Central bright zone in raw (DNG) from Mavic Air

[slup]

I don't understand this statement: "... this most probably have to do with the Raw developer used." Can you clarify what you mean? ...

Well ... that's one expression of what most call a RAW conversion ...

Even Adobe Photoshop use it in their programs to symbolize a step in the workflow ... Just to say converter doesn't revile the true meaning, to adjust the RAW through Lightroom for instance is very alike the old school dark room exercise. You make adjustments, develop the copy from the film negative to your liking and purpose & make a print.

It exist for sure pure RAW converters ... which not let you make adjustments, instead take the shortcut to another format (jpg for instance) with some settings already predefined.

 

[Prismatic]

Well ... that's one expression of what most call a RAW conversion ...

Even Adobe Photoshop use it in their programs to symbolize a step in the workflow ... Just to say converter doesn't revile the true meaning, to adjust the RAW through Lightroom for instance is very alike the old school dark room exercise. You make adjustments, develop the copy from the film negative to your liking and purpose & make a print.

It exist for sure pure RAW converters ... which not let you make adjustments, instead take the shortcut to another format (jpg for instance) with some settings already predefined.

View attachment 94276

OK, it's a term I hadn't seen used that way, but it appears congruent with my guess: (a suite of) software for RAW image management.

I'll note that PSP, at least, permits some management of the incoming DNG, such as using the embedded lens-correction data (or not), vignette correction, and so on. But I don't know the full spectrum of the data within a raw image, nor the range of parameters a proper "developer" might provide.

In any case, PSP and PhotoDirector and Capture One clearly get something major wrong. ?

 

[slup]

...I'll note that PSP, at least, permits some management of the incoming DNG, such as using the embedded lens-correction data (or not), vignette correction, and so on. But I don't know the full spectrum of the data within a raw image, nor the range of parameters a proper "developer" might provide...

Just alone the first tab "Basic" in Lightroom is invaluable (open in the screen shot below) ... then you have further 8 more section tabs with even more possibilities to tweak a RAW. And the best, all edits is non destructive until you go on and convert out to another format.

Just look at the dynamic range available in your RAW picture ... It's possible to, from your in camera exposure go from +2,62 to -5,00 steps without blowing or burning out.
It's not rare that I make HDR pics from one RAW through generating several outputs with different exposures & then merge them. Highly recommend a proper RAW program for the full potential.

 

[Spoonicek]

Hi, Mavic Air RAW files contain lens and image correction data. If RAW developer SW is not able to proper handling with that data than you can see posted issue.

If you want I can post RAW, with and without correction data to compare. BTW there is way how to remove correction data.

 

[Skry]

I have identical issue on my Mavic Pro 1.

RAW file has a yellow circle in the centre. I can see it in Lightroom, Bridge and Camera RAW.
It is like vignetting, but apart of light it also affects the colour. Centre being yellow and bright, edges being darker and blue.

Surprisingly the JPG that is embedded inside the DGN (the preview) is uniform.
It appears as Drone is aware of the issue and is auto correcting this problem in JPGs but is not applying correction the RAWs.

I wonder if there is a way to selectively switch this correction so it is also applied to RAW, or extract the camera profile from Drone somehow and apply it in Lightroom, or Camera Raw. If there was it would be a good fix.
What is strange is that i have this dron for 2.5 years and only noticed this issue now.

At this stage i only have managed to find a sort of two patchy patches to treat the problem.

Option 1. Treating RAW file in Camera Raw (lossless)
- just like you i took a photo of a WHITE board in a cloudy day
- than manually created RADIAL FILTER with feather set to +100. Playing with the diameter of filter, exposure and white balance - i managed to get the image to look somewhat uniform. I have turned saturation and variance temporarily to +100 to better see how close i am getting to reach uniformity. But just as you noticed the effect is not a linear vignetting, and a radial filter with its very linear feather is unable to match it perfectly.
- i have saved this radial filter as preset and i apply it to all my RAW photos.


Option 2. Treating RAW file in Photoshop (sacrificial). Create a precise reverse filter for the camera glitch.
- Take a photo of whiteboard in cloudy day
- Open White Board photo in Photoshop
- Copy the background as a new layer and INVERT IT
- change the blending option to COLOR DODGE (you might need to duplicate this layer so you have two such layers stack one over another).
This should make the photo 100% white.
I then copy this COLOR DODGE layer (s) to other all the other photos to remove this yellow stain.
In this second way i managed to reach better results, unfortunately Photoshop doesn't allow me to save back to RAW format so it is a kind of one way irreversible process and i haven't managed to automate it for multiple files at once. So i only do it for handful of images.




note: I tried to attach PSD and DNG files with the and profiles as explained above, but files dont show up in the post.

I went to DJI store asked them about it earlier today, but they didnt have a clue what is the issue. The told me better leave it. Replacing the camera will be 100$ and no guarantee will be any difference.

