How to adjust the perfect settings on Mavic Pro to print large frames

[Bruno Montini]

Hello guys,

I am having a hard time trying to figure all the good settings to take photos on DJI MAVIC PRO and have them on high quality resolution for printing.

I am currently shooting in Raw, 4:3, and AEB (3 shots taken). Some of my images on file I am able to print in canvas as large as 16x24, but others (majority) I am not able to get good quality passed by 5x7 and I don't know why.

If you guys know something about it and wanted to share, it is highly appreciated.

 

[brett8883]

Hello guys,

I am having a hard time trying to figure all the good settings to take photos on DJI MAVIC PRO and have them on high quality resolution for printing.

I am currently shooting in Raw, 4:3, and AEB (3 shots taken). Some of my images on file I am able to print in canvas as large as 16x24, but others (majority) I am not able to get good quality passed by 5x7 and I don't know why.

If you guys know something about it and wanted to share, it is highly appreciated.

What issues are you running into? Are they just not sharp or look pixelated? What are you using to process the raws?

Are you using the AEB to make HDRs?

Can you post some images of the ones not turning out? There’s no reason in the world you shouldn’t be able to print 5x7 and much larger.

I think the only camera settings that would really matter are sharpness that I like to have at 0 and to make sure you have proper focus and have exposure set correctly

 

[Bruno Montini]

Yeah sure. Well actually I am uploading these pictures at Darkroom.com ( Darkroom ) , which I am able to sell the frames. So they are the ones who decide, based on the quality and size of the pictures, what size are they going to be available for prints.

For example (Beach Shots) these are ones that I can only print at 5x7. They are shot in raw file and their dimension are 920x720. That's low quality pictures right?

And this shot from Point Loma Marine is a much larger file. And if I'm not mistake I believe I shot them at the same settings..

I was not able to photomerge in Lightroom all my three shots for AEB to make HDR, so I only used the one shot out the three that I liked the most.. idk if that could have an impact.

 

[brett8883]

Yeah sure. Well actually I am uploading these pictures at Darkroom.com ( Darkroom ) , which I am able to sell the frames. So they are the ones who decide, based on the quality and size of the pictures, what size are they going to be available for prints.

For example (Beach Shots) these are ones that I can only print at 5x7. They are shot in raw file and their dimension are 920x720. That's low quality pictures right?

And this shot from Point Loma Marine is a much larger file. And if I'm not mistake I believe I shot them at the same settings..

I was not able to photomerge in Lightroom all my three shots for AEB to make HDR, so I only used the one shot out the three that I liked the most.. idk if that could have an impact.

This issue came up recently. When you move the photo from lightroom you need to export as a different file type then DNG. DNG aren't photos they are recipes for a photo. They do however contain a thumbnail jpeg copy so that when you are looking at them in a folder on your computer you can see what the photo looks like without having to process them. Lightroom does this as well and will apply your edits you made to the DNG to the jpeg thumbnail again so you can look at it.

When you import to lightroom there's some settings about the kind of preview you want to make. There is an option to make 1:1 previews for the DNGs so you can look at a full size thumbnail when you view images in lightroom.

You are just looking at the standard 920x720 preview. You need to export from lightroom as a .tiff or .png to get the best quality. If they will allow you to upload an uncompressed .tiff that's the best fidelity you can give them. Then see what the max size is

 

[brett8883]

This is the actual size of the beach thumbnails you uploaded on top of the actual size of the harbor image you uploaded. Lightroom may not be able to stitch images this small so thats probably why you cant get it to stitch them together

 

[Bruno Montini]

Ohhhh. I see what you're saying. Thank you so much for taking the time and explaining this to me.

Also, I know where I may have to change things up because when I'm importing to Lightroom the file is already 920x720. That may be because I did not download the original file from my Mavic Pro. I simply saved the photo to my album and I think that's just a copy not the original (large) file, right?

However, when I connect to my Mavic and try to download the following message pops up: "Download Failed. Only JPEG and H264 Videos are downloadable."

 

[brett8883]

Ohhhh. I see what you're saying. Thank you so much for taking the time and explaining this to me.

Also, I know where I may have to change things up because when I'm importing to Lightroom the file is already 920x720. That may be because I did not download the original file from my Mavic Pro. I simply saved the photo to my album and I think that's just a copy not the original (large) file, right?

However, when I connect to my Mavic and try to download the following message pops up: "Download Failed. Only JPEG and H264 Videos are downloadable."

You are gonna need to either take the SD card out of the drone and put it into a card reader on your computer or connect the drone directly to the computer via USB while the drone is on and transfer the Raw files

 

[brett8883]

I also now realize these three photos aren’t aeb they are just timed shots it looks like. You really can’t have anything moving in your bracketed shots or it won’t work. They have to be darn near identical and just different exposures. Did you mean pano? That’s not gonna work either because of the water moving

 

[4wd]

Using the RAW you have more latitude to adjust shadows and highlights if need be, it will rarely be worthwhile attempting to merge three images with different exposures unless it's a very high contrast scene like sunset with low sun in frame.
No harm in taking three if you like, but it's a little slower to record and download, takes up memory space too.

 

[Bruno Montini]

Ohh Gotcha. Yeah I took three shots with different exposures but the water was moving so that's probably why I cannot merge them together. Makes sense.

 

[brett8883]

Ohh Gotcha. Yeah I took three shots with different exposures but the water was moving so that's probably why I cannot merge them together. Makes sense.

I almost feel weird saying this because you are clearly are more talented photographer than I am so this is just about the technical details but those three photos are framed differently which would make HDR impossible and the difference in exposure isn’t great enough to get good results. You are better off with the single exposure in that situation which looks good even in low res btw




These 3 photos you can see are very different exposures and wouldn’t be acceptable on their own but when merged together I can use the extreme range difference and everything in between to make one composite.

If an image looks good without HDR it’s best not to use it. You can see here without HDR this photo looks like junk.