Is my Mavic 3 just not sharp or is this normal

[silvertone]

I have a new drone to replace my aging P4A which was, and still is, a great camera. My raws don't seem very sharp. Corners are fine, just overall. Seems to be off. Can anyone check these dngs for me? M3TEST

 

[Saladshooter]

I have a new drone to replace my aging P4A which was, and still is, a great camera. My raws don't seem very sharp. Corners are fine, just overall. Seems to be off. Can anyone check these dngs for me? M3TEST

This is what I got when I put one of your images in Lightroom. Your DNG looked pretty bad on Google Drive but honestly looks fine once put in the editor. Lightroom is applying some corrections before you need to make any adjustments. The vignetting disappeared on import.

There were complaints that Mavic 3 had a soft camera, however I have not found it to be the case and most reviewers found that a click or two of sharpening in post brought things along and was preferable to having oversharpening baked in.

 

[silvertone]

This is what I got when I put one of your images in Lightroom. Your DNG looked pretty bad on Google Drive but honestly looks fine once put in the editor. Lightroom is applying some corrections before you need to make any adjustments. The vignetting disappeared on import.

There were complaints that Mavic 3 had a soft camera, however I have not found it to be the case and most reviewers found that a click or two of sharpening in post brought things along and was preferable to having oversharpening baked in.


View attachment 149623

Thanks Saladshooter. I use lightroom then photoshop on my imaging but havent used the sharpening in lightroom. Seems to have made for a better image with around +100. Think I was just being too picky. Appreciate the effort

 

[CanadaDrone]

The DNGs straight out of the drone are RAW files, so they have no sharpening, color correction, etc. applied. They are going to look very flat and very soft. They are like that of course to give you the maximum processing leeway, but as you know, you have to actually process them. Once you run them through a RAW converter, they will clean up a lot. DXO PureRAW2 is the best one out there (seriously, it's like magic) but even Photoshop's default settings will help compared to the original RAW file. Overall though, Adobe's RAW conversions are pretty terrible compared to what else is out there (Not just for the M3 but for all cameras).

There aren't really any scenarios where the entire lens would be soft - lens problems are typically the result of decentered elements, which will give uneven sharpness or one side of the image will be sharp while the other is soft.

 

[Deleted member 162835]

The above image looks pretty good to me. I returned my replacement Mavic 3 Cine because it displayed forward collision warning errors with nothing around and the image was not sharp when compared to my original Mavic 3 Cine images. The first was super sharp. The second looked good but it was obvious when you put photos side by side the second didn’t hit the mark of the first. DJI looked into the image issue first and agreed something was amiss. They isolated the image to the aircraft core board module. They replaced it but I pointed out they did not address the sensor issue. They promised to test more. Long story short when they flew the drone it was having connection issues so they are sending me a new drone. My point of this is DJI indicated the air craft core board can somehow affect image quality. Basing this off their report and the email they sent on the part they replaced to correct the image issue.

 

[sarimento1]

FWIW, I'm totally impressed with the M3 file sharpness!
from this past march in alaska...

 

[ddublu]

The DNGs straight out of the drone are RAW files, so they have no sharpening, color correction, etc. applied. They are going to look very flat and very soft. They are like that of course to give you the maximum processing leeway, but as you know, you have to actually process them. Once you run them through a RAW converter, they will clean up a lot. DXO PureRAW2 is the best one out there (seriously, it's like magic) but even Photoshop's default settings will help compared to the original RAW file. Overall though, Adobe's RAW conversions are pretty terrible compared to what else is out there (Not just for the M3 but for all cameras).

There aren't really any scenarios where the entire lens would be soft - lens problems are typically the result of decentered elements, which will give uneven sharpness or one side of the image will be sharp while the other is soft.

You can tell a difference in processing RAWs through something like PureRAW2 vs just importing into LR?

 

[CanadaDrone]

You can tell a difference in processing RAWs through something like PureRAW2 vs just importing into LR?

There is a huge difference between RAW converters, whether that is Adobe LR/ACR, DXO, Topaz, Capture One, etc. etc. Adobe is always the worst. As soon as you open up a RAW file in LR, Adobe is converting that RAW file and applying it's basic processing to it. I am a professional photographer as well and I avoid Adobe entirely for my RAW conversions - I still use it to edit after the fact, but never for the initial RAW conversion. RAW files shot with my Nikon Z9 look like they came from two different cameras if I compare Adobe's conversion with DXO's. The other reason I really like DXO is their lens corrections are second to none, and they are done properly, taking into consideration the specific image sensor used as well.

I suggest you download the free trial (30 days) of either DXO Pure RAW 2 (just a RAW converter) or DXO Photo Lab 5 (full fledged editing program with the same RAW conversion engine as Pure RAW2) and see for yourself what you think. After the file is converted (it will output a DNG for further editing or a JPEG if you aren't going to edit further), you can open it up in Photoshop or LR and edit it as normal without any of Adobe's RAW conversion. I think you will find there is a pretty significant difference, but of course everyone's tolerances for "acceptable" are not the same.

Hope that helps.

