50MP 1" sensor a wise choice?

[Filmarik]

I wonder if this new 50MP sensor behind the 24mm lens is true 50MP or similar gimick to the 70mm so called 48MP sensor. The 48MP mode on Mavic 3 Pro 70mm camera introduces lots of undesirable "effects" such as color bleeding on sharp edges of buildings, smeared fine organic details and other not so nice artifacts. The 12MP mode is much cleaner and the gain in details in 48MP mode definitely does not reflect the 3 fold pixel number resolution one might expect. And the low light performance is terrible in 48MP mode..
I get it the high pixel count sensors in some modern phone cameras allow for some clever processing possibilities i.e. increased dynamic range (HDR) and better low light/night mode performance with reduced noise etc but purely for detail in good light, I am a bit sceptical about the 50MP photos...

 

[wco81]

If they were doing it like the way flagship phones do it these days, take multiple shots and blend them together with processing, it might be more interesting.

But I doubt that the processor they use can do what these top phones are doing.

In fact I wonder if the 20 megapixel on my Mavic 2 Pro will producer "cleaner" results than this quad-Bayer sensor.

Obviously the hype on the large megapixel count may get them some sales.

 

[Filmarik]

If they were doing it like the way flagship phones do it these days, take multiple shots and blend them together with processing, it might be more interesting.

But I doubt that the processor they use can do what these top phones are doing.

In fact I wonder if the 20 megapixel on my Mavic 2 Pro will producer "cleaner" results than this quad-Bayer sensor.

Obviously the hype on the large megapixel count may get them some sales.

I suspect a 20MP 1" on your Mavic 2 and 20MP M43 sensor on Mavic 3 will deliver cleaner photos than this 50MP 1"sensor. We will no doubt hear from the first owners of Air3S soon. Hopefully a honest assessment once the initial excitement subsides. It might be good enough for "travelers" as DJI is positioning this drone as "a perfect drone for travel photography" whatever that means....

 

[Wreckhunter]

I wonder if this new 50MP sensor behind the 24mm lens is true 50MP or similar gimick to the 70mm so called 48MP sensor. The 48MP mode on Mavic 3 Pro 70mm camera introduces lots of undesirable "effects" such as color bleeding on sharp edges of buildings, smeared fine organic details and other not so nice artifacts. The 12MP mode is much cleaner and the gain in details in 48MP mode definitely does not reflect the 3 fold pixel number resolution one might expect. And the low light performance is terrible in 48MP mode..
I get it the high pixel count sensors in some modern phone cameras allow for some clever processing possibilities i.e. increased dynamic range (HDR) and better low light/night mode performance with reduced noise etc but purely for detail in good light, I am a bit sceptical about the 50MP photos...

Its a gimick both of the sensors on the new Air 3S are in fact 12mp,with 50 and 48mp settings,the specs on this drone camera show
them both as 12mp.If some do not believe that then just go and check the specs.

 

[MavicPro2Pilot]

I compared the available RAW files for the Air 3S with those from my Mavic 2 Pro and immediately decided to skip buying the drone. The image quality of the 50MP files is so much worse, especially in dark areas. They really should've gone for a 20MP sensor... Even in daylight shots at ISO 100 there is a weird magenta and green pattern all over darker areas of the image (see screenshot of a shot over water), totally unusable in my opinion. ISO 200 is even worse, it's the second image of the trees.

 

[Filmarik]

Did you pull out the shadows in post like in LR slider all the way to +100 or something like that?

 

[MavicPro2Pilot]

No, I didn't, haven't even touched the shadows slider. The only thing I did was increasing the overall exposure a bit. As you can see, the noise levels and colour pattern issues are just horrible and there is no easy way to remove it (tried various noise reduction tools but none of them worked well). The other photo showing the sea is straight out of camera without any adjustments at all in Lightroom.

 

[Filmarik]

It looks to me like a color noise. Did you try to reduce the Color Noise in LR like moving the slider to 25 or even more and Luminosity to the same amount? Did it have any affect on the noise?
Push by a full 1 EV is quite substantial indicating fair underexposure of the original file. Underexposed digital files are recipe for uggly noise in shadows.

 

[MavicPro2Pilot]

I've tried LR's standard denoise, AI denoise, Topaz denoise, etc. but none of the tools made any real difference. This is not your typical colour noise but probably a result of the crappy Quad Bayer Coding they use on the sensor.

