Dashed Box on screen in DJI Fly?

[Scottalmas]

During a recent flight, I tapped on the bottom of my screen while in camera (not video) mode and a dashed lined rectangular box came up . I could not figure out what it was for and cannot find anything in the manual or in this Forum about it. Does anyone know what this is?

 

[sirbadger]

Gridlines or overexposure warning?

 

[grahamjohnson10]

I had this box appear as well and would like to know what it is.

 

[Scottalmas]

It looks like this

 

[grahamjohnson10]

It looks like this

Yes that's what I saw.

 

[old man mavic]

off the top of my head i would say that it is showing you a preview of what the photo will contain ,if you do it again touch the screen inside the box and keep your finger on the screen and see if you can move the box around the screen

 

[Scottalmas]

UDPATE: I finally remembered to contract DJI about this. I sent them that screen capture and a screen recording from my iphone showing it happening. They checked with engineers and was informed that it means that the camera is focusing.

 

[sirbadger]

UDPATE: I finally remembered to contract DJI about this. I sent them that screen capture and a screen recording from my iphone showing it happening. They checked with engineers and was informed that it means that the camera is focusing.

Thanks for the update, good to know.

 

[nn666]

You can click on the screen to focus subjects. Try it next time you fly. Click on something and the light adjusts for it. Shows a marquee around the subject like that.

 

[DanMan32]

Ah yes. May be full picture focus versus spot focus. I would have thought that to be average exposure vs spot exposure though.

 

[mranest]

Ah yes. May be full picture focus versus spot focus. I would have thought that to be average exposure vs spot exposure though.

So tapping within the box sets spot focus/exposure, while tapping outside restores average metering?

 

[Ivan_LCF_666]

So tapping within the box sets spot focus/exposure, while tapping outside restores average metering?

yes exactly correct this is, I've tried and it does focus and set the exposure for the whole pic if you click outside the pic, else clicking inside the pic will focus where you clicked and set exposure for that place also.

sweet

 

[TDZHDTV]

Good to know ?

 

[Mikey's]

Great! Thanks

 

[scro]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the MM have fixed focus? So it would just be exposure that is being set to spot/average by tapping inside/outside the box respectively.

 

[Mikey's]

According to MM manual:
"The aperture of the camera is f/2.8 and can focus from 1m to infinity."

 

[scro]

@Mikey's I spotted that too but it doesn't really confirm whether the focus is fixed or variable, as a fixed focus camera's depth-of-field could potentially cover that range.

This article implies the focus is fixed:

The Mavic Mini is cheaper, smaller and lighter than the Spark

DJI continues its world domination for consumer drones: the Mavic Mini offers a lot in a sub-250g package for a very reasonable price.

www.techadvisor.co.uk

As does this thread on the DJI forum:

DJI Mavic Mini Released - The Everyday Flycam

DJI Mavic Mini Released - The Everyday Flycam

forum.dji.com

 

[Mikey's]

@scro Yes, that's right. Just wanted to quote the information from the MM quide. It seems to have fix focus cam so focusing is really out of scope.

 

[mranest]

So I checked out the exposure setting taps, and it looks like we were off in our initial conclusion. If you manually set an exposure spot metering point tapping outside the grid box does not cancel it. You need to press the x on the top left corner of the spot exposure circle to cancel it.

Based on that it looks like the grid box is actually the place within the frame that one can manually set exposure. Clicking outside this box has not effect, and the grid box is flashing to show the limits of spot metering.

Good catch btw on the fixed lens. Wording of the manual led me to believe that the lens was actually focusing, whereas in reality it's probably fixed to the hyperfocal distance.

 

[DanMan32]

It could have been variable focus that's always automatic, but that would be prone to focus errors and we would hear reports of it. So it would have to be fixed focus. And to have effective fixed focus with decent depth of field, aperture would have to be relatively small.