I am still having trouble finding a way to correct the lense distortion on a consistant basis for the 2S. Trees are always leaning to the outside and makes the pics unsaleable. I shouldnt have to fork out a bunch of $ to make the pic acceptable. Tried PTLens but not impressed. Would appreciate finding out what others are using and how.....Thanks
Air 2s lense correction
- Thread starter wilger
- Start date
From the brief description it sounds like you probably have no lens distortion at all.
Your issue is caused by the way you are using the lens rather than a fault in the lens
If you are having trouble with verticals that aren't vertical in your images, you have discovered the keystone effect.
This is exaggerated by all wideangle lenses like the one on your drone's camera.
Google "keystone correction" to find out how you could correct it in Photoshop.
But the easiest way to ensure your verticals stay vertical, is to shoot with your camera level - at 0°.
If it's tilted down, the trees or buildings will appear to lean outwards.
Tilt the lens up and things will lean inwards.
If you’re using an Appel product for your screen, there’s a free and effective solution in the Photo app. It’s under the “crop” category. Also, Meta is exactly right in his comment above and what you’re describing is normal for wide lenses.
If you're looking exclusively at JPG's taken from the microSD card: lens aberration corrections will already have been applied before the camera writes the file to the memory card (they're built in to the camera firmware). There will be no lens distortion for you to correct.
If you're looking at the RAW's (DNG files): there will be no correction, enhancement or improvement applied and you will see the famous DJI Banana Horizon.
You may be looking at perspective distortion, which most editing suites will allow you to adjust with the help of a grid overlay, just shift the vertical perspective slider incrementally left or right from the zero point until everything is more or less straight, but it won't be precise.
Thanks for all the replies. I am shooting aerial photos of farm yards etc so cannot help but have gimbal pointing downward. I do not have photoshop. I have not noticed more of less distortion with jpgs or raw but will look further.
It would have helped to have more details or an example to know what your issue was.
If your problem is when shooting straight down, your issue is geometry, not a problem caused by lens distortion.
If you were sitting in the same position as the drone looking down, your eyes would show the same thing.
If you have 20 trees spread across your field of view, the camera's view of the one directly below the camera will just see the top of the tree.
But for any trees further away from the centre of the frame, the lens will see the trunk and base of the tree.
The further from the centre, the more of the trunk will be visible.
The effect could be reduced to some degree by flying higher and/or shooting with a longer focal length lens.
I misunderstood and thought you were talking about shooting straight down as for a mapping mission.
Ignore my previous comment.
You are shooting oblique views and while you do that you will always have trees leaning outwards as explained originally.
There is no lens distortion involved and the more you tilt the gimbal down, the more the trees will fall away from the centreline.
And it will be the same whether you shoot jpg or dng.
Ignore my previous comment.
You are shooting oblique views and while you do that you will always have trees leaning outwards as explained originally.
There is no lens distortion involved and the more you tilt the gimbal down, the more the trees will fall away from the centreline.
And it will be the same whether you shoot jpg or dng.
That's typical perspective distortion, you get the same problem shooting tall structures either pointing the camera up from the ground or down from above. The SLR/DSLR camera solution was/is a specialized lens called a tilt/shift lens. The drone solution for a landscape shot like this is in the editing process, but expect to have to crop the bottom quarter of your vertical frame, so when you take the shot: bear that in mind and frame accordingly.
I read in your previous comment that you don't use Photoshop. No idea what you use, but to correct something like this you need good editing software. If you don't already use one: I'd suggest either Darktable or RawTherapee, both are freeware and both offer a wide range of pro-level editing and correction tools, including a perspective distortion correction tab.
I read in your previous comment that you don't use Photoshop. No idea what you use, but to correct something like this you need good editing software. If you don't already use one: I'd suggest either Darktable or RawTherapee, both are freeware and both offer a wide range of pro-level editing and correction tools, including a perspective distortion correction tab.
Don't expect much.
Here's a quick and dirty attempt done in Photoshop.
Raw or jpg won't make any difference.
By tilting the gimbal down 32 degrees, you've cause a large distortion of perspective.
To "correct" this you have to squeeze the top of the image inwards like this:
Then crop the edges to get this which isn't much like the wideangle view you thought you were shooting:
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Well its certainly more realistic. So I could shoot from a bit further away to allow for this type of editing. Is this squeezing available in other softwares as I use PS Elements 2024?
