Air 3S photo quality analysis with comps M2Pro and iPhone 15Pro

[romik]

I thought I would sum up my findings about Air 3S main sensor photo quality and present perhaps intermittent solution to overcome rather disappointing quality of its 50Mpix mode. The thread I was contributing to previously was closed unfortunately just before I could add iPhone samples but either way it may be useful for anyone searching to find this information and samples summarized.

The problem with 50Mpix mode of the main sensor (which is of Quad Bayer type) is the demossaicing of information resulting significant color artifacts. Simply said the image displays all sorts of different colors, sometimes like rainbow, where you don't expect and don't want them.

This high contrast scene shows the rainbow the best - taken with Air 3S and Mavic 2Pro


Air3S color rainbow on blind string and the railing


Mavic 2Pro (less resolution as it is half the size of Air3S - 20Mpix only)


Then the outdoor scene Air 3S (50mpix) vs iPhone 15Pro (48Mpix Raw max mode) to demonstrate that demossaicing can be done properly.



See how the tree below plays all sorts of colors in Air 3S image(left) vs iPhone (right). A Christmas tree effect


Green windows


Here the branches on Air3S play all colors...



The intermittent solution seems to be to shoot raw images in 12Mpix mode - which is good and has no demossaicing issues - and upscale to 48Mpix using Adobe Lightroom AI powered super resolution (choose Denoise button, deselect denoise and choose Super Resolution). As you can see from the samples there is no loss in detail - even at 400% view - compared to 50Mpix mode and the artifacts are not present. It almost seems as if the 12Mpix images would retain the contrast information of 50Mpix mode somehow.

The problem with artifacts is not only they show here and there outright ugly but they also alter the color tone of more homogenous areas such as tree areas etc. All that can be seen on side by side images. Only most obvious examples are circled out, there are countless more.





Branches in 50Mpix mode (right) play all sorts of different colors vs the upscaled image (left) which retains all details. This is 400% (!) view.


See the colors of the basketball net


The green window on the right


So much more red in trees in 50Mp mode image vs the upscaled 12Mpix


So this is it. The intention of this thread is not to discuss alternatives to hires photo such as panorama. Can't do panorama on moving subjects anyway. So let's hope that this demossaicing issue can be solved in future firmware updates. After all it's just an algorithm isn't it... Happy flying.

 

[Felix le Chat]

Really interesting, well illustrated report. Thanks for making the effort. Been toying with the idea of 'upgrading' my Mavic 2 Pro (only 20 real megapixels) to the Air3S... your thread has made my decision for me.

 

[romik]

Really interesting, well illustrated report. Thanks for making the effort. Been toying with the idea of 'upgrading' my Mavic 2 Pro (only 20 real megapixels) to the Air3S... your thread had made my decision for me.

you’re welcomed. To explain my effort - I was (am) in the same boat as you are - owned 2Pro since 2018, then added Mini 3pro a 4pro and lately more into photography and large prints (like 3x1m) so I thought I might get something good with latest flight features yet comfortably in C1 category. And 3S seemed to fit the bill. But when I saw 50Mpix output I immediately knew this wouldn’t fly with large prints. Instagram perhaps but not prints. So I’ve returned the 3S (probably prematurely but I discovered 12Mpix upscale hack after I sent it back) and waiting for the 4Pro even though it’s going to be C2 with all restrictions.

This picture is from Mini 4 Pro in 2.5x1m size installed in one dental office and I would wish I have had something with better lens and sensor on that trip.

 

[Felix le Chat]

you’re welcomed. To explain my effort - I was (am) in the same boat as you are - owned 2Pro since 2018, then added Mini 3pro a 4pro and lately more into photography and large prints (like 3x1m) so I thought I might get something good with latest flight features yet comfortably in C1 category. And 3S seemed to fit the bill. But when I saw 50Mpix output I immediately knew this wouldn’t fly with large prints. Instagram perhaps but not prints. So I’ve returned the 3S (probably prematurely but I discovered 12Mpix upscale hack after I sent it back) and waiting for the 4Pro even though it’s going to be C2 with all restrictions.

