great shots guys. i have to say, i never would have remotely imagined even a half second exposure could be sharp from an aerial platform. i’ll have to try it asap!!
Advice for a novice drone operator looking for best stills image quality.
- Thread starter Bussty
- Start date
I have found the MP2 camera to be OK, not as good as I had hoped for, but when you look at the alternative, not too many are out there with 20MP. I am mainly interested in stills, not video.
Some things to consider
1. Distortion, the camera in the MP2 has considerable distortion, both barrel and retro focus. The retro focus distortion shows up towards the edge of the frames, objects will get elongated and flattened. Retro focus distortion is common in most wide and ultra wide lenses to some degree. The MP2 lens also tends to curve the horizon whenever you aim up or down. Note this caused a huge issue with the video shooters when they discovered that d-log did not correct for this. With a still, jpg, it's corrected mostly in the camera. With a dng, the correction can be done somewhat by the specific raw converter. Lightroom will read the built in Lens info and apply a correction, however it does crop a bit of the image. LR/Adobe ACR also is adding a lot of distortion correction which can't be turned off since the camera is seen as a mirrorless solution and all mirrorless cameras work this way for some reason. (Fuji, Sony, et all LR reads the built in info from the exif and applies it and you can't turn it off, unlike a DSLR where you can use the lens info or turn it off). If you don't believe this, just load a dng into a software like Capture One, and look at the horizons, they are curved considerably. I prefer the Capture One conversion on the raws, but it take a lot more time, however. All wide angle lenses when pointed down tend to give the blown down look to trees towards the edges of frames and or houses will get bent outwards. The MP2 camera has quite a bit of this and there is really no way to correct for it. If DJI had considered allowing a design that allows for rotation of the camera to 90, that would have been a great asset for multiple framed shots (like the MPP does).
2. Dynamic range, the sensor is good at 100, but still can get noisy. You have more head room than many realize to the right, so expose to the right if a single shot. Use of AEB is very important IMO, it's quick and fast since and you have -1.34 to +1.34 of range which means you can get 2 to 3 images that are workable. Where as trying to just get the shot with one frame is going to give limited results unless you have very evenly lit scene. Most of what has been shown on this post are sunset, sunrise or scenes that would benefit from multiple exposures to capture the best overall scene. Pushing this sensor past 400 really 200 is a waste IMO. It's not the sensor as the RX100 IV can go very well at 800 ISO with either the same or similar sensor.
3. Aperture, sadly best center of frame seems to be F 2.8, but edges will suffer. I would prefer the option for 4:3 since I am mainly shooting manual series to create a single large MP output with stitching. As the edges of the images tend to be the worst, I would prefer to not use that and take 17.5 or so MP since I am going to stitch anyway. Pushing the aperture to F 6.3 helps on the edges, but you will start seeing diffraction imparted softness, some of which can be corrected in post.
4. Raw converter, I still fall back to Capture One for best overall sharpness and low noise. Capture One seems to generate less noise than Adobe for me. Capture One will frustrate a lot of folks as the files are not seen as anything more than a native dng, so you need to apply a more work to them. However you can create a style and just apply that style to all the images. Adobe/LR (most current version) will apply the "adobe color" profile by default to the images, but if you click on the color profile dropdown box you may find a better solution in the many other profiles that are available. You cannot alter the lens distortion applied in Lightroom and or turn it off.
With Capture One, I use the generic lens correction, which keeps a bit of barrel distortion in the image, but seems to pull better overall sharpness from the edges since less distortion correction is being applied (which will soften those parts of the image).
5. Focus, actually should have put this first. Focus on the MP2 is critical. I mainly use an iPad 10.5" but with any iOS device, you can't zoom into a 100% view and really check critical focus. The image is too broken up and soft. If you look at the playback, it's the same issue. Some have found focus peaking to help, but I still rely mainly on using the AF to hit a critical area of a shot, then switch back to MF for that series. For many shots I will often try 2 different AF point before I move the camera to the next scene. In a recent test I did, I hit AF dead center, shot a frame, then moved the AF to far left, shot a frame, then move the AF back to center and shot again. All three shots were the same aperture an shutter speed, all varied in overall sharpness. So my take is since you only have a limited amount of time up there to work, take a lot of shots, move the focus point around and bracket. With a 32GB or 64GB card, you have plenty of space. Yes I realize you will throw a lot of images away, but I would rather do that than come back and find I missed the shot due to focus.
I have tried 2 different MP2's and I still find that I prefer the stills from my P4 Pro due to the fact that the overall image seems to have better details. But the P4 Vr 2.0 is a lot more to carry in the field and many times I leave for the MP2 which is so much easier to carry, and quiet. Controls are excellent and it's a joy to fly. Currently I feel both the sensor and camera are limiters but by bracketing 5 shots I have gotten some great results in dynamic range. I had hoped that the actual lens on the camera would produce better, less distortion prone files, but I continue to work on getting better images realizing the limitation of the lens. I don't see DJI making any changes to this and I don't which to move up to an Inspire due to cost, noise, weight, and size. Love what the Inspire camera can do. Hopefully DJI will continue to refine the Phantom lineup with possibly a better larger sensor with more dynamic range and interchangeable lenses. I can't see any of this coming down to the Mavic due to format of the drone.
