Mavic 2 Pro Focus Best Practices

[horsepowerphoto]

Howdy folks,

New to the Mavic line of drones... Owned Phantoms up to this point... One big challenge for me right now is the focus.. The Phantoms had fixed focus and all I had to worry about with them is flying them... This M2P that I just bought, I am trying to figure out the best focus practices... A few missions I have gone on, was super excited about the footage I got, only to come back home and realize it was all out of focus...

I have tried setting to auto, and mapping one of the C buttons to center focus, and hit that once I take off... I have also enabled focus highlighting on the screen..... I have read threads from 4+ years ago, that the trick was to use manual focus, and set the focus to the second line after infinity.... Then I saw some postings after that saying that a firmware update had made that recommendation invalid now... Though I did try that manual method, and it does seem that around that focus point, I do get the most red highlights on the screen, but I am not sure if its placebo effect or not, but when I get home and look, I can swear that some of the footage is out of focus..

What is the general consensus nowadays on the best focus settings?

TIA

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Post some of your video as the Auto setting should be more than enough to get crystal clear footage on the Mavic 2 Pro .

Phantomrain.org
Wet Suits to fly your Mavic 2 in the Rain. Land on the Water

 

[horsepowerphoto]

https://horsepowerphoto.net/download/

Videos #1 and #3 are the suspect ones where the auto focus was not automatically updating..

 

[Phantomrain.org]

So nothing really looks wrong except your flying in Low Light Conditions and that Dust is very hazy , those two aspects alone would lead to a lesser image.

The Best way to test your Auto Focus is on the Kitchen table , just place some objects in front of the camera and you should see the Auto Focus do its magic.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly on a Farm , in the Rain

 

[horsepowerphoto]

For video #1 for example... up until 1:44, the video is out of focus, until I hit my center focus button.... should it not always be auto focusing?

 

[Phantomrain.org]

So you have the low light, and the dust but you also have your flying which is also a contributing factor. Your not really taking the shot in Cinematic Fashion , rather you shooting in a way that is making the drone stuggle .

When you do get lined up correctly the Video is not that bad , but angles , shadows , and camera pans make a big difference. For instance Panning the camera to the side is very difficult to get a good focus.

You need a better test , with more cinematic flying and light to really test your camera

Phantomrain.org
Wet Suits to fly in the Rain. Land on the Water.

 

[EricJT]

Howdy folks,

New to the Mavic line of drones... Owned Phantoms up to this point... One big challenge for me right now is the focus.

I have the M2P and mostly do panos but use this approach to video focussing as well :

Turn on focus highlighting, use autofocus and touch a distant point on my SC.....turn on manual focus and do not change the focus.....take my panos. BTW, I shoot entirely in manual mode to avoid the auto setting changing the ISO, white balance, etc. I set the exposure based on the brightest portion of the pano, expose to the right (ETTR) so that I can recover the blacks when processing the RAW files.

 

[horsepowerphoto]

Thanks folks... I guess I was just not ready to have such an advanced camera on a drone.. I've flown phantoms since 2013 and its always been just point and shoot... Now I guess I have double the things to worry about while flying.

 

[EricJT]

I am not sure you need to worry about it....learning to shoot in manual mode becomes second nature after a while.

The M2P 's camera in manual is not unlike my DSLR's when I began back in 2010...I started in auto mode but quickly graduated to fully manually mode. It gave me more control over shutter speed, aperture and I SO. Took some time to master but became like muscle memory.

 

[horsepowerphoto]

Oh, I agree.... I shoot in only manual mode with my DSLR... Its second nature to me now... But right at the moment, I guess I am just overwhelmed with having to do that, AND fly smooth enough to get decent shots... With manual on DSLR, I always have to re-evaluate my settings depending on the light... Partly cloudy days are the worst! Its gonna be impossible to do it all while in the air!

 

[EricJT]

I always hover when I want to take a shot or pano....that gives me the small amount of time to adjust the shutter speed.....I typically leave ISO at 100 and aperture at 4.5.

The only challenge is if the shutter speed needs to be quite long....but I only fly during the day so light isn't an issue.

 

[horsepowerphoto]

I guess I am talking more for video than photo..

 

[EricJT]

Well, I shoot fully manual for video....set 30fps,aperture (usually 4.5), set ISO (not auto)....determine the brightest and darkest areas and choose a mid-point exposure by setting the shutter speed, or use a ND filter to set your shutter speed accordingly.

At least that is my approach, but it may not suit everyone.