over frames from the videos?
 
Do you think pictures are achievable like this without post work being done? This was a picture taken from a video yesterday...If lightroom can make superior pics to this then I will definitely consider buying it.
 

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LR doesnt make any pics. LR works with what you've taken. any photo editing software is capable of improving on the things you do in camera. LR is just a very simple tool to let you do that quickly. thats why its always suggested to shoot raw images cos you let the mavic camera do the imaging and leave the processing to specialist programs. its too much to ask the tiny sensor in the mavic to process well.
 
LR doesnt make any pics. LR works with what you've taken. any photo editing software is capable of improving on the things you do in camera. LR is just a very simple tool to let you do that quickly. thats why its always suggested to shoot raw images cos you let the mavic camera do the imaging and leave the processing to specialist programs. its too much to ask the tiny sensor in the mavic to process well.
Right, I understand that LR doesn't 'make pics', what I was referring to was the ability to edit existing pics, creating something that is desired. I do agree that the computer can process the info faster than the mavic, but having the ability to quickly post some pics you just took without having to spend 5,10, even 15 minutes making the picture something more memorable is not always expedient.
 
Right, I understand that LR doesn't 'make pics', what I was referring to was the ability to edit existing pics, creating something that is desired. I do agree that the computer can process the info faster than the mavic, but having the ability to quickly post some pics you just took without having to spend 5,10, even 15 minutes making the picture something more memorable is not always expedient.

It's not the speed that LR brings to the table. There are a couple of things...

Firstly, if you shoot raw, you are going to get a file with the most possible digital information that is much easier to work with and has at least 1-2 stops more dynamic range in it than a jpeg.

Second, the algorithms for processing used by LR are far far far superior to that used by the mavic. Everything from color to clarity to sharpening. I.e.: applying sharpening in the mavic is not the same as applying sharpening in LR. Almost any photo editing program does a better job than in-camera processing.

You can create macros in LR to add certain common elements on import to streamline your processing. Or you can edit one single image and then copy all the adjustments onto every other image you imported from the same shoot to save time.

Time wise ? I'd be surprised if you would spend more than 2 mins on an image. 10- 15 ? No way, not unless you're processing to print large or are a commercial user. Even 5 minutes per image would be unusual. Everything is slider based and there's typically say 4 or 5 sliders you use.

Of course this is never gonna be as quick as shooting and uploading with no PP but it's all about what you wanted to get out of it.

You can always shoot in raw + jpeg. Then you at least have the option of working a bit on a photo you really like later.
 
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Yes, it's like Chris is writing. So that's wy it's best to shoot in RAW and JPG. You have the JPG's for fast usage and when you have e really good shot, it's worth to process it in Lightroom.

@Chris.K : Only one disagree: LR ist not a simple tool :D
 
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