Help! Maiden flight and my still images look awful...

[AyeYo]

Looking back I shouldn't have read so many threads surrounding problems with the MP while I waited for my mine to arrive. The first thing I did was keep an eye out for those issues and once I saw the images from today, I immediately thought back to the camera quality issues that have plagued a lot of owners. This is also the same reason why I no longer do the dead pixel test on any of my new phones & devices. When you are out looking for a flaw or a problem, you will almost certainly find one...

My experience to a T.

Now that I've learned to work around or with the shortcomings, I love this thing. Pictures shot in RAW are great for social media, which is exactly the type of use the Mavic gets. It goes in my backpack to shoot outdoor adventures. If I'm getting paid to shoot, portability probably doesn't matter and I can bring out the P4P.

 

[arizwildcat520]

My experience to a T.

Now that I've learned to work around or with the shortcomings, I love this thing. Pictures shot in RAW are great for social media, which is exactly the type of use the Mavic gets. It goes in my backpack to shoot outdoor adventures. If I'm getting paid to shoot, portability probably doesn't matter and I can bring out the P4P.

Absolutely, couldn't agree more!


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[arizwildcat520]

I just want to give AyeYo and Hidaven another shout out because taking stills in jpeg was totally causing the compression issue I was seeing in my first set of shots. We had some major storms that moved into LA earlier this week so my MP had to stay grounded until yesterday. Based on the prior feedback, I adjusted the picture format to RAW and dialed in a couple other settings...All I can say is WOW!

I am really blown by the footage I captured yesterday and wanted to share a couple shots with everyone. Cheers and Happy Friday!

Pacific Coast Highway


Distance shot of Santa Monica Pier


Santa Monica Pier


405 / Santa Monica Blvd.

 

[Daskid]

There you go! That's more like it! Nice pics!

 

[pitchmagic]

Nice! Would you like to share your settings?

 

[Achilles]

I shoot HDR and raw with the mavic and do slight post correcting. If you want anything that looks better than an iPhone picture, you gotta mess with the raw file. That said, it's a 12mp camera and you're shooting at objects 500+feet away.....how much do you expect?


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[Sean]

I just want to give AyeYo and Hidaven another shout out because taking stills in jpeg was totally causing the compression issue I was seeing in my first set of shots. We had some major storms that moved into LA earlier this week so my MP had to stay grounded until yesterday. Based on the prior feedback, I adjusted the picture format to RAW and dialed in a couple other settings...All I can say is WOW!

I am really blown by the footage I captured yesterday and wanted to share a couple shots with everyone. Cheers and Happy Friday!

Pacific Coast Highway
View attachment 4637

Distance shot of Santa Monica Pier
View attachment 4638

Santa Monica Pier
View attachment 4639

405 / Santa Monica Blvd.
View attachment 4640

Can I ask what your picture settings are for those pics? They look great and I'm still trying to adjust mine to get it to look this good…


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[integlikewhoa]

Can I ask what your picture settings are for those pics? They look great and I'm still trying to adjust mine to get it to look this good…


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Can I ask what your picture settings are for those pics? They look great and I'm still trying to adjust mine to get it to look this good…


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I have the same question. The night shot looks awesome too.

 

[arizwildcat520]

Nice! Would you like to share your settings?

Can I ask what your picture settings are for those pics? They look great and I'm still trying to adjust mine to get it to look this good…


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I have the same question. The night shot looks awesome too.

Thanks everyone, I'm really excited with how they turned out!

For the day shots, I set the camera up to shoot in 16:9 RAW and custom style of +1 Sharpness, 0 Contrast, and 0 Saturation. I used an iPhone application called Camera + to import each picture and slightly adjusted the clarity of the photo.

For the night shot, I used manual settings and set the ISO at 100 while experimenting with several different shutter speeds. The picture I posted was with 4 second shutter but I found the sweet spot between 3 - 6 seconds. I suggest getting familiar with the manual settings and experimenting with different values.

I'm not a big post guy and would rather take a great shot up front and move on. That's why I chose the Mavic, just like to keep things simple and can launch it on a moments notice to capture a spectacular sunset or whatever else catches my eye.

