Photo quality

[HugoTN]

Shot some stills today and also some video, imported the images into Lightroom and they look really bad, especially compared to the video footage; mushy detail and saturation levels higher than the video footage. Any tips on getting better results in terms of still photos? I used manual mode for the pictures because Auto mode was suggesting a very slow shutter speed.

I’ve attached an example of a photo and also a frame from the video footage.

App: 3.1.0
Aircraft: 01.02.0900
RC: 01.02.0900
Photo settings
Image size: 4:3
RAW
Style: Soft
Color: Art

 

[Abi]

Im guessing you shot raw on manual ? I shot this on auto and this has not been graded and it came out prefect.

I have a problem that my video looks like this even when i have no sharpening filter applied.

http://prntscr.com/dfxjw0

 

[Achilles]

Great question and would also like some feedback. Getting the same grainy/noisy results.


Mavic - North Bay, CA

 

[Kilrah]

The LR defaults for Mavic RAWs are pretty poor, you can get great stuff but you really have to use all your RAW processing skills. Try shooting RAW+JPEG and compare.

 

[4wd]

Shot some stills today and also some video, imported the images into Lightroom and they look really bad, especially compared to the video footage; mushy detail and saturation levels higher than the video footage. Any tips on getting better results in terms of still photos? I used manual mode for the pictures because Auto mode was suggesting a very slow shutter speed.

I’ve attached an example of a photo and also a frame from the video footage.

App: 3.1.0
Aircraft: 01.02.0900
RC: 01.02.0900
Photo settings
Image size: 4:3
RAW
Style: Soft
Color: Art

I think it was on ISO1600 which will be very grainy.
This time of year if not sunny light levels are pretty low most of the day.
Lightroom noise reduction will improve things slightly, better to manually set ISO as low as you can get away with.
Mavic is steady enough that slow shutter speeds even below 1/50 (stills) will be OK but take a few extras in case it moves.

In decent light stills are actually pretty good, considerably more fine detail than you can get from a video grab so worth doing.

 

[HugoTN]

I think it was on ISO1600 which will be very grainy.
This time of year if not sunny light levels are pretty low most of the day.
Lightroom noise reduction will improve things slightly, better to manually set ISO as low as you can get away with.
Mavic is steady enough that slow shutter speeds even below 1/50 (stills) will be OK but take a few extras in case it moves.

Yes thanks, I guess I thought 1600 would still be quite clean, coming from using a proper camera, 1600 is way low on the ISO scale. Trouble with the low shutter speeds is the subject matter was fast moving traffic, so I wanted 250 at least, forcing the rise in ISO. I'll keep trying, perhaps moving subjects are a no-go in poor light...

 

[halley]

I thought 1600 would still be quite clean, coming from using a proper camera, 1600 is way low on the ISO scale.

For no camera is 1600 "way low" but for a modern full-frame 35mm DSLR, the photosites are large enough that grainy sensor noise is minimal. These drones have a pretty small sensor and optics package to fit in the gimbal, so it's more noticeable.

 

[Chase R]

These cameras like low ISO with longer exposure. I've shot some night shots with ISO 100 and exposure 2-4 seconds and gotten great results.

 

[NickRno77]

Looks grainy, it's got a tiny sensor so you'll need to keep the ISO down to 100 or 200. I don't believe it'll be a good tool for getting good quality stills?


Sent from my iPad using MavicPilots

 

[Kilrah]

It's a smartphone sensor, which is not what you typically use to get "good quality stills". It gets very decent results given the size and convenience given a bit of PP work, but whether that's enough or not depends on your purpose and the fact that when balancing things something that will do better like an Inspire 1 with an X5 is a whole different beast both in terms of cost, burden and complexity.

 

[NickRno77]

It's a smartphone sensor, which is not what you typically use to get "good quality stills". It gets very decent results given the size and convenience given a bit of PP work, but whether that's enough or not depends on your purpose and the fact that when balancing things something that will do better like an Inspire 1 with an X5 is a whole different beast both in terms of cost, burden and complexity.

Or Phantom 4 Pro which has a one inch sensor supposedly is a Sony RX100 sensor so is nearly there for stills.


Sent from my iPad using MavicPilots

 

[Kilrah]

We'll see once they're in the wild if they're up to the X5 level, but yes better than the mavic for sure.

Too bad the Phantom is a no go for anything commercial.

 

[Logger]

It's a smartphone sensor, which is not what you typically use to get "good quality stills". It gets very decent results given the size and convenience given a bit of PP work....

Good point. I need to accept this. As a very amateur photographer I am going to spend some time trying to establish good settings by trial and error and copying what others are using to get acceptable results. Have been shooting JPG+Raw then into LR for PP.
Is there somewhere we can see lots of Mavic stills along with the settings used. Flickr perhaps. When I last looked at Skypixel I could not see camera settings beside the images.

 

[Kilrah]

When shooting RAW camera settings are largely irrelevant anyway, what matters is the adjustments done in the RAW processor e.g. LR... And that's complex, and you usually never find it anywhere.

 

[4wd]

When shooting RAW camera settings are largely irrelevant anyway, what matters is the adjustments done in the RAW processor e.g. LR... And that's complex, and you usually never find it anywhere.

ISO and shutter aren't irrelevant, but any picture styles selected only work with JPG - not applied to the RAW file.
However you will see changes in the screen image - which aren't recorded to the file.

 

[Logger]

I suppose the only camera setting that is NOT largely irrelevant is Focus

 

[Bilbo]

Good point. I need to accept this. As a very amateur photographer I am going to spend some time trying to establish good settings by trial and error and copying what others are using to get acceptable results. Have been shooting JPG+Raw then into LR for PP.
Is there somewhere we can see lots of Mavic stills along with the settings used. Flickr perhaps. When I last looked at Skypixel I could not see camera settings beside the images.

Any progress?