Does Mavic Shoot Video or Watercolor Paintings? Don’t settle. Get Involved!

sosmaverick · Jan 26, 2017

Ok so I've never really questioned the mavic, but as this is my first drone and I'm only starting out with editing, I'm curious as to whether I've been sold a dud drone or the mavic footage is on point. I'm managing to get some decent stills, I always shoot in raw (histogram isn't as accurate as I'd like) and then always toning, hue's etc etc in post. I'm fairly familiar with taking stills and what makes a good photo and my editing style with stills has reached a decent level. However for those of you who wish to compare.. I've uploaded the stills in raw, and there untouched. I must admit, the images do come out a lot clearer on my MacBooks Retina display, but that's beside the point. If you guys @Strafe1 @jasonspafford and others could review the images and tell me what you think. I've also uploaded a vid and from what I can tell, it looks fairly good, its definitely a little sharp but it was taken as is out of the box. 4K/30, everything else default.

Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

Spy_Corfu · Jan 26, 2017

last video i took with the mavic was terrible with everything out of focus blurred and like painting colours so i contacted dji live suport and they told me to reset camera settings.
Once i fly and try it out will let you know if i get any results!

SteveCA · Jan 26, 2017

Ive had great results and very poor results with my Mavic. Grass seems to come up mushy most of the time. The other thing I have noticed is whenever I focus on an object that is 60 to 100 feet away everything behind it is mush. I've gotten much better results focusing on something really far away. Here's a video where I focused on an object 100 feet away and everything behind it is mush.

Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

SteveCA · Jan 26, 2017

I have also seen strange focus issues in low light where the left side of the screen was completely out of focus while the center and right was in sharp focus even though everything was at the same distance.

Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

Strafe1 · Jan 26, 2017

sosmaverick said:
Ok so I've never really questioned the mavic, but as this is my first drone and I'm only starting out with editing, I'm curious as to whether I've been sold a dud drone or the mavic footage is on point. I'm managing to get some decent stills, I always shoot in raw (histogram isn't as accurate as I'd like) and then always toning, hue's etc etc in post. I'm fairly familiar with taking stills and what makes a good photo and my editing style with stills has reached a decent level. However for those of you who wish to compare.. I've uploaded the stills in raw, and there untouched. I must admit, the images do come out a lot clearer on my MacBooks Retina display, but that's beside the point. If you guys @Strafe1 @jasonspafford and others could review the images and tell me what you think. I've also uploaded a vid and from what I can tell, it looks fairly good, its definitely a little sharp but it was taken as is out of the box. 4K/30, everything else default.

Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

Where can we see your posts?

Strafe1 · Jan 26, 2017

SteveCA said:
Ive had great results and very poor results with my Mavic. Grass seems to come up mushy most of the time. The other thing I have noticed is whenever I focus on an object that is 60 to 100 feet away everything behind it is mush. I've gotten much better results focusing on something really far away. Here's a video where I focused on an object 100 feet away and everything behind it is mush.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

I like your footage. You have a good eye for what to shoot. There are a few slightly out of focus spots, and I've noticed that with my videos as well. The continuous AF is not easy to deal with sometimes. Keep up the good work!

Res89 · Jan 26, 2017

greginfinity said:
For those that asked, this guy beat me to it doing a great job of explaining what the higher frame rates look like (at 4:22 he starts talking about them).

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

After watching this video I am further convinced my Mavic has an issue. I see no shimmering in his clips at 4k@30, he mentions aliasing and moire being noticeable at framerates above 30 and demonstrates that quite well, I seem to start seeing that issue at 30fps when shooting in 4k though. Probably enough to convince me to contact DJI and attempt to get the issue fixed, thanks for posting that vid.

Dropbox - DJI_0016.MP4

^ This is the video of mine I'm comparing it to, 4K@30 (-1, -1, -1) Cinelike. Very easy to see moire on the roof and the grass shimmering especially while the drone is moving.

SteveCA · Jan 26, 2017

Strafe1 said:
I like your footage. You have a good eye for what to shoot. There are a few slightly out of focus spots, and I've noticed that with my videos as well. The continuous AF is not easy to deal with sometimes. Keep up the good work!

These were shot with tap focus not continuous auto focus. Im going to use manual focus later today and see what happens.

Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

Noah Pierce · Jan 26, 2017

Im not very experienced nor do I have an eye for the flaws you all are talking about. But do you see any of the water color stuff in this photo taken by my mavic?

Strafe1 · Jan 26, 2017

Res89 said:
After watching this video I am further convinced my Mavic has an issue. I see no shimmering in his clips at 4k@30, he mentions aliasing and moire being noticeable at framerates above 30 and demonstrates that quite well, I seem to start seeing that issue at 30fps when shooting in 4k though. Probably enough to convince me to contact DJI and attempt to get the issue fixed, thanks for posting that vid.

