MAvic 2 Enterprise Advanced - the thermal camera

[jfo]

Any chance someone who understands thermal could translate the M2EA's specs to us who don't?

• Focal Length​

• Approx. 9mm
  35 mm format equivalent: Approx. 38mm

No idea what that means.

Actually, my main question is - what is the best distance for taking thermal pictures with it? I plan to shoot pipelines, looking for leaks and areas that are overheating and need their insulation repaired. Same with flat rooftops (large industrial halls). What height should I shoot them from (I mean the vertical distance when flying above them)? Is it always "the closer the better", or is there a sweet spot I should aim for?

Thanks

 

[brett8883]

Any chance someone who understands thermal could translate the M2EA's specs to us who don't?

• Focal Length​

• Approx. 9mm
  35 mm format equivalent: Approx. 38mm

No idea what that means.

The focal length refers to how wide angle or telephoto the lens is which affects the field of view of the camera.

The lens on the camera is 9mm which sounds really really wide at first but the sensor on that camera is so small that it produces a field of view that would be equivalent to the same field of view as a 38mm lens on a 35mm film or full frame digital camera.

35mm film was the standard film size for so long and so many people used that size film that it gives people a reference for what the field of view of that camera will be.

As a photographer if you told me the camera had a 59.3 degree field of view I only have some sense of what that means. Tell me it’s the same field of view as a 38mm lens on a 35mm film camera and now I understand it perfectly.

 

[Sharky05]

The focal length refers to how wide angle or telephoto the lens is which affects the field of view of the camera.

The lens on the camera is 9mm which sounds really really wide at first but the sensor on that camera is so small that it produces a field of view that would be equivalent to the same field of view as a 38mm lens on a 35mm film or full frame digital camera.

35mm film was the standard film size for so long and so many people used that size film that it gives people a reference for what the field of view of that camera will be.

As a photographer if you told me the camera had a 59.3 degree field of view I only have some sense of what that means. Tell me it’s the same field of view as a 38mm lens on a 35mm film camera and now I understand it perfectly.

As for the height of the flight there's a lot more to consider for thermal use, wind, weather, sunshine, cloudy, time of day, snow etc etc. I suggest that you go onto the Drone Deploy website and take a look at the thermal imaging course or Webinar they have on their site so you can learn a lot from there. Also take a look at the FLIR website you will learn even way more on there. You can actually take a course with them to become a qualified thermal photographer as it's a specialised field and wrong information to the client can land you into big trouble

 

[jfo]

As for the height of the flight there's a lot more to consider for thermal use, wind, weather, sunshine, cloudy, time of day, snow etc etc. I suggest that you go onto the Drone Deploy website and take a look at the thermal imaging course or Webinar they have on their site so you can learn a lot from there. Also take a look at the FLIR website you will learn even way more on there. You can actually take a course with them to become a qualified thermal photographer as it's a specialised field and wrong information to the client can land you into big trouble

Thanks, that's an excellent idea! Will do

 

[teeveebee404]

The focal length refers to how wide angle or telephoto the lens is which affects the field of view of the camera.

The lens on the camera is 9mm which sounds really really wide at first but the sensor on that camera is so small that it produces a field of view that would be equivalent to the same field of view as a 38mm lens on a 35mm film or full frame digital camera.

35mm film was the standard film size for so long and so many people used that size film that it gives people a reference for what the field of view of that camera will be.

As a photographer if you told me the camera had a 59.3 degree field of view I only have some sense of what that means. Tell me it’s the same field of view as a 38mm lens on a 35mm film camera and now I understand it perfectly.

Hi Brett8883, does that mean that the angle of view is actually 59.3 degrees for this camera or was that simply an example? Thanks!

 

[brett8883]

Hi Brett8883, does that mean that the angle of view is actually 59.3 degrees for this camera or was that simply an example? Thanks!