This picture is from Mini 4 Pro in 2.5x1m size installed in one dental office and I would wish I have had something with better lens and sensor on that trip.

I swap between the Mavic 2's and a mini 3 pro. I was a bit dubious about the mini 3 pro's '48mp' claim (to begin with), but using it exclusively for close work shooting fine architectural detail and only processing the 'fake' 48mp DNG's has shown me it kicks out 8000x6000 shots that are of surprisingly good quality with minimal noise and negligible aberrations. These compliment the excellent 8000x6000 super-resolution shots from the Mavic 2 zoom perfectly.

I suppose the moral of the story here is "...if it ain't broke... don't bother fixing it with a new one"... especially when the new one is still a bit of a pig-in-a-poke

 

[wco81]

So previous DJI drones with faux 40-50 Mp photos didn't have the demossaicing color artifacts?

Maybe DJI needs to get Adobe a better demossaicing RAW processor.

Or maybe not enough people have reported the problem to DJI.

Is there some formal process to file bugs to them?

 

[brett8883]

I would note first of all this is called aliasing or sometimes moiré. It is more directly the result of not using an antialiasing filter on the sensor.

All cameras would do this except most camera sensors have an antialiasing filter on the camera sensor which ever so slightly blurs the image so that this doesn’t happen. However, higher resolution sensors tend to not have an antialiasing filter because the sensor can pick up so many details that blurring the image at all would be noticeable and defeat the purpose. For instance, even my Sony A7R4 has a 61MP full frame sensor and it has crazy amounts of aliasing.

Lightroom has a tool in the selective edits page called Moiré which will help with this. The idea is that aliasing can be delt with selectively in editing as needed but blur introduced by an antialiasing filter can never be undone. So basically you have to decide if you want a more detailed image but have to deal with aliasing as it comes up or do you want have a little blur and not have to deal with it? Both answers have merit.

The quad Bayer sensor, like on the Air3s, is a solution that attempts to have its cake and eat it too but not without caveats. Use a 48MP sensor without an antialiasing filter but downsample the image to 12MP to get rid of the aliasing which will look WAY better and sharper than a regular 12MP image without the need to worry about fixing aliasing with editing. PLUS you still have the ability to take 48MP images but with the normal issue of aliasing. The caveat is the quad Bayer may have a little bit more aliasing than a traditional 48MP quad Bayer.

One thing you can do is in Lightroom choose to demosaic with Enhance Details, but turn super resolution off. Enhance Details is a slower more detailed demosaic algorithm. Super Resolution in Lightroom always uses enhance details so I suspect that’s really the reason your 12MP SR images look better not the actual super resolution part

 

[GadgetGuy]

Really interesting, well illustrated report. Thanks for making the effort. Been toying with the idea of 'upgrading' my Mavic 2 Pro (only 20 real megapixels) to the Air3S... your thread has made my decision for me.

The biggest upgrade of the Air 3S over the Mavic 2 Pro is the increased flight time. The native 20MP of the Mavic 2 Pro is on a parity with the native 12MP of the Air 3S, without the use of Quad-Bayer technology.

 

[romik]

I would note first of all this is called aliasing or sometimes moiré. It is more directly the result of not using an antialiasing filter on the sensor.

All cameras would do this except most camera sensors have an antialiasing filter on the camera sensor which ever so slightly blurs the image so that this doesn’t happen. However, higher resolution sensors tend to not have an antialiasing filter because the sensor can pick up so many details that blurring the image at all would be noticeable and defeat the purpose. For instance, even my Sony A7R4 has a 61MP full frame sensor and it has crazy amounts of aliasing.

