I wish we would not discuss "sharpness". Sharpness is effectively enhancing minor edge contrast of small details. It offers the illusion of detail because it makes really small things more coarse hence visible. Lens sharpness should be measured by looking at actual details without electronic enhancements. The latter is very common to cheaper cameras as it makes them look better than they are. Perfect examples M2 (zoom),
Air2 and older drones for sure.
When you actually compare 4K HLG VIDEO of the
M2P with the
Air2s there are a few things that become apparent very quickly (and I am comparing the
A2S with
M2P FOV mode style settings to 0-0-0 - not HQ mode)
1) the
A2S and the
M2P are incredibly similar in detail resolution with the
A2S beating the
M2P by being a bit less "muddy" and less strange artifacts (typical to
M2P FOV) mostly apparent if one looks at powerlines or other sharp edged objects.
2) The
A2S suffers excessive blue issues. I noticed that using auto white balance to calibrate for a shot. It appears to be correct only after adding 400 to the auto value. That in fact seems to be a result of the "blue" issue on the
A2s camera.
Using Davinci Resolve, lowering the "blue" offset from 25 (default) to 23.4 eliminates that problem.
After correcting the "blue issue", the resulting video is nearly indistinguishable in particular after adding a "0.12" barrel distortion. Not surprisingly, doing that makes the FOV of both drones nearly the same too. I used an ND8 on both, but the
M2P was equipped with a higher quality ND8 that included an adjustable linear polarizer. I am still waiting for Polar Pro to ship the equivalent ND8 PL for the
A2s. I should be receiving it early June. Then the comparison may become a bit more valid.
3) Clearly, the
A2S video is by far less noisy than the equivalent
M2P FOV video. This may be due to built-in noise reduction. Supporting this assumption is the fact that while there is plenty (maybe a bit more) detail on the
A2S video, it is also a bit softer than the
M2P. So, a very light sharpening (Davinci Resolve Open FX sharpening set to 1.8 with fine detail size set to 0.02) applied to the
A2S significantly enhances the result.