Looking forward to sharing more with everyone, cheers!

 

[stratos]

Zoom 300 % and you will see what hes talking about. He is just trolling


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[arizwildcat520]

Zoom 300 % and you will see what hes talking about. He is just trolling


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Huh, who is trolling?


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[Lees23]

Zoom 300 % and you will see what hes talking about. He is just trolling


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Based on his last several posts I would say that he is not trolling, probably has a much keener eye for those types of things than the average person.

 

[Lees23]

Will someone discuss raw vs jpeg? Is post processing necessary? How do the pics look different? To share/open raw images do they have to be converted to jpeg format?

Thanks!

 

[AyeYo]

Will someone discuss raw vs jpeg? Is post processing necessary? How do the pics look different? To share/open raw images do they have to be converted to jpeg format?

Thanks!

RAW is not a file format, it's literally raw data from the camera. As such, the files are much bigger than jpegs. They also have more data/detail than jpegs. In the case of the Mavic, the compression on the jpegs is flawed. Not sure whether DJI knows or cares, but shooting is RAW is an absolute necessity because the jpeg quality is horrific. Whether it requires post-process is personal preference, but it will at least need to be converted to a commonly used file type.

 

[Lees23]

RAW is not a file format, it's literally raw data from the camera. As such, the files are much bigger than jpegs. They also have more data/detail than jpegs. In the case of the Mavic, the compression on the jpegs is flawed. Not sure whether DJI knows or cares, but shooting is RAW is an absolute necessity because the jpeg quality is horrific. Whether it requires post-process is personal preference, but it will at least need to be converted to a commonly used file type.

AyeYo,
Thank you. Is there an easy way to convert then to a jpeg. Is it as simple as changing the file name to .jpeg?

Also what does shooting in Raw + jpeg do for you? I am not sure if the Mavic does this but I have a camera that does. Do you get 2 images? One that is compressed and a Raw image?

 

[AyeYo]

I'm fairly new to shooting RAW, so I'm not sure what's available as far as converters. I do post-process of the RAW in Lightroom and simply export as jpg when I'm done. You cannot simply change the file name.

RAW + jpeg gives both files. Maybe so you can review a full size shot before deciding if you want to edit the RAW? I'm not sure what the point of that mode is. Would be good for side-by-side quality comparison though.

 

[peace86]

I just got my MP yesterday and took it out for a maiden flight this morning. Made sure that all firmware is up to date on MP/RC and just flew it around my neighborhood to get acquainted with the controls. I had a P3P before so I'm already use to the DJI eco-system and various settings / controls, however the still pictures I took today look TERRIBLE!

I'm wondering if I have a defective camera as some have said before in previous threads or if I am missing something critical with the camera settings. I left everything on auto just as it came from the factory as a baseline with the exception of the video transmitting quality which I raised to 1080P using my iPhone 7 Plus. I tried focusing the camera several different times and each picture looks like I ran it through a water color processing filter. The camera also seems to have a difficult time focusing and maintaining focus throughout my flight today. I found myself focusing each time I wanted to take a picture and they look bad.

I did a lot of reading on this forum before I got my Mavic and understand that this is a known issue, however I wanted to open it up to you all and get your thoughts. Am I missing some crucial settings that need to be adjusted, or did I get a busted camera. I don't want to be screen grabbing pictures from video and I'm hoping it's a user related issue and not system related because I am going to be bummed out having to work with DJI and getting a replacement if its the latter .

I attached a couple different images for reference. If it helps, in every image I was focusing on the center of the picture. Did I set my expectations too high or do these look normal to everyone? Thanks!

View attachment 4401
View attachment 4402 View attachment 4403

I definitely see what you're talking about. If you zoom in at 100%, all the trees look like mush and the things far away look like water painting. Mine did the same thing and there are a lotta other users experiencing the same. Mine actually looks a lot worse than yours. All the trees have complete loss of details even though my focus is spot on. I just got my RMA so I'm gonna send it in for repair.