Green Dot in My Video (the sun?)

[jelarv]

During the first flight of my Mavic 3, I had a green dot in the middle of the screen. Coincidentally as I turned away from the sun it went away (not likely a coincidence because I suspect it's the sun hitting the filter). I don't recall ever having this occur with my Mavic 2 Zoom, but I don't think it has a filter. Is this due to a filter on the lens when the Mavic 3 was shipped? I played around with camera filters back in high school which makes me think this could be the issue, but I don't want to try swapping out filters or removing it altogether if that's not the problem. Thanks!

 

[Deleted member 103366]

Have a look at Search results for query: green dot

 

[zeusfl]

I have the same problem. There are several reports of this in the DJI forums. Is a problem with the lens coating.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Yup I would say that is a sun flare. Pretty common on some cameras to be green.

 

[zeusfl]

check minute 1.21

I am right now with Jenny from DJI support to see what they are going to do.

 

[zeusfl]

They just ask me to send the drone for repair. They will inspect the problem and send me another unit.
I am not doing that yet until the resolve the problem with the batch.

 

[zeusfl]

They send me this link. DJI

 

[VenomXts]

Pretty sure this is just lense flair from the sun like in mine. However if it is defective I would like to know lol

 

[bkushner]

Mine does it. I doubt another drone would solve the problem. It seems to be bad on the M3...never had the issue on other drones...

 

[jelarv]

Thanks to all of the videographers and photographers who have explained the lens flares because it helps me appreciate what's going on.

I still don't understand why nothing like this happened in the hundreds of hours of video I created on my Mavic 2, including sunrises, sunsets and flying in the direction of the sun (see video below). Sometimes I would see a glare along one side of the frame but I could crop that out...something I can't do with a green dot in the center of the screen. Other times there would be a flare but it looked natural like in the video below (not a green dot).

As noted by someone else in one of the many posts on this issue, it seems like DJI (or Hasselblad) tried to upgrade the Mavic 3 lenses, which may be an improvement in many respects, but it appears to have created a new problem.

I didn't get the Cine package but can see it offers filters. Does my standard M3 have a filter? I searched the 64-page owner's manual for "filter" and nothing comes up but YouTubers discuss it like we should know what it is. If I don't have a filter, could adding one help? And if there is a filter attached, would removing it cause the green dot to disappear?

Sun shot on a MAVIC 2 (about a week ago)

 

[Cymruflyer]

It's a lens flare and the colour is most likely due to the coating that was used on the lens. All lenses suffer from lens flare to some extent, there is nothing that can be done about it, other than don't fly into the sun and film. The reason you had no green spot on your M2Pro is because that lens had a different coating. I'd be surprised if DJI could do anything about it, other than change the lens coating.

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

With any lens shooting into the sun, you're going to get lens flare. These are from my iPhone 13 Pro and you can clearly see the lens flare from shooting directly at the sun. If you have a wider FOV then it will rear it's head more often in the M3 as opposed to the M2Z. Sometimes you get lucky and the flare lines up with the sun and you it's not as noticeable.

 

[brett8883]

Thanks to all of the videographers and photographers who have explained the lens flares because it helps me appreciate what's going on.

I still don't understand why nothing like this happened in the hundreds of hours of video I created on my Mavic 2, including sunrises, sunsets and flying in the direction of the sun (see video below). Sometimes I would see a glare along one side of the frame but I could crop that out...something I can't do with a green dot in the center of the screen. Other times there would be a flare but it looked natural like in the video below (not a green dot).

As noted by someone else in one of the many posts on this issue, it seems like DJI (or Hasselblad) tried to upgrade the Mavic 3 lenses, which may be an improvement in many respects, but it appears to have created a new problem.

I didn't get the Cine package but can see it offers filters. Does my standard M3 have a filter? I searched the 64-page owner's manual for "filter" and nothing comes up but YouTubers discuss it like we should know what it is. If I don't have a filter, could adding one help? And if there is a filter attached, would removing it cause the green dot to disappear?

Sun shot on a MAVIC 2 (about a week ago)

The flare on the M2Pro is at the bottom of your frame and comes in frame from right to left but I get your point. It’s not as distracting as the M3. I would try it with different aperture settings as that will affect the flare. Smaller apertures (higher f numbers) tend to make the flare more interesting but more noticeable. Filters will only help in the sense that it will allow you to use a larger aperture (smaller f-number). I can tell you are using a small aperture (large f-number) because you are getting major sun star effect which is a different optical phenomenon when the lens is pointed at bright light sources with a small aperture.


Different lenses have different lens flare characteristics. The M2P lens is ~9mm lens that only has to cover a 1” sensor and the M3 is a 12mm lens that covers a MFT lens so they aren’t directly comparable.

When designing a lens you have to balance size and cost with minimum aperture size, sharpness, aberrations, distortion, vignetting, as well as flare and ghosting among other factors. The larger you can make the lens and more money you have to spend on the lens material and design the better you can make the other things. The M3 lens is remarkably tiny and inexpensive compared to other MFT lenses, the minimum aperture is fairly large, and I haven’t heard complaints about sharpness so something has to give.

 

[brett8883]

check minute 1.21

I am right now with Jenny from DJI support to see what they are going to do.

That’s not a defect, it’s a characteristic of lens. No repair or replacement will change that.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

We used to call them the Green Carrots on the Autel forum.

 

[zeusfl]

If you notice as well in my video at the minute 2:35 and 4:40 especially. It ruins the videos.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

If you notice as well in my video at the minute 2:35 and 4:40 especially. It ruins the videos.

To be honest if you didn't point it out I probably would not have noticed. Those are pretty small compared to this one.

 

[brett8883]

If you notice as well in my video at the minute 2:35 and 4:40 especially. It ruins the videos.

It doesn’t ruin the video. It’s a nice video btw. I think the lens flare looks nice.

What is kinda funny is in Hollywood they love lens flare and intentionally try to get it to happen, JJ Abrams
is notorious for having a lens flare fetish and it’s now a meme.


I was watching this thing on the making of John Wick and they couldn’t get the lens they were using to flare as much as they wanted so they started using filters that amplify the flare.

 

[brett8883]

 

[jelarv]

Wow...who would've thought we could have such a detailed discussion on lens flares (on a drone site)...thanks for everyone's input!

It's helpful to know what it is and that nothing's wrong with my drone. I can live with it (I'm not planning to send back my M3), but it would be better if, like most of the examples cited in this thread, the flare was the color of the light (the sun in my case) rather than one that's not anywhere in the shot. I'm going to try to remove the filter this weekend and see if that helps.

Thanks!