Is the image quality of the air really badder than the video quality ?

[crucx]

Hey. I am waiting since 8 weeks for my air to arrive (its since months sold out in germany for some weird reason and i paid 8 weeks ago already from a online store in germany and i am still waiting xD) and since 8 weeks i am watching videos about the mavic air.
Some people on youtube said that the image quality is a bit badder than the video quality. I watched more videos of different channel to compare it and i realized that they are right. The image quality is a bit blurry.
Is there no fix for that ? or do they just use wrong settings or what ?

I could just do a video capture and then put the video file on my pc, and do a screenshot of the video as a alternative. That should work well right ?

 

[sar104]

YouTube is a swamp of disinformation. I suggest you make your own assessment.

 

[Bryce steiner]

Hey. I am waiting since 8 weeks for my air to arrive (its since months sold out in germany for some weird reason and i paid 8 weeks ago already from a online store in germany and i am still waiting xD) and since 8 weeks i am watching videos about the mavic air.
Some people on youtube said that the image quality is a bit badder than the video quality. I watched more videos of different channel to compare it and i realized that they are right. The image quality is a bit blurry.
Is there no fix for that ? or do they just use wrong settings or what ?

I could just do a video capture and then put the video file on my pc, and do a screenshot of the video as a alternative. That should work well right ?

It's probably the difference between the 12MP sensor and the 4k resolution of the video which is approximately 8MP. the 4k gets the best of the lens where the 12 gets the edges of the lens which is not as sharp.

 

[jgnu]

I was in a similar situation a while back. It was hard to find a good source of information on image (still, not video) quality.

In my case I was deciding between the Air and the Pro (not the 2 Pro). I ended up renting an Air to test i myself. In the end I bought a Pro instead.

I wrote a thread about it in the general forum (with quite a few image examples from both the Air and the Pro) if you want to take a look:

Mavic Air vs Mavic Pro (not the 2 Pro) for still image quality

I'm new to drones, but an experienced photographer. I mainly shoot landscapes, and I'm looking into getting a drone for landscape photography. I've ruled out the most obvious choice; the mavic pro 2. I can't justify the cost, really. My main concern is getting good enough still image quality...

mavicpilots.com

The image quality is pretty much the same though. I can see a tiny bit of difference in sharpness (the Pro is sharper due to being able to focus instead of the fixed-focus lens on the Air), but it is nowhere near enough to matter.

I bought the Pro for other reasons (sound level, portrait orientation camera, field of view), but for image quality I would have been happy with the Air too.

I can't imagine video quality being better than still image quality. a 4k image is only 8MP, and the stills are 12MP.

I shoot raw (DNG) and do post-processing though, maybe JPEGs are a different story, I don't know.

 

[Deleted member 94047]

I was in a similar situation a while back. It was hard to find a good source of information on image (still, not video) quality.

In my case I was deciding between the Air and the Pro (not the 2 Pro). I ended up renting an Air to test i myself. In the end I bought a Pro instead.

I wrote a thread about it in the general forum (with quite a few image examples from both the Air and the Pro) if you want to take a look:

Mavic Air vs Mavic Pro (not the 2 Pro) for still image quality

I'm new to drones, but an experienced photographer. I mainly shoot landscapes, and I'm looking into getting a drone for landscape photography. I've ruled out the most obvious choice; the mavic pro 2. I can't justify the cost, really. My main concern is getting good enough still image quality...

mavicpilots.com

The image quality is pretty much the same though. I can see a tiny bit of difference in sharpness (the Pro is sharper due to being able to focus instead of the fixed-focus lens on the Air), but it is nowhere near enough to matter.

I bought the Pro for other reasons (sound level, portrait orientation camera, field of view), but for image quality I would have been happy with the Air too.

I can't imagine video quality being better than still image quality. a 4k image is only 8MP, and the stills are 12MP.

I shoot raw (DNG) and do post-processing though, maybe JPEGs are a different story, I don't know.

Hi jingu; your comparison post was a great one and one I enjoyed reading a while back. Thank you for doing it. You got fantastic pics out of both the Air and Pro cameras. However, I think that is a testament to your skills than the quality of the camera, at least when it comes to the Air. I have the Air, and I am quite disappointed at the quality of its stills, even when taking raws. But my disappointment with the stills has been compensated by my amazement at the quality of its video footage. Now I am no photography/videography guru, and I can't present you technical arguments about why that is, but I will say, from what I have seen, the video quality of the Air is superior to its stills.

 

[jgnu]

Thank you for the kind words, I'm glad you liked the images

the video quality of the Air is superior to its stills.

I don't really do video, so I never did any tests when I had the Air, but this seems so strange to me. It's the same sensor and the same optics after all, the video is just a 16:9 crop of the full 4:3 sensor...

It's quite possible that the in-drone post-processing of video (contrast, colors, sharpening and so on) is more pleasing than the JPEG processing for stills, but if you do your own processing from the DNGs, then it seems strange that the stills should be worse than the video I think.

I found that drone stills are just like stills taken from the ground: they need interesting light. Stills taken under hard light (mid-day on a sunny day) don't look great, but they wouldn't look good if taken with my on-the-ground-camera (Olympus) either.

As an example of what I mean, here is an image I took in pretty harsh mid-day type light. It looks pretty bad, regardless of what I do in post-processing:


And here is another image taken in "better" light (more sideways light around an hour before sunset) taken with the same drone (Mavic Pro). This looks much better in my opinion:


Perhaps its just possible to "get away" with less interesing light/shots when doing video due the coolness factor of the flying point-of-view?

 

[Deleted member 94047]

You are showing off with the second one I kid of course . I tried to attach a DNG file so you could see what I get from my Air, only to discover that the forum doesn't allow DNG files to be attached. But you had the Air, you did a proper comparison; and you are a pretty darn good photographer. If you say the Air is on par with the Pro on stills, I guess it may just be that I am a lousy one.

 

[jgnu]

It's all about going out often when you think the light is going to be good. Many times it won't happen, but you won't be out there when it does happen if you don't try and fail a lot

 

[R. Howard Trembly]

In photography it's all about the light, and of course the subject. Doing aerial photography for 50 years I had to always know where the sun was as I had a lot of expenses to get the right shot for my client. But I did make mistakes from time to time. AsI did the first time I took a picture of my son's house with my Mavic 2 Pro. When I down loaded the files it appeared to have some hazy blue smoke in the picture. But what it turned out to be was the lense had gotten a finger print out it. A stupid mistake on my part and I'll never let it happen again.