Mavic 2 Pro 4K HQ vs 4K FOV

yysc · Sep 4, 2018

Also posted in rcgroups,

In here it is stated the Mavic 2 uses indeed the Ambarella H3

The Mavic 2 Pro uses the newer H3 Ambarella Imgur

This explains the much better shadow reproduction than Phantom 4 Pro. We just need to get rid of the aliasing in 4K30 FOV and it will be almost the perfect small drone

.

Elmateo487 · Sep 8, 2018

NAUIDIVER said:
If it doesn’t do what you want right now and right out of the box, then don’t buy it! Dang. There is so much bull crap in these forums to wade through that very little valuable information is shared.

Chillax. Fly. Edit. Post. Repeat.

Sheesh.

You do realize that what you are reading is people talking through their decisions to buy it or not buy it? People need all the information they can get to drop 1500+ USD on something. YOU need to chill the hell out.

swoermck · Sep 9, 2018

yysc said:
Also posted in rcgroups,

We just need to get rid of the aliasing in 4K30 FOV and it will be almost the perfect small drone .

As a current Mavic 1 owner, for me aliasing and flickering in shadow areas are the only complaints I have with the bird. So my first reaction after the announcement of the Mavic 2 was "get yourself the Hasselblad as your 2nd bird in the hangar"... but reading through this thread I am not so sure anymore? In fact if aliasing is still an issue in 4K FOV.. my main focus is video, so maybe I am better served with a Mavic 2 Zoom (not sure if Mavic 2 Zoom owner will read this)?

Elmateo487 · Sep 9, 2018

swoermck said:
As a current Mavic 1 owner, for me aliasing and flickering in shadow areas are the only complaints I have with the bird. So my first reaction after the announcement of the Mavic 2 was "get yourself the Hasselblad as your 2nd bird in the hangar"... but reading through this thread I am not so sure anymore? In fact if aliasing is still an issue in 4K FOV.. my main focus is video, so maybe I am better served with a Mavic 2 Zoom (not sure if Mavic 2 Zoom owner will read this)?

These are nearly my same thoughts. The zoom looks much more interesting because the image quality of the pro just isn’t there. (Unless you are doing full night flying)

I think I’ll wait a few more years until the current phantom image quality is in the mavic.

gnirtS · Sep 9, 2018

Theres no mush, flickering or aliasing on the shadows in the pro. None at all.
The zoom is pretty much Mavic Air camera so you take a significant hit to image quality, dynamic range, colour reproduction and everything else.

swoermck · Sep 9, 2018

Now that sounds promising again

Would you say despite the negative comments on the 4K FOV in this thread, the quality of Mavic 2 pro FOV is still better than the Mavic Pro 1? Also the comments about distortion (I think it was also mentioned somewhere)?

If the Mavic 2 zoom is on pair with the Mavic Air, it is a no-go for me - if seen too many videos with blurry parts in the footage from Mavic Air (incl. side-by-side test with an Mavic Air from a colleague), whereas my Mavic Pro 1 delivers crystal clear footage from near to far.

spence · Sep 9, 2018

Any indication from DJI on whether they'll improve the 4k FOV mode in a firmware update?

The current line-skipping method seems less than ideal. I'm looking to purchase my first drone, but the kind of stuff I'd plan to shoot lends itself more to 28mm (or even 24) rather than 40mm, so the wider FOV performance is important to me.

msavic6 · Sep 9, 2018

swoermck said:
Now that sounds promising again [emoji4]

Would you say despite the negative comments on the 4K FOV in this thread, the quality of Mavic 2 pro FOV is still better than the Mavic Pro 1? Also the comments about distortion (I think it was also mentioned somewhere)?

If the Mavic 2 zoom is on pair with the Mavic Air, it is a no-go for me - if seen too many videos with blurry parts in the footage from Mavic Air (incl. side-by-side test with an Mavic Air from a colleague), whereas my Mavic Pro 1 delivers crystal clear footage from near to far.

The quality of the footage in 4K Full FOV is far superior to the Original Mavic Pro Footage. The dynamic range, colours and lack of over sharpening pushes the footage far above the OG Mavic. There is no more GOP flicker and there is basically no noise at base ISO when compared to the OG Mavic which had an extremely noticeable flicker and noisy base ISO.

