Best still photo settings

[Brockrock]

I'm coming up on three weeks now with the M2P, and I have approximately 6 hours of flight time so far due to rainy weather here in the Northeast... Also, this UAV is an upgrade to the Phantom 4 (original) that I have had for a couple of years now, so I would consider my general understanding of these systems to be fairly broad.

It seems that all the YouTube videos that I have watched regarding camera settings are more tailored toward video capture, and I can understand that, but my interest right now is figuring out how to maximize the M2P's still photo capabilities. So, I was hoping that those who may be interested in this as well - with more experience than me - could post what settings they use and maybe even a photo as an example.

Thanks in advance for any assistance!!

 

[brettbrandon]

Things I have found by my personal use and other flyers posts.

I always shoot in Manual mode.

Shoot in Raw + Jpg or in Raw period. Much can be done to the photo in post on a Raw file that can't be done on a Jpg.

Use ISO 100 at all times unless you have so little light that you have no choice.

Running the Aperture setting past 5 starts softening the sharpness of the pic.

I turn on "Overexposed" in the Camera Settings to be able to set the exposure as bright as possible without blowing out whites which will show up as black and white bars on overexposed areas.

I turn on "Focus Peaking", (I think thats what it is called) on High as it puts red dots on what is in focus.

I assign Shutter Speed (EV in manual mode) on the up/down 5Way Switch positions and Aperture on the left/right 5Way Switch positions. That can be setup in the Controller setting and only works on iOS Devices not Android. That way I can adjust Aperture and Exposure right from the controller.

I personally usually have a Circular Polarizer on and set at 12 o'clock position, that is on a Polar Pro. It has a mark on the ring to tell where the polarization is at. It filters some reflected light but also helps saturate the colors slightly. Some folks have argued with me about this but it works for me....

 

[Brockrock]

Things I have found by my personal use and other flyers posts.

I always shoot in Manual mode.

Shoot in Raw + Jpg or in Raw period. Much can be done to the photo in post on a Raw file that can't be done on a Jpg.

Use ISO 100 at all time unless you have so little light that you have no choice.

Running the Aperture setting past 5 starts softening the sharpness of the pic.

I turn on "Overexposed" in the Camera Settings to be able to set the exposure as bright as possible without blowing out whites which will show up as black and white bars on overexposed areas.

I turn on "Focus Peaking", (I think thats what it is called) on High as it puts red dots on what is in focus.

I assign Shutter Speed (EV in manual mode) on the up/down 5Way Switch positions and Aperture on the left/right 5Way Switch positions. That can be setup in the Controller setting and only works on iOS Devices not Android. That way I can adjust Aperture and Exposure right from the controller.

I personally usually have a Circular Polorizer on and set at 12 o'clock position, that is on a Polar Pro. It has a mark on the ring to tell where the polorization is at. It filters some reflected light but also helps saturate the colors slightly. Folks have argued with me about this but it works for me....

View attachment 72804

All great advice, and exactly what I was looking for. The big thing I think I need to do is start saving the Raw images in order to work with the ones that I like.

Also, great pic and great place. What a location to fly from.

 

[brettbrandon]

Also, great pic and great place. What a location to fly from.

I wish it were my place, that was from vacation this past winter in the Smoky Mountains.
Heres a view from the front window at home, not quite as scenic....

 

[4wd]

Just use RAW, and a decent RAW editor like Lightroom

 

[Brockrock]

Just use RAW, and a decent RAW editor like Lightroom

View attachment 72811

Beautiful photo. Yes, that's my plan. I have just been looking at Adobe Lightroom for iOS, and I'm wondering if that may be a good mobile solution for basic editing in the field / coffee shop with my iPad...

 

[brettbrandon]

Beautiful photo. Yes, that's my plan. I have just been looking at Adobe Lightroom for iOS, and I'm wondering if that may be a good mobile solution for basic editing in the field / coffee shop with my iPad...

Lightroom is my choice for editing. I haven't messed with the iPad version though.
If you do go for it, the Photographers package has Lightroom and Photoshop for 10 bucks a month. Lightroom by itself is 20...

