This photo quality aint good enough, don't you think?

[halley]

That said, why did the Mavic camera engineers choose to use SO much compression by default?

The key for a product release is to ensure that the default settings give "good out-of-the-box results 100% of the time" rather than "excellent results for 75% of the users who have high-powered PCs and fast bandwidth connections" or "excellent results for 25% of the users who have high-powered PCs and know how to use video editors to maximize the quality." They made it configurable for those who like to tinker and they made it good enough to amaze Joe Six-Pack who wants to fly it over his local monster truck rally and show it off on his cousin's iPhone 3.

 

[Logger]

Thanks for the offer Halley, but I think it is actually a shortcoming of the Flickr viewer rather than my stitching tool. Since posting I discovered DJIs own Skypixel board offers a much better 360 Pano viewer (KRPano). The same image looks infinitely better at Skypixels KRPano than it does at flicker:
- The Nadir is no longer pinched,
- The image is far sharper
- When viewed on a handheld device/phone it orientates itself to the phone angle and tilt.
- It can also be accessed directly from DJIGO app as well.

Take a look & see what you think..
SkyPixel - Connecting Creativity

 

[halley]

Take a look & see what you think..

You nailed it. I really like that initial little-planet-to-horizon swoop that this viewer does, but I can't seem to go back to the little-planet projection without reloading the page. All of these tools are improving leaps and bounds.

 

[Logger]

Just right click on the image once it has loaded an the pop up offers Normal, Fish eye and Little Planet views.