Mavic Can't Auto Focus

[theAlexanderGraham]

Long time lurker, first time poster. Just received my Mavic about 3 weeks ago.

Seems my Mavic is having some issues with it's auto focus.

I've recently taken to Litchi as my primary use in aerial real estate photography.

I just tested a route, about 1.1m one way, 2.2m total, where the Mavic lost signal from the RC about halfway into the one way trip (1/2 ish mile) with the target being a shopping center that enters the frame from the left.

Reviewing the footage here:

The Mavic seems to have an a serious auto focus issue. For what it's worth, this has happened in any waypoint flight I've used Litchi, the maiden use being a flight set at 15mph with the same issue, but me being able to constantly hit the C1 button to aid it in auto focusing. This flight was at 20mph in this instance.

In this case, given I lost signal for most of the waypoint flight, I was unable to auto focus or manually adjust.

Also, when the Mavic got too the POI it just maintains it's waypoint heading around the POI, never focuses on it, even though it's set to POI mode, and that's the only POI on the flight plan.

I'm assuming that's because it was accidentally set to curved turns?

I don't recall these focus issues in the DJI app, and it's rather bothersome as my usage of the Litchi app is for professional usage, and almost all of the video is useless due too its focus issues, however the issue only seems prevalent in autonomous / waypoint flight modes, only being prevalent in about 25% of manual flight (near the end) on the same evening in an equal length manual video. Immediately after this flight?

Is there a setting I'm missing that isn't carrying over to the Litchi app from the DJI app?

Am I simply flying too fast?

I've got a solid pre-flight checklist for everything from smart RTH to props and can't think of what I'm missing, or if I've got another issue at play.

Thanks!!!

 

[Dragonfly]

Have same issues and still trying to resolve. But basically in mission or waypoint flying the focus is **** and I have much trouble with POIs. Sometimes if I add a POI and set camera at waypoint to focus on that POI tha camera then has a hunia fit and starts going up and down continuously on its own for rest of flight. Other executions on POIs causes camera to do weird things like look hard right and down where it locks there. Now looking at other apps as Litchi unusable.

 

[Gerald Ellis]

Have same issues and still trying to resolve. But basically in mission or waypoint flying the focus is **** and I have much trouble with POIs. Sometimes if I add a POI and set camera at waypoint to focus on that POI tha camera then has a hunia fit and starts going up and down continuously on its own for rest of flight. Other executions on POIs causes camera to do weird things like look hard right and down where it locks there. Now looking at other apps as Litchi unusable.

Same thing here. I think I'm going to change to manual focusing.

I found I got better results by creating new missions rather than using old missions I had for P3P. But yesterday for the first time I noticed the rapid gimbal up and down, up and down (twice) before it finally settled on the POI. Was going to retry today but had other business to attend to and got home to late. I also noticed on some of the old missions it would do a very short pause at some waypoints instead of flying on at the speed it's set to cruise at. It doesn't do that on new missions I made since I got the Mavic.

I use Litchi 100% of the time even to just fly around FPV as the Go app doesn't get along well with my Note 4 or my Shield tablet.

 

[theAlexanderGraham]

I also noticed on some of the old missions it would do a very short pause at some waypoints instead of flying on at the speed it's set to cruise at. It doesn't do that on new missions I made since I got the Mavic.

I've got the same issue, but I doesn't show up on every mission. Mavic will get to a waypoint, pause for a second or so, then continue.

 

[Gerald Ellis]

I've got the same issue, but I doesn't show up on every mission. Mavic will get to a waypoint, pause for a second or so, then continue.

Are you getting the same focus issues on new Litchi missions or like me seems like the problems are old missions even if I update the mission and resave? I think LItchi needs some updating as it doesn't seem to always follow saved Mavic settings especially the camera settings.

 

[Alex_S]

I am guessing here because Litchi works usually very well.
What firmware are you on ? Litchi had massive problems with the .500 and .550 firmware. Normal flight mode was sort of ok but the rest of the flight modes were unusable. With the new firmware upgrade .600 from yesterday the Litchi issues with the Mavic have been resolved.

 

[Alex_S]

Plus you have to update to the Go 4.6 app as well.

 

[Dragonfly]

Have now updated Go4 to .600 and also litchi to latest but will have to wait to try as just had Cyclone Cook come through today and weather not realy inducive to flying.

 

[AS4RONIN]

My footage looks exactly the same all of the sudden, horrible. I've just started searching the forum here for help as well, I'm loosing my mind. When I first received my Mavic late in the year last year, video was crisp, clear, and very detailed. Living in the north didn't give me many opportunities to test the Mavic but when I did the footage was great. Recently bought Autopilot and got caught up in DJI's firmware error until the latest was released and fixed the issue. What's killing me though is the video I'm getting (4K) is absolutely horrible. At first I wondered if it was something I was doing wrong with my newest purchase, Final Cut Pro but no longer think that. Then thought maybe the new Polar ND filters I bought were causing it but I have the same results without. I've tried tests with Autopilot and with DJI Go4 and focus hunts and everything looks like a water color painting. Never had this issue prior and the drone is unusable in terms of video. I've done the full firmware refresh via the desktop (mac) program, the gimbal reset, the camera reset, and the MCU calibration and I still have this issue. I cannot be the only one but cannot determine the issue.

 

[BorisTheSpider]

Gimbal tilt is not preloaded - it comes from the remote control during the mission, as does speed between waypoints, so if you lose connection during a waypoint mission those parameters will remain at their last settings until contact with the RC is regained.

AS4Ronin - have you tried switching the camera from NTSC to PAL and back again? That does a full reset and sometimes fixes problems.

 

[AS4RONIN]

BorisTheSpider - Have not tried that and first I've heard of it so thanks for the suggestion. I will try tomorrow.

 

[Bintryin]

My footage looks exactly the same all of the sudden, horrible. I've just started searching the forum here for help as well, I'm loosing my mind. When I first received my Mavic late in the year last year, video was crisp, clear, and very detailed. Living in the north didn't give me many opportunities to test the Mavic but when I did the footage was great. Recently bought Autopilot and got caught up in DJI's firmware error until the latest was released and fixed the issue. What's killing me though is the video I'm getting (4K) is absolutely horrible. At first I wondered if it was something I was doing wrong with my newest purchase, Final Cut Pro but no longer think that. Then thought maybe the new Polar ND filters I bought were causing it but I have the same results without. I've tried tests with Autopilot and with DJI Go4 and focus hunts and everything looks like a water color painting. Never had this issue prior and the drone is unusable in terms of video. I've done the full firmware refresh via the desktop (mac) program, the gimbal reset, the camera reset, and the MCU calibration and I still have this issue. I cannot be the only one but cannot determine the issue.

Could be the latest firmware it ruined my video so I went back to .400 firmware and all is good again