Perhaps somebody finds a proper way of fixing this RAW file mis-calibration would be fantastic - if so please let us know. My hinge is that perhaps
- it can be done with drone settings directly
- or perhaps there is a way to extract camera profile from a properly working drone that could be than applied to RAW files in CameraRaw or Lightroom.

 

[Prismatic]

I have identical issue on my Mavic Pro 1.

RAW file has a yellow circle in the centre. I can see it in Lightroom, Bridge and Camera RAW.
It is like vignetting, but apart of light it also affects the colour. Centre being yellow and bright, edges being darker and blue.

Surprisingly the JPG that is embedded inside the DGN (the preview) is uniform.
It appears as Drone is aware of the issue and is auto correcting this problem in JPGs but is not applying correction the RAWs. ...

Bummer. That sounds even worse than my (former*) problem, which was confined to brightness levels alone and didn't involve a color shift.

Well, you've discovered the shortcomings of a radial filter; although it's never quite right, you can get away with it in certain kinds of images. I think the color mask technique is better; RAW/DNG is never the output format, so there's opportunity to apply the mask somewhere in the editing chain. Just where in the process, of course, could be tricky; too late and you induce new problems, too soon and you're roped into your output format before it's time for that.

I doubt that replacing the camera would work. The onboard JPG conversion clearly knows about the issue and corrects for it. That tells me that A) the problem is not unique to your hardware, and B) there clearly is a software solution to it. Unfortunately, both the problem and its solution are well-understood only by DJI.

* Did I say "former problem"? In a way. I discovered an affordable package that correctly handles the DNG/RAW files from my Mavic Air : Affinity Photo does RAW/DNG right, so that's my go-to for photos that deserve that much attention. I have no idea if it would perform the necessary magic on the colored hotspot you're encountering, but it might be worth a try.

 

[Skry]

Oh cool!

Happy to hear you found the solution. You gave me a bit of new hope. Have just followed your steps, got a trial of the Affinity.

Unfortunately - doesn't do the trick for me. I guess will need to stick to the the patchy filters for now.

this software is quite nice btw
it has this waveforms graph clearly showing its the yellow that is the issue not the blue. I will try to invert my filter to rather work in the center instead of perimeter. Actually if Lightroom had this graph would be easier to make radial filer as i could just target to flatten the yellow out on the graph.

 

[tallsean]

I've hit a roadblock trying to shoot RAW (actually DNG) photos with my Mavic Air : there is a distinct central bright zone, and I have not been able to tame it. (Note: I edit photos with Corel PaintShop Pro 2020. For those unfamiliar, PSP is a poor-man's Photoshop, with a similarly long history and feature list, but PSP is more economical.) Has anyone else seen this and found a solution?

The image below is an example of what I mean. It's a straight-down (gimbal angle: -90°) shot of nearly untracked snow on a level soccer (football) field under cloudy/hazy skies. It should be entirely uniform in brightness.

The DNG (our raw format) is on the left; the simultaneous JPG is on the right. On importing the DNG file, I used the anti-vignette tool to (more-or-less) bring the brightness of the corners up to the "average" tone. The problematic bright zone remains obvious. Note that the drone's onboard JPG conversion achieves the kind of uniformity you'd want, as shown on the right.

View attachment 94058

Note that the bright zone is not just unmanaged vignetting. A plot of the brightness corner-to-corner in the raw file would be low at each end (representing the vignetting) and high in the middle (representing the bright zone), with a relatively flat region between. Here's a simulated plot, to illustrate:

View attachment 94059

After correction, you want that to end up as a flat line. The anti-vignette tool can "pick up" the low ends of that curve, which is good. But if you push it too hard, to compensate for the too-bright central region, then the corners are over-compensated and become too bright. So you need to depress the brightness in the (rather large) central bright zone without affecting the perimeter of the photo (which anti-vignette can handle).

But even as a long-time and skilled user of PSP, I've found no way to obtain a uniform result. The obvious solution would be to select a circular area near the center and feather it--massively--to cover the rest of the image. This "graduated" selection would let me pull the brightness down to achieve uniformity of tone; I could then adjust the overall brightness as needed. But PSP can't feather to that extreme degree, and any feathered selection that doesn't cover the entirety of the image leaves a visible ring.

RAW format has so many advantages, but until I find a solution for this, it's of no use to me. I'd sure like to hear from anyone who has A) found the same issue in their raw (DNG) photos from the Mavic Air, and has B) found a software tool that can correct it.

I have this problem now with the Mavic air 2, can't figure out how to fix it. Its a central bright area with a magenta/pink color shift. Doing an LCC profile doesn't help either. Did you ever find a solution?

 

[Prismatic]

I have this problem now with the Mavic air 2, can't figure out how to fix it. Its a central bright area with a magenta/pink color shift. Doing an LCC profile doesn't help either. Did you ever find a solution?

Yes. I switched to using Affinity Photo. The problem was in the editor(s) I was using, not the actual image file.