 

[Dakrisht]

My optimal settings after 1000s of shots from the M2P, tons of reading on the camera, sensor and color space, I don’t think you can get better than this:

- Always shoot RAW. No reason to ever shoot JPGs. Way too compressed and a useless format for HQ photos.

- Always shoot in manual.

- Aperture at F/2.8 through F/4 is the sharpest. Sharpness falloff occurring at F/5.6 and don’t even bother using F/8 or higher.

- Always shoot ISO100 during the day. Can go up to 800 at night and even 1600+ works ok when using smoothness and noise reduction in post.

- Use Tripode mode at night for extra stability. Ensure safe flying at night and follow FAA rules.

- Use Lightroom CC on mobile / desktop. The old version of Lightroom is archaic at this point. New CC syncs your content from PC > mobile > etc.

- No need to use ND or Polarizer when shooting stills unless you’re trying to get artsy with water effects during the day / slow shutters.

- Shoot with the Histogram on and learn what the histogram does.

- Shoot with overexposed areas shown if you’re shooting high contrast / bright whites / skies / etc. although this feature isn’t that necessary for most photos.

- Again, Always shoot RAW. Only amateurs shoot JPGs ?

- Have fun, experiment!

 

[Northern_Bob]

Beautiful photo. Yes, that's my plan. I have just been looking at Adobe Lightroom for iOS, and I'm wondering if that may be a good mobile solution for basic editing in the field / coffee shop with my iPad...

I highly recommend LR Mobile. Been using it on my XR iPhone with an active stylus pen (get one-makes a big difference in precision editing). Only the really important or tricky stuff gets edited on my PC tower.
NB

 

[gnirtS]

As above important points for the M2P are:-

(i) Always use RAW
(ii) Unless you've run out of all other options, keep the ISO at 100
(iii) Aperture f/2.8 to f/4 are pretty much the sharpest with diffraction starting to show smaller than that. DoF is a non issue with these wide lenses
(iv) Keep a decent shutter speed (1/120th or higher). Given point (iii) its not that hard.
(v) Use the histogram

Generally for most still photography (and i do 90% stills) i use Aperture priority mode, ISO100 and f/4 (or wider if its darker). Just checking the shutter speed is acceptable before a series of images. I dont see any benefit for manual in normal lighting conditions when Av works perfectly fine - just as it does on a DSLR.
I use manual exposure for panos, 360s and so on because the automatic metering struggles here.

 

[Meta4]

- Always shoot RAW. No reason to ever shoot JPGs. Way too compressed and a useless format for HQ photos.
- Again, Always shoot RAW. Only amateurs shoot JPGs

I see this repeated all the time and wonder how many of the people advising this have ever tried using jpg.
Jpg images from your drone are very good, much better than many users realise and probably all that most users really need, most of the time.

- Always shoot in manual.

Why?

- Use Tripod mode at night for extra stability.

Despite it's name, Tripod Mode gives no extra stability.
It simply slows the speed and control sensitivity for precise control.[/QUOTE]

 

[Dakrisht]

I see this repeated all the time and wonder how many of the people advising this have ever tried using jpg.
Jpg images from your drone are very good, much better than many users realise and probably all that most users really need, most of the time.

Why?

Because RAW contains no image compression, delivers ALL sensor data to the user and allows for max latitude in post among to correct over/under exposure, shadows, highlights, color, etc. among a variety of other technical reasons, not to mention the significant degradation in image quality due to a lossy compression such as JPEG.

There are numerous reasons why RAW is better and used exclusively by pros however, this is not the place for that discussion.

For a good amount of users, sure, JPG is a-ok but no comparison to RAW.

Read up on RAW for more info.

 

[gnirtS]

I see this repeated all the time and wonder how many of the people advising this have ever tried using jpg.

I went through testing RAW+JPG.
The JPGs aren't great, there are clear compression artefacts on areas of fine detail. The saturation is overdone. Given a lot of aerial shots are fairly high dynamic range the ability (or rather inability) to pull back highlights from the JPG is restrictive.