Lightroom has a tool in the selective edits page called Moiré which will help with this. The idea is that aliasing can be delt with selectively in editing as needed but blur introduced by an antialiasing filter can never be undone. So basically you have to decide if you want a more detailed image but have to deal with aliasing as it comes up or do you want have a little blur and not have to deal with it? Both answers have merit.

The quad Bayer sensor, like on the Air3s, is a solution that attempts to have its cake and eat it too but not without caveats. Use a 48MP sensor without an antialiasing filter but downsample the image to 12MP to get rid of the aliasing which will look WAY better and sharper than a regular 12MP image without the need to worry about fixing aliasing with editing. PLUS you still have the ability to take 48MP images but with the normal issue of aliasing. The caveat is the quad Bayer may have a little bit more aliasing than a traditional 48MP quad Bayer.

One thing you can do is in Lightroom choose to demosaic with Enhance Details, but turn super resolution off. Enhance Details is a slower more detailed demosaic algorithm. Super Resolution in Lightroom always uses enhance details so I suspect that’s really the reason your 12MP SR images look better not the actual super resolution part

Can't agree pretty much on anything. So many things put together so wrong. I do have Sony A1 and so I do know a thing or two about moire and effects of missing antialias filter and 3S problem is not it. You might want to read this post which explains nicely and in simple language the Quad Bayer technology. Peace.

Post in thread 'Air 3S photo quality is... disappointing'

Friday at 4:57 PM

I am struggling to see connection between your reply to my post and the Lr tools the other gentlemen was talking about and myself referring to those.
But since you already replied with the open ended questions, would you please explain to us poor mortals why the 50MP photos from A3S are full of undesirable artifacts, well demonstrated with posted samples in this long thread, while photos from let's say Fuji GFX 50 with 50MP Buyer sensor look so amazing in comparison and without any of those nasty artifacts seen in A3S 50MP photos? I know apples and oranges when it comes to sensor size...

• Droning on and on...

• 

 

[brett8883]

Can't agree pretty much on anything. So many things put together so wrong. I do have Sony A1 and so I do know a thing or two about moire and effects of missing antialias filter and 3S problem is not it. You might want to read this post which explains nicely and in simple language the Quad Bayer technology. Peace.

Post in thread 'Air 3S photo quality is... disappointing'

Friday at 4:57 PM

I am struggling to see connection between your reply to my post and the Lr tools the other gentlemen was talking about and myself referring to those.
But since you already replied with the open ended questions, would you please explain to us poor mortals why the 50MP photos from A3S are full of undesirable artifacts, well demonstrated with posted samples in this long thread, while photos from let's say Fuji GFX 50 with 50MP Buyer sensor look so amazing in comparison and without any of those nasty artifacts seen in A3S 50MP photos? I know apples and oranges when it comes to sensor size...

• Droning on and on...

• 

I don’t really see where in the post you linked what contradicts what I said. I also wasn’t necessarily contradicting what you said originally either btw. I did say:

The caveat is the quad Bayer may have a little bit more aliasing than a traditional 48MP quad Bayer

There is aliasing in the 48MP A3S images , which is exactly what you are describing in both cause and effect, no question and probably a bit more than if it had a traditional Bayer sensor. I just don’t think it as much to do with the QB as you are making it out to be.

My other point, which also really isn’t at odds with what you said either, is the 12MP images are supersampled from the 48MP sensor. So that’s why the 12MP images retain so much detail, as you noted.

 

[ben.boozer]

Question, are these tests of the 3s being done with sharpening and noise reduction at minimum or at the drone default settings? Apologies if I missed this info earlier.

 

[romik]

Question, are these tests of the 3s being done with sharpening and noise reduction at minimum or at the drone default settings? Apologies if I missed this info earlier.

Drone default.

 

[GroovyGeek]

I would note first of all this is called aliasing or sometimes moiré. It is more directly the result of not using an antialiasing filter on the sensor.

