Focus & Gimbal Fail

[Citizen Flier]

I was flying over steep cliffs today with some mist/fog. My stills and video are soft -appears as if auto focus failed. I don't recall seeing a manual Focus Setting, but I could have missed it. Thinking perhaps I inadvertently toggled it? The fog was mostly above my flight path, but perhaps I had accumulated, moisture on the lens cover? I neglected to check that post flight, as we had to rush to get back from a remote area -as darkness set in. Perhaps the fog prevented the lens from focussing due to lack of contrast?. I did half shutter presses to focus on specific spots, but those shots were just as soft as the others. All stills at F2.8, ISO100, Shutter 120th. I don't usually shoot any lens wide open, perhaps F4 would have been sharper.

EDIT: Upon further review, just one of the videos appears sharp. It was taken closer to the top off the crags. So perhaps having less moisture particulate allowed for better focus. But some of the stills do not seem obscured by fog (which remained mostly above my flight path).

Also, the gimbal got stuck in the extreme downward position after a few minutes. Could not control gimbal to move upwards. I just tested at home, and normal movement is restored. I suspect either it somehow got stuck in the downward position, or perhaps moisture became a factor.

We were at remote crags which required a rugged hike to reach. Conditions were foggier than I had hoped, but extremely beautiful, and the images looked terrific on the Smart Controller screen. To capture dusk light, we had to hike out the dark, on steep rocky terrain. A letdown to put in the effort for failed images. There's a photo comp that I had hoped to enter which closes in 3 days. Probably won't have time to return in time. Very difficult to get poor photos in this magnificent setting, but I managed to achieve that. C'est la vie!

Any suggestions on the focus & stuck gimbal issues? (I typically suspect pilot error before other factors) Thanks.

 

[MaxHam]

Any suggestions on the focus & stuck gimbal issues? (I typically suspect pilot error before other factors) Thanks.

I would never use Autofocus in mid-flight.
AF doesn't make sense on an airborne 28mm lens. You have focus from like 6ft to infinity!

My procedure is this:
Once I'm airborne, while being in Autofocus, I tap the screen at some object further away so the focus is being set on this.
Then I switch to Manual focus in order to lock this setting. And I never touch the Manual focus slider.

The fog can very well be a reason for your focus problem. Autofocus requires contrast.
The gimbal problem I wouldn't know. Hopefully it was only the humidity causing this.
Did you try to fix it whitch the camera dial or with the gimbal up/down function assigned to one of the C buttons?

 

[DanMan32]

There's Auto Focus which lets you focus at the touch of a button/screen.
There's manual focus where you have to use the slider.
Then there's continuous auto focus (AFC) that continuously (periodically) updates the focus.

There's also a setting to display focus by object edge contrast in red in various intensity.

 

[Citizen Flier]

Thanks. I often shoot manual focus w DSLR. Assumed auto was safe with Mavic optics & that most shots are long distance/infinity focus. I never even noticed the manual option. If shooting manual can you use touch screen on Smart Controller to set focus point, or is that for Auto Focus only? I try to have a person in my still shots for scale, and that's where I typically took screen focus.

 

[Paul2660]

Touch to focus only works with camera in AF or AFC mode.

I feel that true MF is impossible with any DJI drone as you can’t zoom into 100 percent view as can be done with all DSLRs. Plus the DJI app does not respect the iPad screen resolution so the image on iPad always look soft. It’s slight better on CrystalSky and IMO the best on SC screen. But still no zoom is allowed.

I work the same way as previous poster mentioned. Once airborne use the tap to focus to hit an object in the distance, get confirmation, then drop to MF and stay there.

The tap to focus is hit and miss for full focus across the frame as sometimes it hits perfectly and others it seems to favor one side or the other. This is with the tap in the center of the screen.

You can also turn on focus peaking which again without a 100 percent view is limited but it will at least let you know you have generally good focus.

It’s quite clear to me that DJI has very limited concern towards still photography needs and primarily is concerned about video production.

Lack of expanded bracketing for exposure and no 100 percent view of live view are two examples.

Paul C

 

[Citizen Flier]

Thanks for the comments. Seems like using AF and taking time to select the focus point (for stills) should still be the most effective option. Refocus as often as possible. Where I was flying recently has steep cliffs over 100' tall. So that made it important to refocus on the subject -my GF at the top of the cliff band. But even though I did touch focus on her, NONE of the stills were sharp. So I suspect it may have been fog and/or moisture on lens cover.

Still can't figure out how the gimbal got stuck, as it works now. Would the flight log shed light on that?

 

[MaxHam]

Thanks for the comments. Seems like using AF and taking time to select the focus point (for stills) should still be the most effective option. Refocus as often as possible. Where I was flying recently has steep cliffs over 100' tall. So that made it important to refocus on the subject -my GF at the top of the cliff band. But even though I did touch focus on her, NONE of the stills were sharp. So I suspect it may have been fog and/or moisture on lens cover.

Still can't figure out how the gimbal got stuck, as it works now. Would the flight log shed light on that?

The flight record can show abnormal gimbal behavior.
E.g. drones falling down to the ground sometimes get a 'gimbal overload' message or similar.
But these messages also pop up on the screen. If you didn't see any message, I doubt something will be in the flight record.