I think I just looked up what the FOV of a 38mm lens and that’s what I got. FOV can be measured different ways though so I’d double check

 

[teeveebee404]

Ah ok thanks for that. Have you got any idea how? Sorry I am a bit of a newby on this front. To explain, we are hoping to trial using a thermal drone to study bonobo populations in the DRC. To do this we need to fly the drone high enough above the canopy so that it does not scare them, but low enough that their detection is accurate enough. To calculate the flight height, we would need to know the angle of view for the camera (combined with the resolution).

The Mavic with M2EA sounds like a relatively cheap option to try this method before we look at better quality (fixed wing) drones and camera options. I am afraid though that it has a relatively wide angle FOV, which means we have to fly it too low and therefore it would not be fit for purpose.

Would any of you be able to shed your light on this? I would not know how to calculate the angle of view, if someone could help with this I would be very grateful!

Thanks
Tim

 

[teeveebee404]

Any chance someone who understands thermal could translate the M2EA's specs to us who don't?

• Focal Length​

• Approx. 9mm
  35 mm format equivalent: Approx. 38mm

No idea what that means.

Actually, my main question is - what is the best distance for taking thermal pictures with it? I plan to shoot pipelines, looking for leaks and areas that are overheating and need their insulation repaired. Same with flat rooftops (large industrial halls). What height should I shoot them from (I mean the vertical distance when flying above them)? Is it always "the closer the better", or is there a sweet spot I should aim for?

Thanks

Right, I got the answer to at least my question from DJI. The angle of views are: horizontal FOV 48°, vertical FOV 38°.
From this you can calculate how far you have to be away from an object to see if it fits in your FOV. There should not necessary be a sweet spot, as it depends how large the object is you wish to inspect. You might just need to play with it and see. I am by no means an expert though, but hope this helps a little.

 

[brett8883]

Right, I got the answer to at least my question from DJI. The angle of views are: horizontal FOV 48°, vertical FOV 38°.
From this you can calculate how far you have to be away from an object to see if it fits in your FOV. There should not necessary be a sweet spot, as it depends how large the object is you wish to inspect. You might just need to play with it and see. I am by no means an expert though, but hope this helps a little.

Yea that’s in line with the calculations I got.

It does have a 16x digital zoom on the thermal and 32x zoom on the visual camera so I would think that would be a good option for your purpose. Not sure how small a bonobo is but from experience somewhat related you also don’t want to have a camera that is zoomed in really far all the time because it’s hard to determine where the camera needs to be pointed and easy to get “lost.”

Ideally you want to be able to zoom in and out.

 

[teeveebee404]

Yes it could be worth it. There is an online tool to calculate flight height for our purpose but it seems offline. Yes the zoom might help indeed!
Thanks again
Tim

 

[satexas]

Right, I got the answer to at least my question from DJI. The angle of views are: horizontal FOV 48°, vertical FOV 38°.
From this you can calculate how far you have to be away from an object to see if it fits in your FOV. There should not necessary be a sweet spot, as it depends how large the object is you wish to inspect. You might just need to play with it and see. I am by no means an expert though, but hope this helps a little.

Any luck flying buried pipelines? How high did you fly? Thanks

 

[T M F]

I too am searching for some infoon the Thermal camera, the spec sheet says it works with a light spectrum of 8 - 14 but I have an IR identifier whose wavelength is 940 nm but cannot "SEE" it anyone know what LED that the camera can see? Thanks

 

[sar104]

I too am searching for some infoon the Thermal camera, the spec sheet says it works with a light spectrum of 8 - 14 but I have an IR identifier whose wavelength is 940 nm but cannot "SEE" it anyone know what LED that the camera can see? Thanks

Why is this confusing? The camera spectral response is 8 – 14 µm. Your source is 940 nm, which is 0.94 µm - an order of magnitude shorter wavelength than the low wavelength end of the camera response. Of course it can't see it.

And just to add, before you ask again - there is no LED source at 8 - 14 µm - that's in the thermal emission range.

 

[T M F]

Thanks