The combination of the MP2 or Zoom and Smart controller has really been a good investment. I love the controller, and screen. The MP2 camera is OK for what you are paying for, a flying camera with excellent telemetry. Very stable in flight, good platform for photography. Understanding the limitations of the camera help a lot and planning your photography around that. I am not an videographer, only interested in stills.
Net, it's an ISO 100 camera, and really any push past 200 will suffer in noise. The aperture sweet spot for me is F 3.2 to F 4.5 and any higher and diffraction will start to show, however in a many cases a good raw converter can get you up to F 6.3 in a pinch. The "hyperlight" setting does do some amazing stuff for low light, and I have started to play around with it some. It only allows for a jpg, but the in camera processing is impressive. There are a lot of excellent city night shots on the web featuring this setting. Adobe ACR/LR have good lens profiles but no color profile for the raw, so you will need to pick something ACR offers. Capture One ver 12 now has lens profiles, but no dedicated color profile, you again need to pick one. Exposure bracketing is limited to only -1.34 to +1.34 total exposure range, so in sunset, sunrise type shots, odds are you will need more than the 5 shots. Drone does not yaw on hover like the P4 Vr 2.0 so you can easily get multiple brackets. The next step up is now an Inspire 2, at around 6K. Just too much noise, weight and cost for me. Not to mention the insurance on that much gear. There is quite a bit of highlight recovery in the raw files, not much shadow recovery so a 0.7 exposure to the right usually is OK. For my work, I don't try to manually focus the lens, due to the fact the you don't get a true 100% view on either iPad or Android devices on a DSLR. Some find the focus peaking to work, I don't. For important shot, I just hit several places on the scene with AF, shoot the bracket then readjust AF. to the other side of the shot. AF is iffy at best, but when it hits good it's good. Hardest issue is strong focus across the entire frame as many times at least with the 2 I use, one side or the other will be in better focus. Thus the reason I make a lot shots. The files even in raw are tiny and you can get a lot on a 32 or 64GB card.
Fun to fly and solid performer in the sky. Quiet and not obtrusive like the Phantom. I greatly prefer the camera on my P4, but the noise it makes keeps it out of a lot of flights unless I am in the National Forests.
Paul C
Net, it's an ISO 100 camera, and really any push past 200 will suffer in noise. The aperture sweet spot for me is F 3.2 to F 4.5 and any higher and diffraction will start to show, however in a many cases a good raw converter can get you up to F 6.3 in a pinch. The "hyperlight" setting does do some amazing stuff for low light, and I have started to play around with it some. It only allows for a jpg, but the in camera processing is impressive. There are a lot of excellent city night shots on the web featuring this setting. Adobe ACR/LR have good lens profiles but no color profile for the raw, so you will need to pick something ACR offers. Capture One ver 12 now has lens profiles, but no dedicated color profile, you again need to pick one. Exposure bracketing is limited to only -1.34 to +1.34 total exposure range, so in sunset, sunrise type shots, odds are you will need more than the 5 shots. Drone does not yaw on hover like the P4 Vr 2.0 so you can easily get multiple brackets. The next step up is now an Inspire 2, at around 6K. Just too much noise, weight and cost for me. Not to mention the insurance on that much gear. There is quite a bit of highlight recovery in the raw files, not much shadow recovery so a 0.7 exposure to the right usually is OK. For my work, I don't try to manually focus the lens, due to the fact the you don't get a true 100% view on either iPad or Android devices on a DSLR. Some find the focus peaking to work, I don't. For important shot, I just hit several places on the scene with AF, shoot the bracket then readjust AF. to the other side of the shot. AF is iffy at best, but when it hits good it's good. Hardest issue is strong focus across the entire frame as many times at least with the 2 I use, one side or the other will be in better focus. Thus the reason I make a lot shots. The files even in raw are tiny and you can get a lot on a 32 or 64GB card.
Fun to fly and solid performer in the sky. Quiet and not obtrusive like the Phantom. I greatly prefer the camera on my P4, but the noise it makes keeps it out of a lot of flights unless I am in the National Forests.
Paul C
