Mavic 3 Blurry Images

mobilehomer · Feb 18, 2023

I have a question. Why did you post low res jpg? Why not full res from the micro sd card?

Phantomrain.org · Feb 18, 2023

You should be able to zoom in his picture and you can see it is the High Rez.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain. Land on the Water

waynorth · Feb 19, 2023

mobilehomer said:
I have a question. Why did you post low res jpg? Why not full res from the micro sd card?

The photos are not lowres. The bridge photo is 5255x3935 pixels. 20MP.

mobilehomer · Feb 19, 2023

Then why are the links to lowrez jpgs?

waynorth · Feb 19, 2023

mobilehomer said:
Then why are the links to lowrez jpgs?

They are not. Try downloading one, and check the pixel dimensions.

ClaudioNC · Feb 19, 2023

waynorth said:
One soultion to overcome blurry corners, is to crop the photo afterwards. Include a little more than needed during shooting, and cut the corners in post processing. You lose a little resolution, but that is usually a small price to pay.

WOW... a great solution, or if you prefer, soultion!

ClaudioNC · Feb 19, 2023

gschiffverre said:
Since purchasing my M3P I have noticed that many of my images are blurry even at f4 when zoomed in even at center. All images are at shutter speeds that would eliminate motion blur. Images taken at F2.8 are so bad in the corners some are unusable. I have sent it in and been told by DJI there is no issue. My Mavic 2 Pro never had these image sharpness problems even wide open and often at fairly low shutter speeds that you'd expect would cause motion blur. The Tropical scene is F4 1/640. Bridge is F2.8 1/1000. While this may be acceptable for social media I need to be able to print these images for clients professionally. Thanks!View attachment 160782 View attachment 160783

It is extremely clear that this picture demonstrates without the slightest doubt that the lens is faulty, the optics are out of manufacturing tolerance, no ifs, ands or buts.
A slight loss of sharpness in a very small part of the frame, located on each of the 4 corners, can be, or must be accepted.

It happens to almost all lenses of all brands, a little more, or a little less, especially for larger formats where engineers try to cut as much as possible the high costs of larger and heavier optics that should be built with a coverage circle wider than the diagonal of the frame/sensor, thus making accept a small compromise, that of visible losing of sharpness/resolution, sometimes too much losing, only on the extreme areas of the corners.

But again, a very small portion, say ~5-8% of the long sides.
Everything else, a lot more than this, as here, is certainly out of tolerance, it's a defective lens put on the market due to lack of factory controls, or for reasons that are in any case not admissible, particularly for DJI which boasts of the collaboration it had with Hasselblad.

pavelino · Feb 19, 2023

gschiffverre said:
Since purchasing my M3P I have noticed that many of my images are blurry even at f4 when zoomed in even at center. All images are at shutter speeds that would eliminate motion blur. Images taken at F2.8 are so bad in the corners some are unusable. I have sent it in and been told by DJI there is no issue. My Mavic 2 Pro never had these image sharpness problems even wide open and often at fairly low shutter speeds that you'd expect would cause motion blur. The Tropical scene is F4 1/640. Bridge is F2.8 1/1000. While this may be acceptable for social media I need to be able to print these images for clients professionally. Thanks!View attachment 160782 View attachment 160783

mine is exactly like yours, the only solutions are to plan the shot for cropping the image and apply a good sharpening app like Topaz DeNoise. It comes out very good. We tend to believe that the Mavic 3 is a professional drone for photography, it is not. It is a good prosumer drone and we have to live with its shortcomings.

mobilehomer · Feb 19, 2023

waynorth said:
They are not. Try downloading one, and check the pixel dimensions.

Pixel dimensions don't tell the whole story. These are jpg at a 2.82 MB file size - LOW REZ!!! That picture should be much larger than that! Post RAW or DNG

JeffreyS · Feb 19, 2023

mobilehomer said:
Pixel dimensions don't tell the whole story. These are jpg at a 2.82 MB file size - LOW REZ!!! That picture should be much larger than that! Post RAW or DNG

You can't post RAW on a forum. Files are too big.

mobilehomer · Feb 19, 2023

JeffreyS said:
You can't post RAW on a forum. Files are too big.

But you can link.

Filmarik · Feb 19, 2023

JeffreyS said:
You can't post RAW on a forum. Files are too big.

True, but it is easy to attach link to where the original DNG can reside i.e. Dropbox etc. If he could do that we could then process the original RAW file and accertain if his Mavic 3 camera is under par or not. It is not that easy to judge the IQ from looking at a JPEG which we do not know how it came about.

gschiffverre · Feb 19, 2023

Thanks everyone for your input. Too be clear both photos were in little to no wind, so that's not a factor. Also both shots were in manual mode and manual focus. I understand that DJIs are not professional grade cameras and I don't expect the kind of quality I would in my full frame mirrorless. I also understand at 2.8 corners will be soft, but should not be blurry to that extent. Secondly, and most importantly to me, the image of the hammocks and wooden sign is clearly not sharp and is at F4 center of the frame. My Mavic 2 Pro had none of these issues after comparing many images (even my original mavic air images were sharper). Personally I don't think it's user error but I will do some more tests, stationary and airborne. Something else I noticed was that my M3 is sharp shooting directly down even wide open at 2.8. It's horizontal shots that seem to have the most issue. Also, at 3MB these file sizes should be plenty big to zoom in and see picture clarity.