Regarding distortion, if you choose to shoot in Normal colour mode, the M2P records the video with the distortion corrected. If you choose to shoot in D-LogM, the footage does not have the lens correction built in but there are numerous easy ways to correct the distortion yourself in post. A number of YouTubers have released proper lens distortion profiles to fix the distortion in post, it’s a one click fix. The fact of the matter is that if you are shooting in D-Log, you have no choice but to spend time in post grading the footage and at that point one extra click to apply a lens profile is not a big deal.

Historically speaking, DJI is known to optimize image quality on newly released drones via firmware updates so there is a decent chance the Full FOV downsampling procedure will be optimized to further improve image quality. The Ambarella H3 is a very good image processor so my fingers are crossed it was just a lack of time on DJI’s part.

gnirtS · Sep 9, 2018

swoermck said:
Mavic Air, it is a no-go for me - if seen too many videos with blurry parts in the footage from Mavic Air (incl. side-by-side test with an Mavic Air from a colleague), whereas my Mavic Pro 1 delivers crystal clear footage from near to far.

The mavic air will deliver better video with fewer artefacts than the mavic pro - same codecs and image but written at a higher bitrate.

The mavic 1 camera is junk, its a 2015 cellphone camera. Pretty difficult to get anything more than "social media acceptable" out of it.

kilomikebravo · Sep 9, 2018

VERY well-stated, amigo. Hope helps keep us all alive.

KB

swoermck · Sep 9, 2018

gnirtS said:
The mavic air will deliver better video with fewer artefacts than the mavic pro - same codecs and image but written at a higher bitrate.

The mavic 1 camera is junk, its a 2015 cellphone camera. Pretty difficult to get anything more than "social media acceptable" out of it.

then I am a pretty lucky guy: my M1 delivered decent quality so far, and by no means „social media acceptable" only. As stated, I did a side by side comparison with a friends Mavic Air - blurry in the background, same aliasing as the M1- „social media acceptable" only!!!

But don’t get carried away here, we are talking about M2, not about the Air

Elmateo487 · Sep 9, 2018

I have NOT been impressed with the pro image quality from all the YouTube videos I have seen so far

gnirtS · Sep 9, 2018

Elmateo487 said:
I have NOT been impressed with the pro image quality from all the YouTube videos I have seen so far

Given most people on youtube have no clue what they're doing and youtube compresses and destroys images im not sure you can tell anything at all.

There are youtube people going "It lacks colour and its soft" when showing a clearly unprocessed DLOG for example.

yysc · Sep 9, 2018

Shadow detail is already much better in M2P vs P4P. DR is also better thanks to the much better SOC. I also like the absence of the oversharpened image of the P4P.

Once they fix 4K FOV it'll beat the P4P in every mode but 4K60 of course. Note that mode in the P4P was of limited use as the camera does line skipping and bitrate remains at 100mbps.

Elmateo487 · Sep 9, 2018

Sure. I am going with what I have to go with. And I can’t find someone who can show me a graded and sharpened M2P footage that wows me. All of them are soft

HoozierDroneDaddy · Sep 11, 2018

Elmateo487 said:
Sure. I am going with what I have to go with. And I can’t find someone who can show me a graded and sharpened M2P footage that wows me. All of them are soft

Here is a friend's site. If you look at the pictures at the beginning of his page you will see the quality of the M2P.

RMphotoz

Mike_Jaxson · Sep 13, 2018

Elmateo487 said:
I have NOT been impressed with the pro image quality from all the YouTube videos I have seen so far

This guy

Roamer105 · Sep 13, 2018

Elmateo487 said:
Sure. I am going with what I have to go with. And I can’t find someone who can show me a graded and sharpened M2P footage that wows me. All of them are soft

Take a look here:
Low light (setting sun): Daylight:

bluesgeek · Sep 13, 2018

Roamer105 said:
Take a look here:
Low light (setting sun):

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I'm only watching on my phone, but I can really compliment you on the grade.

[Edit: I could mention that Roamer provides some good process commentary on the YouTube page for each video.]

Sockeye · Sep 13, 2018

Well this topic bothered me, therefore I made the test myself with all the cams I have. Sony AX100, Hero 5, Mavic 1 Pro, Mavic 2 Pro...giving them all the same challenge within the same test environment. The result is a little astonishing...what do you think?