Dropbox - DJI_0016.MP4

^ This is the video of mine I'm comparing it to, 4K@30 (-1, -1, -1) Cinelike. Very easy to see moire on the roof and the grass shimmering especially while the drone is moving.

Your footage isn't that much different than the one you're referencing IMO. I see a little more motion blur when yawing the Mavic, hardly any when rising or traveling forward. But the thin branches and the tree bark look crisp and well resolved. At only 30fps, some moire of the roof can be expected I think. Do you know what the shutter speed was? Also, your lighting conditions are not optimal. Do you have any other footage? Brown, matted winter grass is not good for a test! Going out to fly now and see if I can get something to post.

John Lo · Jan 26, 2017

Res89 said:
After watching this video I am further convinced my Mavic has an issue. I see no shimmering in his clips at 4k@30, he mentions aliasing and moire being noticeable at framerates above 30 and demonstrates that quite well, I seem to start seeing that issue at 30fps when shooting in 4k though. Probably enough to convince me to contact DJI and attempt to get the issue fixed, thanks for posting that vid.

Dropbox - DJI_0016.MP4

^ This is the video of mine I'm comparing it to, 4K@30 (-1, -1, -1) Cinelike. Very easy to see moire on the roof and the grass shimmering especially while the drone is moving.

Moire would come out in a specific pattern. No matter what frame rate. I know the mavic frame rate issue.
Grass shimmering always happen on low quality low bit rate video. 60mbps is not enough for 4K video. That is why p4p and inspire 2 comes with 100mbps video encoding.

sosmaverick · Jan 26, 2017

sosmaverick said:
Ok so I've never really questioned the mavic, but as this is my first drone and I'm only starting out with editing, I'm curious as to whether I've been sold a dud drone or the mavic footage is on point. I'm managing to get some decent stills, I always shoot in raw (histogram isn't as accurate as I'd like) and then always toning, hue's etc etc in post. I'm fairly familiar with taking stills and what makes a good photo and my editing style with stills has reached a decent level. However for those of you who wish to compare.. I've uploaded the stills in raw, and there untouched. I must admit, the images do come out a lot clearer on my MacBooks Retina display, but that's beside the point. If you guys @Strafe1 @jasonspafford and others could review the images and tell me what you think. I've also uploaded a vid and from what I can tell, it looks fairly good, its definitely a little sharp but it was taken as is out of the box. 4K/30, everything else default.

Ooops - I forgot the link. Here's all the photos and footage. Let me know what you guys think? The footage and photos definitely look better after you've downloaded them, when I play them through Dropbox they're pretty poor. Would love to know if you lot think I'm having the same issues?

Dropbox - Mavic Test

Strafe1 · Jan 26, 2017

Just back in from flying. Did a quick post edit. I think the autofocus was messing with me on the first half of the vid. I hope everyone can open .mov files. If the vid is not smooth and clear, your monitor is not showing it correctly.
Looks OK, but not for professional use.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85571036/vids/CookPark.mov

Strafe1 · Jan 26, 2017

I like it, even though the aliasing is present. Could not be used for pro use, but I think its great for personal use. If you look for problems, they will be found. If you follow the eye of the camera and the photographers intended message, it is beautiful. You did a nice job of fixing as well. The RAW file I saw looked very serviceable.

Res89 · Jan 26, 2017

John Lo said:
Moire would come out in a specific pattern. No matter what frame rate. I know the mavic frame rate issue.
Grass shimmering always happen on low quality low bit rate video. 60mbps is not enough for 4K video. That is why p4p and inspire 2 comes with 100mbps video encoding.

If I up the bitrate when I export the video in post will this help to correct the issue? Or is 2.7k really ideal since it uses 45mbps?

IslandSpark · Jan 27, 2017

Res89 said:
After watching this video I am further convinced my Mavic has an issue. I see no shimmering in his clips at 4k@30, he mentions aliasing and moire being noticeable at framerates above 30 and demonstrates that quite well, I seem to start seeing that issue at 30fps when shooting in 4k though. Probably enough to convince me to contact DJI and attempt to get the issue fixed, thanks for posting that vid.

Dropbox - DJI_0016.MP4

^ This is the video of mine I'm comparing it to, 4K@30 (-1, -1, -1) Cinelike. Very easy to see moire on the roof and the grass shimmering especially while the drone is moving.

do you use ND filters?

IslandSpark · Jan 27, 2017

Res89 said:
If I up the bitrate when I export the video in post will this help to correct the issue? Or is 2.7k really ideal since it uses 45mbps?

upping the bitrate wont help... You started with a 45mbps file it wont turn into a 60mbps file...

Shawn3D · Jan 27, 2017

Guys I have had a similar experience and found the effect varied each time the firmware was updated. Basically the sharpness parameter is different with each Mavic. My sharpness is set to +1 and solved the issue on the water paint effect. This does however increase a bit of grain

Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots