4K HQ vs Full FOV explanation and tests!

[karlo_m]

Hello everyone! I’ve just made a video explaining Mavic 2 Pro’s 4K HQ vs Full FOV! I didn’t want to get too technical, but I wanted to create a nice mix of beginner-level explanation and some more in-depth observations. So I’m posting here in case anyone still can’t wrap their head around why exactly 4K HQ is better than Full FOV.

I’ve actually started gathering footage for this video since the Mavic 2 Pro came out, I just never got around to finishing the video until now!

Hope you find it useful!

 

[sar104]

Interesting comparisons. One slight correction on your explanation of sensor size - the 1" sensor is not 1" diagonal, despite the name, it is 15.86 mm (0.62") diagonal. The 1/2.3" is 7.87 mm (0.31") diagonal, which is one half the linear size or one quarter the area, so the ratio of four that you stated is still correct.

 

[simonr23]

How can it be called a 1” sensor???

 

[sar104]

How can it be called a 1” sensor???

Image Sensor Sizes

 

[Meta4]

How can it be called a 1” sensor???

Sensor sizes are very misleading.
There's nothing about a 1" sensor that measures one inch.
Here's the explanation from Wiki:
Sensor sizes are expressed in inches notation because at the time of the popularization of digital image sensors they were used to replace video camera tubes. The common 1" circular video camera tubes have a rectangular photo sensitive area about 16 mm diagonal, so a digital sensor with a 16 mm diagonal size is a 1" video tube equivalent. The name of a 1" digital sensor should more accurately be read as "one inch video camera tube equivalent" sensor. Current digital image sensor size descriptors are the video camera tube equivalency size, not the actual size of the sensor. For example, a 1" sensor has a diagonal measurement of 16 mm.

 

[simonr23]

That explanation answers it, but when we changed to 4 sided digital sensors, the naming should have been made unambiguous/misleading.

It’s dead easy to ‘size’ regular 4 sided shape...

 

[sar104]

That explanation answers it, but when we changed to 4 sided digital sensors, the naming should have been made unambiguous/misleading.

It’s dead easy to ‘size’ regular 4 sided shape...

Indeed. It doesn't sound as impressive though.

 

[paulatkin73]

So, after some test videos and watching reviews, i personally concluded that at least for now HQ mode is indeed the best. First of, in dlog-m mode you get some barrel distortion, and to fix it you need paid software. If you own it - it is easy, i only invested into Photoshop, do not have premiere or davinci studio. Free davinci does not have lens distortion fix. HQ mode has 1% barrel, full sensor mode has 2.5% and that is quite noticable.
Also, hq mode is sharper.

PS. i was wrong. it is possible to fix lens distortion in the free Davinci 15.