Hello all. I am new to flying a drone. I have a private pilot license and also real estate license. I purchased a Mavic 2 Pro for my real estate business. I have taken several photos and use Lightroom as editing software. I use ONLY MF. I am looking to see how to get my photos crisp and sharp. Just seems as though something is not right. Any suggestions would greatly be appreciated.
Crisper, Sharper Photos?????
- Thread starter Astar
- Start date
mrjohnc1
Well-Known Member
Ok, first thing I noticed was that you're shooting in RAW.
Are you doing any post work to enhance that?
Yes, I am editing with Adobe Lightroom and watched video that said use RAW format then it uploads as jpeg.
I don't know much about lightroom. But with raw, it needs to be processed to bring out detail.
Why not shoot something with jpg and see how it looks... rule out any lens issues.
Will try that and see. I just shot today with a ND10K Filter and thought that would help. Might have but still not sharp.
What's an ND10k?
I use ND filters... an 8, 16, 32 and 64.
I would suggest taking your filter off, then take a JPG. Then take a raw.
Take everything right back to basics and let's trouble shoot this!
1/25 sec shutter speed is too slow. Try shooting without ND filters. Sharpest aperture will probably be f4. Avoid f8 and f11 as diffraction will soften the images.
If you're doing photos only don't use any ND filters, especially if your goal is to shoot houses and buildings. They're generally used to slow down fixed aperture cameras (MA2 for example) to get that cinematic blur in videos or silky smooth flowing movement by forcing longer shutter speeds.
Faster shutter speeds (greater than 1/250) will reduce blur by limiting the amount of time the shutter is open, and apertures (f-stop) greater than 4 will make sure the depth of focus is wide enough to capture most of the house you're shooting (4 may have some bokeh for the background and foreground). Also, there's a difference between focused and sharp images. Focused means that the image is taken with as much detail and clarity as possible, whereas sharp means that the difference between contrasting colors and edges are explicitly different and defined from one another.
JPEG photos have some post processing applied onboard. Usually sharpening and saturation so when you compare JPEG to unedited RAW, often the RAWs will look flat and colorless, soft, and lacking contrast. Adobe Lightroom is the industry standard for editing photos so it should meet all your needs here. In Lightroom play with settings including contrast, texture, clarity, and the sharpening features (amount, detail, radius, masking) until you get the type of image you want. Because you're shooting in RAW you will always have to do some post process and sharpening is one of the features. Once you get a system down, it'll be easy to just apply your workflow to the future images.
Faster shutter speeds (greater than 1/250) will reduce blur by limiting the amount of time the shutter is open, and apertures (f-stop) greater than 4 will make sure the depth of focus is wide enough to capture most of the house you're shooting (4 may have some bokeh for the background and foreground). Also, there's a difference between focused and sharp images. Focused means that the image is taken with as much detail and clarity as possible, whereas sharp means that the difference between contrasting colors and edges are explicitly different and defined from one another.
JPEG photos have some post processing applied onboard. Usually sharpening and saturation so when you compare JPEG to unedited RAW, often the RAWs will look flat and colorless, soft, and lacking contrast. Adobe Lightroom is the industry standard for editing photos so it should meet all your needs here. In Lightroom play with settings including contrast, texture, clarity, and the sharpening features (amount, detail, radius, masking) until you get the type of image you want. Because you're shooting in RAW you will always have to do some post process and sharpening is one of the features. Once you get a system down, it'll be easy to just apply your workflow to the future images.
1: Your photos are already sharp - look at the brickwork
2: Dump the ND filters as they are only cutting the light that gets to the sensor, forcing your camera to use a slower shutter speed without doing anything at all to make your images any better.
3: Shoot at a higher resolution. Those examples are only 2048 pixels wide.
4: Despite what you might read, jpg will give you all the quality you need for real estate work and contrary to popular opinion, you can edit it quite well.
lannes
Well-Known Member
These photos look super sharp on my 4k monitor, what display are you viewing them on ?
He’s right about that unless you’re some kind of high-end photographer doing art photos JPEG’s are just fine.
If you’re going to shoot raw you need to get a little bit of training about Lightroom.
Use the histogram and picture controls to set the black and white points to black and white respectively. Your image lacks some contrast. Adjust saturation or vibrancy to increase punch. Try using Lightroom’s auto tone to add snap. As mentioned by others 1/25 sec exposure is way too slow if the drone is moving at all.
Your lighting is also very flat. Shoot in sunlight where you get shadows to model the objects. I don’t see any obvious image softness other than the issues mentioned. It looks more like a lack of contrast and saturation, all of which are characteristics of raw images not processed to bring out their potential.
Your lighting is also very flat. Shoot in sunlight where you get shadows to model the objects. I don’t see any obvious image softness other than the issues mentioned. It looks more like a lack of contrast and saturation, all of which are characteristics of raw images not processed to bring out their potential.
To each his or her own for sure. And the JPEG versus RAW debate is endless. For me, the best feature of RAW is the ability to correct for under or over exposure by about two stops on all or just part of an image. Correcting the exposure on just part of an image can be very useful in sunset shots for example.
RAw images just have just a lot more data in them than JPEG. So, for example, changing the exposure actually changes the exposure, rather than simply adding brightness.
On the other hand, if one shoots five bracketed photos in JPEG, one of those five images will likely have an acceptable exposure.
I suppose a good solution is to capture each image in RAW and JPEG, which I’m pretty sure is an option on all DJI drones.
RAw images just have just a lot more data in them than JPEG. So, for example, changing the exposure actually changes the exposure, rather than simply adding brightness.
On the other hand, if one shoots five bracketed photos in JPEG, one of those five images will likely have an acceptable exposure.
I suppose a good solution is to capture each image in RAW and JPEG, which I’m pretty sure is an option on all DJI drones.
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