 

[Filmarik]

I've tried LR's standard denoise, AI denoise, Topaz denoise, etc. but none of the tools made any real difference. This is not your typical colour noise but probably a result of the crappy Quad Bayer Coding they use on the sensor.

That is what I was worried about when I saw the spec of 50MP 1" sensor. I thought to myself what???

 

[waynorth]

I compared the available RAW files for the Air 3S with those from my Mavic 2 Pro and immediately decided to skip buying the drone. The image quality of the 50MP files is so much worse, especially in dark areas. They really should've gone for a 20MP sensor... Even in daylight shots at ISO 100 there is a weird magenta and green pattern all over darker areas of the image (see screenshot of a shot over water), totally unusable in my opinion. ISO 200 is even worse, it's the second image of the trees.

Peter Lindgrens review of the Air 3s shows something similar. He has shot the same photo with 12 and 50 MP setting, and the 50 shows terrible colour artifacts. Go to 10:00 in his video:

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[MavicPro2Pilot]

Thanks for sharing the video, that's exactly the artefacts I'm seeing in the RAW files (along with horrible chromatic aberrations in high contrast scenes). Definitely a drone to skip if you are serious about your photography.

 

[wco81]

Wouldn’t the Air 3 have a similar problem, as it’s also using quad Bayer sensor too?

 

[davidarmenb]

It is a 50MP sensor with a quad bayer filter (2x2) on top, effectively making it a 12MP 1” sensor with 3.2 micron pixels. This method gives the user the ability to use quad bayer interpolation to shoot in 50MP as well, but this interpolation introduces some artifacts.

 

[davidarmenb]

I've tried LR's standard denoise, AI denoise, Topaz denoise, etc. but none of the tools made any real difference. This is not your typical colour noise but probably a result of the crappy Quad Bayer Coding they use on the sensor.

I really don’t want to claim user error but if you really did try all those programs, especially Lightroom and Topaz and you saw no difference then there is something going on there.. I can’t say. Because quad bayer sensors are not a new thing whatsoever. They have been common for years. And every single QBC sensor will show artifacts in their unedited raw photos when using quad bayer interpolation to take the photographs (50MP mode in the case of the Air 3S). All of those programs have the full ability to denoise Quad Bayer sensors with incredible results if the photos were shot using quad bayer interpolation (such as using 48/50MP mode when taking photos on the Air 3/3S).
With regard to 12MP photo mode. Quad bayer interpolation does not apply whatsoever because in 12MP mode, the 1” sensor is a basic traditional bayer design with 3.2 micron pixel size as it pixel bins 4 pixels into one (2x2).

 

[Wreckhunter]

Thanks for sharing the video, that's exactly the artefacts I'm seeing in the RAW files (along with horrible chromatic aberrations in high contrast scenes). Definitely a drone to skip if you are serious about your photography.

This is what I was afraid of when I saw the specs on the 1" main camera,DJI has some explaining to do about having only a 12mp resolution
on the sensor,and not at least 20mp on it.

 

[davidarmenb]

This is what I was afraid of when I saw the specs on the 1" main camera,DJI has some explaining to do about having only a 12mp resolution
on the sensor,and not at least 20mp on it.

You usually can’t just convert any resolution to any other resolution like that in the sensor . With a quad bayer filter, the resolution gets divided by 4 because it uses four pixels to make one huge pixel. Which is why the 48MP sensors make sense as 48/4 is 12MP. This is also why I imagine that going from 50MP mode to 12MP mode, I think there will be a small crop because I believe the sensor will only use the central 48MP of the sensor to pixel-bin into 12MP.

 

[Wreckhunter]

It is a 50MP sensor with a quad bayer filter (2x2) on top, effectively making it a 12MP 1” sensor with 3.2 micron pixels. This method gives the user the ability to use quad bayer interpolation to shoot in 50MP as well, but this interpolation introduces some artifacts.

If DJI would have put what they should have in that 1" in the first place being a 20mp sensor,there would not be any back and forth talk
and and other crap about goofy quad bayer filters again

 

[Wreckhunter]

That is what I was worried about when I saw the spec of 50MP 1" sensor. I thought to myself what???

Yup same thing here,when I saw 50mp I just shook my head

 

[ryguy80]

I wonder if it is some image processing optimization that can be done in firmware? Even with a one-inch sensor, you're still going to get noise when you enlarge the image beyond 100% zoom.

I bought the Air 3S for the photography aspect. I know someone YouTuber said it was the best photography drone they ever used (Russ?).