Affinity Photo is licensed software, not a subscription like PhotoShop (which I have seen also processes DJI drones' DNG/RAW files correctly).

 

[Panair]

Hi all,
I can confirm that since I took the first images with the MA2 over a year ago, all DNG files shows a central brighter and, what is worst, even a differnt WB compare to the rest of the image.
It is really inceredible that this evident issue is not even considered and censored by DJI.
No firmware updates, until now, have solved the problem which IS a problem.
It is far evident that the issue is in the camera lens and/or sensor but until now no solution. As written by somone before, the JPG version of the same file is fine but is a JPG, for me totally useless.
Wonder if even the MP3 has the same issue as nobody ever talked abut it for the MA2.
Just a quick note, I use CaputerOne Pro version for developing all sort of RAW files and this "crap" image is the only one that I found having this bad camera output.

Let's hope DJI solve it through a firmware update SOON.

 

[tallsean]

I couldn't agree more; that's my exact situation too. DJI please solve the problem!

 

[Bigwol]

@Prismatic You're not imagining the bright zone in the centre of DNG RAW files - Here are my RAW shots from yesterday using a Mavic Mini 3 pro drone - shooting JPG and RAW - the JPEG files don't have this issue - the software is Darktable - Would Lightroom be able to process these without the bright zone??

Cheers

Dave

 

[tallsean33]

I've hit a roadblock trying to shoot RAW (actually DNG) photos with my Mavic Air : there is a distinct central bright zone, and I have not been able to tame it. (Note: I edit photos with Corel PaintShop Pro 2020. For those unfamiliar, PSP is a poor-man's Photoshop, with a similarly long history and feature list, but PSP is more economical.) Has anyone else seen this and found a solution?

The image below is an example of what I mean. It's a straight-down (gimbal angle: -90°) shot of nearly untracked snow on a level soccer (football) field under cloudy/hazy skies. It should be entirely uniform in brightness.

The DNG (our raw format) is on the left; the simultaneous JPG is on the right. On importing the DNG file, I used the anti-vignette tool to (more-or-less) bring the brightness of the corners up to the "average" tone. The problematic bright zone remains obvious. Note that the drone's onboard JPG conversion achieves the kind of uniformity you'd want, as shown on the right.

View attachment 94058

Note that the bright zone is not just unmanaged vignetting. A plot of the brightness corner-to-corner in the raw file would be low at each end (representing the vignetting) and high in the middle (representing the bright zone), with a relatively flat region between. Here's a simulated plot, to illustrate:

View attachment 94059

After correction, you want that to end up as a flat line. The anti-vignette tool can "pick up" the low ends of that curve, which is good. But if you push it too hard, to compensate for the too-bright central region, then the corners are over-compensated and become too bright. So you need to depress the brightness in the (rather large) central bright zone without affecting the perimeter of the photo (which anti-vignette can handle).

But even as a long-time and skilled user of PSP, I've found no way to obtain a uniform result. The obvious solution would be to select a circular area near the center and feather it--massively--to cover the rest of the image. This "graduated" selection would let me pull the brightness down to achieve uniformity of tone; I could then adjust the overall brightness as needed. But PSP can't feather to that extreme degree, and any feathered selection that doesn't cover the entirety of the image leaves a visible ring.

RAW format has so many advantages, but until I find a solution for this, it's of no use to me. I'd sure like to hear from anyone who has A) found the same issue in their raw (DNG) photos from the Mavic Air, and has B) found a software tool that can correct it.

I tried using Capture One to process images and had the same problem. The problem is solved when processing in Lightroom.

 

[Panair]

Well, pretty negatively impressed by the very bad photo output of DJI in raw format, issues still present even in the latest models.
Better NOT believe to all those payed reviews you can find on YT saying just great thinks of these drones.
C1 and or LR can't fix the iss in a constant way, becouse not only there is a bright area in the center, but this has also a wrong WB, applying correction layers can sole slightly the problem but you cannot paste the same correction settings to all images as WB keeps changing.

 

[tallsean33]

Well, pretty negatively impressed by the very bad photo output of DJI in raw format, issues still present even in the latest models.
Better NOT believe to all those payed reviews you can find on YT saying just great thinks of these drones.
C1 and or LR can't fix the iss in a constant way, becouse not only there is a bright area in the center, but this has also a wrong WB, applying correction layers can sole slightly the problem but you cannot paste the same correction settings to all images as WB keeps changing.

LR solves the problem for me; but wish I could use C1.

 

[Bigwol]

Lightroom does indeed allow the use of the full DNG file with no bright spot so I guess that's my answer - Thanks all

 

[edcMavicPilots]

With every RAW processor I have used there is the concept of profiles. The biggest selling ones have profiles for many different manufacturers and lenses.

I looked at them on Adobe Camera Raw which had the best profile, Luminar Neo with the 2nd best profile and with Capture One Pro whose profile was pretty bad.