All cameras would do this except most camera sensors have an antialiasing filter on the camera sensor which ever so slightly blurs the image so that this doesn’t happen. However, higher resolution sensors tend to not have an antialiasing filter because the sensor can pick up so many details that blurring the image at all would be noticeable and defeat the purpose. For instance, even my Sony A7R4 has a 61MP full frame sensor and it has crazy amounts of aliasing.

Lightroom has a tool in the selective edits page called Moiré which will help with this. The idea is that aliasing can be delt with selectively in editing as needed but blur introduced by an antialiasing filter can never be undone. So basically you have to decide if you want a more detailed image but have to deal with aliasing as it comes up or do you want have a little blur and not have to deal with it? Both answers have merit.

The quad Bayer sensor, like on the Air3s, is a solution that attempts to have its cake and eat it too but not without caveats. Use a 48MP sensor without an antialiasing filter but downsample the image to 12MP to get rid of the aliasing which will look WAY better and sharper than a regular 12MP image without the need to worry about fixing aliasing with editing. PLUS you still have the ability to take 48MP images but with the normal issue of aliasing. The caveat is the quad Bayer may have a little bit more aliasing than a traditional 48MP quad Bayer.

One thing you can do is in Lightroom choose to demosaic with Enhance Details, but turn super resolution off. Enhance Details is a slower more detailed demosaic algorithm. Super Resolution in Lightroom always uses enhance details so I suspect that’s really the reason your 12MP SR images look better not the actual super resolution part

Moire filters have not been in widespread use in still cameras for quite some time. I have never seen anything like the DJI "moire" on any other camera.

 

[Droning on and on...]

So previous DJI drones with faux 40-50 Mp photos didn't have the demossaicing color artifacts?

Maybe DJI needs to get Adobe a better demossaicing RAW processor.

Or maybe not enough people have reported the problem to DJI.

Is there some formal process to file bugs to them?

Assuming the 50MP sensor has the same QB pattern (and pretty much most of them do), then I'd say it's a bonafide software bug. After all, there's almost no chance they wouldn't just reuse the already-working code from the other QB drones.

It'll be fixed in a future f/w release.

@romik, not understanding why you don't snap a 50MP raw and demosaic externally with a good algorithm. That would be a better comparison to the iPhone, for example.

 

[GroovyGeek]

Assuming the 50MP sensor has the same QB pattern (and pretty much most of them do), then I'd say it's a bonafide software bug. After all, there's almost no chance they wouldn't just reuse the already-working code from the other QB drones.

It'll be fixed in a future f/w release.

@romik, not understanding why you don't snap a 50MP raw and demosaic externally with a good algorithm. That would be a better comparison to the iPhone, for example.

It is not the DJI demosaicing algo. I have looked at 3s DNGs in Photoshop. The color fringing is ludicrous. And AI denoising if ineffective. There is something much weirder going on.

There was an example posted earlier in this thread. Here are samples from another thread on this topic. Air 3s DNGs processed with the latest version of ACR

G

Post in thread 'Air 3S photo quality is... disappointing'

Jan 17, 2025

Here are some comparisons from the links I posted in #1 and #2. All images have run through Photoshop's AI denoising and the shadows have been brought up 1 stop. There has been no other processing outside of what the PS profile may be doing.

First set is Air 3S





Second set is Mavic 3 Pro






The Mavic 3 Pro outperforms in every possible metric - shadow noise, color noise, acuity, color fringing, color fidelity. These are images taken in broad daylight, which makes the Air3S particularly disappointing and...

• GroovyGeek

48Mpx DNGs from the Mini 3 pro do not have this problem and are much more usable.

 

[Gazwas]

Its not just a Air 3S problem, as the Air 3 have the exact same issues.

I think the Air 3(S) are amazing video drones but utterly terrible photography ones.

So much so, I'm eagerly awaiting the release on the Mavic 4 for its potential photography credentials over the Air because of these issues.

I feels its a combination of the DJI processings (massive over sharpening), sensor size and mediocre optics that produce these artefacts with still images on the Air 3/3S.