They might work if you want a quick, dirty, low res shot to stick on facebook or instagram but thats about it. You may as wel get a Spark for that though.

If people think the JPGs might be ok, shoot in RAW+JPG. Never use JPG only because if you get a good shot you DO think needs editing you'll be massively restricted with the JPG only in terms of what you can do to it.

 

[Meta4]

They might work if you want a quick, dirty, low res shot to stick on facebook or instagram but thats about it. You may as wel get a Spark for that though.

Uh-huh ... so if only I'd shot dng images maybe these would be keepers?

Shipping Photography Examples - Above & Beyond Photography

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abovephotos.smugmug.com

 

[Meta4]

Because RAW ...

I know all about raw images.
I was asking why you only shoot in manual.

 

[Dakrisht]

I know all about raw images.
I was asking why you only shoot in manual.

Generally for control. I prefer an f-stop of F/4 on this camera and don’t want this to shift. Shutter during video is also locked into 1/60th to maintain the 180 rule at 30fps. During pans, tilts, etc. exposure values will shift when shooting video so manual is the way to go.

Aperture or shutter priority is ok as well for those wanting a little less than manual control. But I’ve always been shooting manual for decades so used to it and again, prefer the control to control shutter and exposure at will based on what I’m shooting and what effect I’m after.

 

[4wd]

Hmm... I use full manual for photo and video with my Sony A7iii and RX100, but find it's too much trouble on the Mavic and usually leave it in Auto, using only the exposure comp wheel.
For photos I guess it wouldn't be a bad idea.

 

[gnirtS]

Uh-huh ... so if only I'd shot dng images maybe these would be keepers?

Shipping Photography Examples - Above & Beyond Photography

This gallery hosted by SmugMug; your photos look better here.

abovephotos.smugmug.com

Fairly simple shots with limited dynamic range.
Now go try the same with much higher range of shots, reflections, deep shadows and so on.
JPGs will work in good conditions. When the camera is struggling with difficult lighting they fall apart rapidly.

 

[Meta4]

Fairly simple shots with limited dynamic range.
Now go try the same with much higher range of shots, reflections, deep shadows and so on.
JPGs will work in good conditions. When the camera is struggling with difficult lighting they fall apart rapidly.

Yeah .. just a few simple shots?

Oh well, we've gone from jpg might work if you want a quick, dirty, low res shot to stick on facebook or instagram but thats about it ... to JPGs will work in good conditions.
I guess that's a little progress.
The truth is that you can get very good results shooting jpg, much better than some here will ever admit.

 

[offtheback]

Things I have found by my personal use and other flyers posts.

I always shoot in Manual mode.

Shoot in Raw + Jpg or in Raw period. Much can be done to the photo in post on a Raw file that can't be done on a Jpg.

Use ISO 100 at all times unless you have so little light that you have no choice.

Running the Aperture setting past 5 starts softening the sharpness of the pic.

I turn on "Overexposed" in the Camera Settings to be able to set the exposure as bright as possible without blowing out whites which will show up as black and white bars on overexposed areas.

I turn on "Focus Peaking", (I think thats what it is called) on High as it puts red dots on what is in focus.

I assign Shutter Speed (EV in manual mode) on the up/down 5Way Switch positions and Aperture on the left/right 5Way Switch positions. That can be setup in the Controller setting and only works on iOS Devices not Android. That way I can adjust Aperture and Exposure right from the controller.

I personally usually have a Circular Polorizer on and set at 12 o'clock position, that is on a Polar Pro. It has a mark on the ring to tell where the polorization is at. It filters some reflected light but also helps saturate the colors slightly. Some folks have argued with me about this but it works for me....

View attachment 72804

Solid recommendations but I prefer to shoot aperture preferred and leave it on F/4 which seems to be the sweet spot of the lens.As the light fades I may go toward 2.8 to keep ISO down+shutter speed up depending on subject+wind.I also use bracketing to either blend or pick best exposed shoe.