ClaudioNC · Feb 19, 2023

pavelino said:
mine is exactly like yours, the only solutions are to plan the shot for cropping the image and apply a good sharpening app like Topaz DeNoise. It comes out very good. We tend to believe that the Mavic 3 is a professional drone for photography, it is not. It is a good prosumer drone and we have to live with its shortcomings.

But really not, different thinking.

The only thing to do is replace the camera with a perfect one, because that lens, if well made, give very fine details on the whole frame, also in the last mm of the corners, without visible decrease of resolution, or obvious lack of sharpness, also diaphragm full open and also in jpg.

The apparent increase in detail applying a digital filter is ineffective and a naive solution if you think that this one could be enough and good to remove the poor quality created of a subpar optic like that, without introducing absurd artifacts on the blurred details.

Filmarik · Feb 19, 2023

gschiffverre said:
Thanks everyone for your input. Too be clear both photos were in little to no wind, so that's not a factor. Also both shots were in manual mode and manual focus. I understand that DJIs are not professional grade cameras and I don't expect the kind of quality I would in my full frame mirrorless. I also understand at 2.8 corners will be soft, but should not be blurry to that extent. Secondly, and most importantly to me, the image of the hammocks and wooden sign is clearly not sharp and is at F4 center of the frame. My Mavic 2 Pro had none of these issues after comparing many images (even my original mavic air images were sharper). Personally I don't think it's user error but I will do some more tests, stationary and airborne. Something else I noticed was that my M3 is sharp shooting directly down even wide open at 2.8. It's horizontal shots that seem to have the most issue. Also, at 3MB these file sizes should be plenty big to zoom in and see picture clarity.

FWIW my M3 delivers best sharpness across the frame at f5.6. The lens has fair amount of inherent barrel distortion and if the DNG files are processed in LR the embedded DJI lens profile is automatically applied, essentially stretching the corners and diluting the pixels there making the corners even worse. In Capture One for example you can disable that profile and create your own including applying additional sharpening to corners. It is not an ideal solution but it is another way how to "improve" the corners.

Filmarik · Feb 19, 2023

ClaudioNC said:
But really not, different thinking.

The only thing to do is replace the camera with a perfect one, because that lens, if well made, give very fine details on the whole frame, also in the last mm of the corners, without visible decrease of resolution, or obvious lack of sharpness, also diaphragm full open and also in jpg.

The apparent increase in detail applying a digital filter is ineffective and a naive solution if you think that this one could be enough and good to remove the poor quality created of a subpar optic like that, without introducing absurd artifacts on the blurred details.

Quote:
"The only thing to do is replace the camera with a perfect one, ...."
Noone has ever made a perfect camera. Leica got close but just a body without any lens costs as much as four or five Mavic 3 drones ! Add another 5 Mavic 3 drones and you might be lucky to get one manual focus lens. That might give some sense of perspective of what a "close to perfect" costs these days

I reckon that we need to be realistic about our expextations here. Mavic 3 is an amazing engineering feast in itself but the camera and its lens are far from perfect! That is if corner to corner sharpness is your main criteria.
If you are lucky enough and get a reasonably good unit then with skilful processing of well exposed DNG files shot at ISO 100 f5.6 the TIFFs or JPEGs are pretty decent and usable even for printing. Just do not expect FF mirorless camera with top notch lens quality. It would be foolish to expect that and you won't get it.

Filmarik · Feb 20, 2023

Filmarik · Feb 20, 2023

While not technically "perfect", it is a view I could not get from the ground. And that in itself is a value that the sharpest FF camera on the ground could not give me

. This is 3:2 crop and only 5MB JPEG. The TIFF has plenty of detail to be printed as A3+ size poster, if so desired. Maybe even bigger with some clever upscaling..

waynorth · Feb 20, 2023

gschiffverre said:
Personally I don't think it's user error but I will do some more tests, stationary and airborne

The best test method is to find a large brick wall or similar, and place the drone stationary in front of it, so the focus plane is absolutely parallell to the wall.
Take some shots at different apertures. Use both autofocus and manual focus, Shoot both RAW and JPG.

GadgetGuy · Feb 21, 2023

waynorth said:
The best test method is to find a large brick wall or similar, and place the drone stationary in front of it, so the focus plane is absolutely parallell to the wall.
Take some shots at different apertures. Use both autofocus and manual focus, Shoot both RAW and JPG.

Unless you shoot brick walls for a living, this doesn't replicate real world photography in flight, which is what the camera optics are optimized for.