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Grainy photos

Joined
Jun 17, 2020
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Location
Boynton Beach, FL
Flew a job yesterday - checked to see I had all the photos I needed before leaving job. Just looked at the small pics and did not enlarge each one full screen. Had all the shots I wanted and left, but when I looked at each pic full screen all of them were grainy. Worked on bird and tried different settings until it got dark and all the pics I took came up grainy. Did different settings and even changed out lenses. IMU-Compass and gimbal all calibrated - Firmware up to date. Any ideas?
 

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Worked on bird and tried different settings until it got dark and all the pics I took came up grainy.
Did different settings and even changed out lenses.
IMU-Compass and gimbal all calibrated - Firmware up to date. Any ideas?
Your IMU, compass and firmware won't have any effect on your picture quality - none at all.
You changed out lenses ???
Since your drone has a fixed lens, I'm guessing you mean filters ?
If you are shooting stills with your drone, filters aren't going to do anything to improve your image quality .. but could be working against you.

It's not possible to properly help without seeing examples of the images to know exactly what the problems are.
The metadata in the original images will contain the camera settings.
Please post some actual images and explain what you meant about changing lenses.
 
Just added a random photo I took that shows best whats going on and yes, meant changed filters.
I was doing structural pictures for a contractor, but still don't want to give him grainy pics - not my quality of work and have never had this issue before. Going back today with a different drone that took quality pics last night.
 
Here are a couple more - seem to be able to notice it more with the white stucco bacground.
 

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Going back today with a different drone that took quality pics last night.
There's nothing wrong with the drone.
The M2 pro is capable of doing very good work.
The issue is the settings (and filters) .
Here are a couple more - seem to be able to notice it more with the white stucco bacground.
When I look at your settings for that first pic, this is what I see: 1/1600 sec; f/8; ISO 12800
The reason your image is grainy is that you were shooting with the ISO sensitivity cranked right up.
If you had it at ISO 100, you wouldn't have that problem.
The higher the ISO setting, the more grainy the image will be.

What are you trying to achieve with the filters?
If they are ND filters, all they do is to block most of the light and force you to increase ISO and/or use a slower shutter speed.
Neither of those is going to be helpful.
I'd suggest losing the ND filters and if you don't know what you are doing with camera settings, try setting the camera to A for Aperture Priority, ISO 100 and the aperture to F4 and let the camera's metering take care of things for you.
 
There's nothing wrong with the drone.
The M2 pro is capable of doing very good work.
The issue is the settings (and filters) .

When I look at your settings for that first pic, this is what I see: 1/1600 sec; f/8; ISO 12800
The reason your image is grainy is that you were shooting with the ISO sensitivity cranked right up.
If you had it at ISO 100, you wouldn't have that problem.
The higher the ISO setting, the more grainy the image will be.

What are you trying to achieve with the filters?
If they are ND filters, all they do is to block most of the light and force you to increase ISO and/or use a slower shutter speed.
Neither of those is going to be helpful.
I'd suggest losing the ND filters and if you don't know what you are doing with camera settings, try setting the camera to A for Aperture Priority, ISO 100 and the aperture to F4 and let the camera's metering take care of things for you.
Thank you so much for the input, yes I am still learning. I realized towards the end of the shoot that I had it set to automatic instead of manual - had been shooting video the day before - just left it there since I was in a hurry to finish and not aware of the quality yet. Live in South Florida where we have extreme sun and use the filters to decrease the reflection of the light/white color structures as it seems more structural imperfections show up better. 99% of work is for construction companies. Working full time for fire rescue 911 and trying to learn this for my retirement in a couple years just to supplement. With my hours and not being allowed to be online at work to take classes is hindering so far, but keeping at it. Again, thanks for the info.
 
I realized towards the end of the shoot that I had it set to automatic instead of manual.
There's nothing special or necessarily better about using manual settings.
If you aren't familiar with camera settings, it's easy to mess things up in manual.

I'd strongly recommend using aperture priority, select F4 or F5.6 and lock the ISO at 100.
That will have the camera's metering choose the right shutter speed for correct exposure for you.
Try it and see how that goes for you.

I Live in South Florida where we have extreme sun and use the filters to decrease the leflection of the light/white color structures as it seems more structural imperfections show up better.
ND filters won't help in bright sun, but proper camera settings will.
Your camera's shutter has a range from 8 seconds to 1/8000th of a second.
That's more than enough to deal with bright sun.

ND filters don't do anything to make your stills better at all.
But they do prevent most of the light getting to the sensor.
That's light you need to create a proper image.
The only reason to use ND filters in still drone photography is if you have a particular reason to want to force a very slow shutter speed.
 
As @Meta4 said your problem is your iso setting, the 'grain' is digital noise caused by the high iso. Your second image was shot at 1/3200sec @ f9, 12800iso.
I personally always shoot in manual, whether it's my Mavic 2 Pro or my DSLR's, so that I'm always in total control of what the camera is doing and the exposure.
 
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For my M2P it’s manual also. Try to keep f4.0-5.5 and iso 100-200.
I find the lens is at it's sharpest between f5 and f8. I try to stick to 100iso if I can. I print large panoramic photos so I'm looking for the best quality I can get.
 
too_much_grain.jpg

you will have to probably reshoot. If you saved the raw files, you can try to denoise. If you don't have an application to do that, and have a DNG, send a upload link and I can see how much it can be saved.
There are plenty of short youtube videos that will teach you by example how to manage ISO, shutter speed and aperture. You don't have to buy a book.
 
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