Paul C
Some things to consider
1. Distortion, the camera in the MP2 has considerable distortion, both barrel and retro focus. The retro focus distortion shows up towards the edge of the frames, objects will get elongated and flattened. Retro focus distortion is common in most wide and ultra wide lenses to some degree. The MP2 lens also tends to curve the horizon whenever you aim up or down. Note this caused a huge issue with the video shooters when they discovered that d-log did not correct for this. With a still, jpg, it's corrected mostly in the camera. With a dng, the correction can be done somewhat by the specific raw converter. Lightroom will read the built in Lens info and apply a correction, however it does crop a bit of the image. LR/Adobe ACR also is adding a lot of distortion correction which can't be turned off since the camera is seen as a mirrorless solution and all mirrorless cameras work this way for some reason. (Fuji, Sony, et all LR reads the built in info from the exif and applies it and you can't turn it off, unlike a DSLR where you can use the lens info or turn it off). If you don't believe this, just load a dng into a software like Capture One, and look at the horizons, they are curved considerably. I prefer the Capture One conversion on the raws, but it take a lot more time, however. All wide angle lenses when pointed down tend to give the blown down look to trees towards the edges of frames and or houses will get bent outwards. The MP2 camera has quite a bit of this and there is really no way to correct for it. If DJI had considered allowing a design that allows for rotation of the camera to 90, that would have been a great asset for multiple framed shots (like the MPP does).
2. Dynamic range, the sensor is good at 100, but still can get noisy. You have more head room than many realize to the right, so expose to the right if a single shot. Use of AEB is very important IMO, it's quick and fast since and you have -1.34 to +1.34 of range which means you can get 2 to 3 images that are workable. Where as trying to just get the shot with one frame is going to give limited results unless you have very evenly lit scene. Most of what has been shown on this post are sunset, sunrise or scenes that would benefit from multiple exposures to capture the best overall scene. Pushing this sensor past 400 really 200 is a waste IMO. It's not the sensor as the RX100 IV can go very well at 800 ISO with either the same or similar sensor.
3. Aperture, sadly best center of frame seems to be F 2.8, but edges will suffer. I would prefer the option for 4:3 since I am mainly shooting manual series to create a single large MP output with stitching. As the edges of the images tend to be the worst, I would prefer to not use that and take 17.5 or so MP since I am going to stitch anyway. Pushing the aperture to F 6.3 helps on the edges, but you will start seeing diffraction imparted softness, some of which can be corrected in post.
4. Raw converter, I still fall back to Capture One for best overall sharpness and low noise. Capture One seems to generate less noise than Adobe for me. Capture One will frustrate a lot of folks as the files are not seen as anything more than a native dng, so you need to apply a more work to them. However you can create a style and just apply that style to all the images. Adobe/LR (most current version) will apply the "adobe color" profile by default to the images, but if you click on the color profile dropdown box you may find a better solution in the many other profiles that are available. You cannot alter the lens distortion applied in Lightroom and or turn it off.
With Capture One, I use the generic lens correction, which keeps a bit of barrel distortion in the image, but seems to pull better overall sharpness from the edges since less distortion correction is being applied (which will soften those parts of the image).
5. Focus, actually should have put this first. Focus on the MP2 is critical. I mainly use an iPad 10.5" but with any iOS device, you can't zoom into a 100% view and really check critical focus. The image is too broken up and soft. If you look at the playback, it's the same issue. Some have found focus peaking to help, but I still rely mainly on using the AF to hit a critical area of a shot, then switch back to MF for that series. For many shots I will often try 2 different AF point before I move the camera to the next scene. In a recent test I did, I hit AF dead center, shot a frame, then moved the AF to far left, shot a frame, then move the AF back to center and shot again. All three shots were the same aperture an shutter speed, all varied in overall sharpness. So my take is since you only have a limited amount of time up there to work, take a lot of shots, move the focus point around and bracket. With a 32GB or 64GB card, you have plenty of space. Yes I realize you will throw a lot of images away, but I would rather do that than come back and find I missed the shot due to focus.
I have tried 2 different MP2's and I still find that I prefer the stills from my P4 Pro due to the fact that the overall image seems to have better details. But the P4 Vr 2.0 is a lot more to carry in the field and many times I leave for the MP2 which is so much easier to carry, and quiet. Controls are excellent and it's a joy to fly. Currently I feel both the sensor and camera are limiters but by bracketing 5 shots I have gotten some great results in dynamic range. I had hoped that the actual lens on the camera would produce better, less distortion prone files, but I continue to work on getting better images realizing the limitation of the lens. I don't see DJI making any changes to this and I don't which to move up to an Inspire due to cost, noise, weight, and size. Love what the Inspire camera can do. Hopefully DJI will continue to refine the Phantom lineup with possibly a better larger sensor with more dynamic range and interchangeable lenses. I can't see any of this coming down to the Mavic due to format of the drone.