 

[KS-6]

The above image looks pretty good to me. I returned my replacement Mavic 3 Cine because it displayed forward collision warning errors with nothing around and the image was not sharp when compared to my original Mavic 3 Cine images. The first was super sharp. The second looked good but it was obvious when you put photos side by side the second didn’t hit the mark of the first. DJI looked into the image issue first and agreed something was amiss. They isolated the image to the aircraft core board module. They replaced it but I pointed out they did not address the sensor issue. They promised to test more. Long story short when they flew the drone it was having connection issues so they are sending me a new drone. My point of this is DJI indicated the air craft core board can somehow affect image quality. Basing this off their report and the email they sent on the part they replaced to correct the image issue.

How is your image quality overall now on the main camera?

 

[edcMavicPilots]

I downloaded two of them and used my normal capture sharpening with Capture One Pro and no other processing and it looks fine. Plenty sharp in the detail. I then did the same with Adobe Camera Raw and with the same results. You should be fine. For what it is worth I typically use .5 or .6 radius with these files and then adjust the amount of sharpening to taste.

In both cases the dropbox view looks far worse at 100% than either Capture One or ACR with no capture sharpening at at all. What Dropbox says is 100% is actually closer to 300%.

 

[KS-6]

I downloaded two of them and used my normal capture sharpening with Capture One Pro and no other processing and it looks fine. Plenty sharp in the detail. I then did the same with Adobe Camera Raw and with the same results. You should be fine. For what it is worth I typically use .5 or .6 radius with these files and then adjust the amount of sharpening to taste.

In both cases the dropbox view looks far worse at 100% than either Capture One or ACR with no capture sharpening at at all. What Dropbox says is 100% is actually closer to 300%.

I just downloaded and worked up these as well. Without question the image quality on these are far better than the garbage I have got from two of these Mavic 3's now. ****.

 

[edcMavicPilots]

I just downloaded and worked up these as well. Without question the image quality on these are far better than the garbage I have got from two of these Mavic 3's now. ****.

I know several people with 3s and have yet to see any "garbage" images or hear of anybody complaining of such.

 

[KS-6]

I know several people with 3s and have yet to see any "garbage" images or hear of anybody complaining of such.

Lets start with this one, really poor image quality on the left side, often with isolated blobs of goo and by the sounds of it, his second one was as bad:

Unhappy with Image Quality

I am writing to see if anyone else has a bad image quality from the mavic 3.I have a decent IQ at the centre of the image but not far to the left and right the image degrades quickly but then unlike other lenses it seems to get slightly better again towards the edges, I have cleaned the front...

forum.dji.com

And now lets compare one of the OP's supplied images shot at 5.6 and one of mine shot today at 5.6, processed at the same time identically. Big, BIG difference in image quality, mine is just not at all acceptable. These are the upper left corners representing 25% of the total image area.

 

[simonr23]

I’ve noticed my Mavic 3 doesn’t autofocus correctly. I see it find correct focus during the AF process, but it then settles on a closer focal point, softening the image slightly.

Is there a way to manually focus? I know how to put it in manual focus, but not how to actually adjust it.

 

[GadgetGuy]

I’ve noticed my Mavic 3 doesn’t autofocus correctly. I see it find correct focus during the AF process, but it then settles on a closer focal point, softening the image slightly.

Is there a way to manually focus? I know how to put it in manual focus, but not how to actually adjust it.

Just drag on the manual focus slider on the screen.

 

[Filmarik]

I have a new drone to replace my aging P4A which was, and still is, a great camera. My raws don't seem very sharp. Corners are fine, just overall. Seems to be off. Can anyone check these dngs for me? M3TEST

They look pretty good to me. DNG files straight out of camera are usually pretty soft. They are raw files and are to be processed and worked on. That "processing" includes applying sharpening. Your files look fine when certain amount of sharpening is applied in LR or any software (C1 etc). Plenty sharp. Sharpness uniformity accross the frame is also good, in fact the best I've seen so far. All samples I've seen so far were much worse than yours and most had one or more corners (top left corner being often the worst) pretty blurry. On your samples it is hard to judge if your camera/lens suffers from the same issue because there is only sky in top left and right corner on all your shots. The bottom corners look very good though.

 

[Drone Guy Kyle]

There is a huge difference between RAW converters, whether that is Adobe LR/ACR, DXO, Topaz, Capture One, etc. etc. Adobe is always the worst. As soon as you open up a RAW file in LR, Adobe is converting that RAW file and applying it's basic processing to it. I am a professional photographer as well and I avoid Adobe entirely for my RAW conversions - I still use it to edit after the fact, but never for the initial RAW conversion. RAW files shot with my Nikon Z9 look like they came from two different cameras if I compare Adobe's conversion with DXO's. The other reason I really like DXO is their lens corrections are second to none, and they are done properly, taking into consideration the specific image sensor used as well.

I suggest you download the free trial (30 days) of either DXO Pure RAW 2 (just a RAW converter) or DXO Photo Lab 5 (full fledged editing program with the same RAW conversion engine as Pure RAW2) and see for yourself what you think. After the file is converted (it will output a DNG for further editing or a JPEG if you aren't going to edit further), you can open it up in Photoshop or LR and edit it as normal without any of Adobe's RAW conversion. I think you will find there is a pretty significant difference, but of course everyone's tolerances for "acceptable" are not the same.

Hope that helps.

This is so right is so many ways. DxO is amazing