Need help with image quality

[JoostGT3]

Allright guys, I have had my Mavic for slightly over a week now, and I love it to bits! The idea to have a little opportunity to A) fly the thing, and B) have a new viewpoint for nice pictures makes me really happy every time I take it out of it's bag.

Still, having some experience with DSLR cameras (Formerly Nikon D90, currently a Nikon D610), I am a bit of a pixel peeper, and am always looking for better image quality. So, the thing disappointing me is the actual image quality of both pictures and movies from the Mavic, and -allthough I am sure it is partly due to my own faults- I am doubting whether my cam is performing well, so I would like some feedback from the community.

It started with this image I took today over my home town of Dordrecht in the Netherlands. Light conditions were very good and I am pretty sure I had the camera in auto mode. Not sure which style settings I used though. I ám sure that I hit the focus button prior to taking the shot. I had the polar pro circular polarizing filter on the cam. Note that this picture is a result of a RAW image, opened in photoshop without any modifications and then saved as high quality jpeg.


Note the horrendous noise levels in the foliage on the right hand side, but basically all through the picture.

So I took a series of comparison pictures, one with mainly landscape, one with mainly skies. I left the camera in auto, and varied the style profile and whether or no I applied the filter onto the camera. I resetted the camera settings prior to the series of pictures. As I have had some difficulties with the dreaded waterpaint effect, I have set up a custom style consisting of (+1 +0 +0).

Testpictures.

Series Land, NoFilter, in order of appearance: Standard, Landscape, Soft, Custom:


Series Sky, NoFilter, in order of appearance: Standard, Landscape, Soft, Custom:

 

[JoostGT3]

Series Land, YesFilter, in order of appearance: Standard, Landscape, Soft, Custom:


Series Sky, YesFilter, in order of appearance: Standard, Landscape, Soft, Custom:

 

[JoostGT3]

So, to be honest, I find all images lacking in detail and show an abundance of noise... You can see that some factors are influenced by the different parameters, but there is no image where I think "WOW, that looks GOOOOD!!!"...

Is this just me being a whining pixel peeper and is this the level of quality we can expect from this camera, or is there something wrong wih my camera?
In addition, note how (even though I calibrated the sensors and all showed fine) the gimball roll setting seems to have a mind of its own, infuriatingly so...

 

[4wd]

When you shoot in RAW the style settings don't affect the saved file, but do work on the image you see on screen at the time.
RAW will get you best results.
The first one you highlight looks grainy/noisy because the camera has chosen ISO400 and shutter 1/4000 which is odd as usually it will try to stay on ISO 100

For stills manual camera control will get better results.
In video, conditions will chage so much if you turn or pan up/down that auto is more convenient most times.

 

[Robbyg]

You can see that some factors are influenced by the different parameters, but there is no image where I think "WOW, that looks GOOOOD!!!"...

Sorry to squash your hopes but its better than you spending dozens of hours like myself and others only to discover that what you have is just about as good as it gets.
The Mavic Camera is about the equivalent of a Mid Range cell phone camera and if your coming from the DSLR world it is never going to look WoW or Gooood. The video can be tweaked enough to make it fairly good but the stills are just too limited by the cameras low dynamic range and small aperture.

Rob

 

[JoostGT3]

Thanks for the replies guys!
@4wd : I hadn't realized that the styles were just applied in the RAW to JPEG conversion... that provides piece of mind, one less setting to worry about

I hadn't realized that the first pic was taken on ISO400... Will pay better attention next time!

I'll also spend some more time on my pictures next time to use manual settings... Yet another argument to get myself an iPad mini -> Brighter, Larger screen makes for better interpreting of the screen and easier modification of the settings.

@Robbyg : No worries about squashing my hopes, I expected this more or less, sometimes it is just good to get some feedback.