Paul C
Well prepared comment... but for me it all comes down to a compromise between portability, convenience and IQ. There's no such thing as the perfect camera for all occasions.
I have a mate that uses the Phantom 4 Pro II for his Civil, Engineering and Mining photography business. He hates the thing due to its bulk and lack of portability. The last time I spoke to him he was seriously considering the M2P. Same sensor, foldable and less than half the size.
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That’s what I’m talking about! I have flown helicopters, shot from helicopters and have never gotten a shot like that.
I also don’t think the P4 platform can hold steady for 8 seconds. At least my P4 could not. For that matter I also fly in inspire two with an X7 camera, which is a far superior camera. But, I’ve never managed to get sharp photos beyond one second. In fact I shot 80 photos one evening and out of those 80, one came out sharp. My Mavic 2 on the same evening managed to get 60% of its 2 to 4 second photos sharp. I was stupified.
Here is a shot from my MP 2 Pro that evening.
Cheers Steve and well done. I've not had your success with long exposures but there are enough images on 4-8 secs here to suggest with the right conditions it'll happen. It seems wind is an issue so I'll try to avoid it.
I'm really interested (once I have my hip replacement) in trying long exposures around the rocky coastline here to achieve that silky water look. Fingers crossed. You can achieve the same sort of result with multiple shorter exposures, but there too I've experienced alignment problems from drone instability.
I've said it before on these pages a hundred times that the M2P is a compromise... it's a bl**dy good compromise though IMO.
I'm really interested (once I have my hip replacement) in trying long exposures around the rocky coastline here to achieve that silky water look. Fingers crossed. You can achieve the same sort of result with multiple shorter exposures, but there too I've experienced alignment problems from drone instability.
I've said it before on these pages a hundred times that the M2P is a compromise... it's a bl**dy good compromise though IMO.
ff22
Well-Known Member
Off-topic: Best with the hip replacement - been there, actually twice on the same hip. But It had a good 800,000 vertical feet of hiking ups and downs and lots of cross-country ski miles. The new one about 150,000 vertical and some crazy cross-country in Norway last Winter and hiking the Dolomites this past summer.
Yes I have it and Affinity and use both. For initial processing you can’t beat DxO and most times it’s enough for the whole job. If not I simply dump into Affinity. Much prefer that combo to LR/PS. Substantially cheaper too!
Good for you mate! It's giving me the s***s hobbling around and thanks for the thoughts. I haven't flown in 2 weeks now and my op that was to be next Tuesday is postponed until mid January. Aggghhh!
Thanks for the update, I'm an Adobe CC subscriber but interested in looking around. Does Affinity accomodate Layers as in PS CC?
I see you're from north west coast USA. We visited Canada and the Rockies etc last year before heading into Alaska (without a drone unfortunately) and the bushfires were horrendous. Still you live in a beautiful location and all the best.
Affinity is very close to PS. Yes it does have layers. There’s a free demo and it’s only £50 or so (Aussie $ equivalent).
Some good reviews out there too and if you have an iPad Pro the app is brilliant too. Nearly all the functionality of the desktop version but beautifully optimised for a touch screen
The long exposure capability is insane. I have taken a few images at 8” and they are very good. Wind was between 5 & 10 mph too. M
Unbelievable that the gimbal can stabilise so well.
Info: AEB 3 Photos - Merged to HDR in Lightroom - Edited in Lightroom with Color Efex (Nik) - Upscalled and NR with AI GigaPixel
Mavic 2 Pro
Like some have said AEB is the way to go, the results are much better!
Use Peak Focus and the Focus problem is gone
Mavic 2 Pro
Like some have said AEB is the way to go, the results are much better!
Use Peak Focus and the Focus problem is gone
Yes I pulled it down and worked with for a while. It handles the lens issue well, pulls down a dedicated profile for the cameras, both P4 and MP2.
No layer support that I can see like in C1 which I use a lot.
Overall a good alternative for sure and I will keep it in my toolkit. Thanks for the suggestion.
Paul C
Info: AEB 3 Photos - Merged to HDR in Lightroom - Edited in Lightroom with Color Efex (Nik) - Upscalled and NR with AI GigaPixel
Mavic 2 Pro
Like some have said AEB is the way to go, the results are much better!
Use Peak Focus and the Focus problem is gone
I have tried it a bit, but will use it some more in the field and see. Thanks
Good example of what can be done with a AEB series. I really wish DJI would allow a 1 stop bracket, instead of .7. With a 1 stop bracket, you could easily work with just 3 images, instead of needing to go to 5.
Paul C
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