Mavic Air bad camera/lens?

Jcborden · Feb 3, 2018

Bad lens on my Mavic Air? Haven’t even flown it yet due to the terrible weather so thought i would test out the camera quickly and was massively disappointed in what I saw, both in the video and photos.

The first image is a photo (cropped into the centre area a bit) and the second is a screen shot from the video (just resized). Is I would expect some distortion towards the edge of the frame, but not the waveyness on the horizontal in the centre. Anything similar going on with your air or is my camera faulty?

Cut.Aussie · Feb 3, 2018

Good question, I was going to get around to photoing a brick wall myself. What I can say it got much better focus across the frame than my more expensive Mavic Pro

MichiganMavic · Feb 3, 2018

Everywhere you look, someone’s staring down playing on their phones .
The picture to me, looks good, but I’m no professional either [emoji6]

zezrum · Feb 3, 2018

Was that auto settings, or manual? Shutter speed of 1/30 could be a contributor of your blurry still.

Janjelmer1 · Feb 3, 2018

zezrum said:
Was that auto settings, or manual? Shutter speed of 1/30 could be a contributor of your blurry still.

It's not the blur but the distortion of the image where the OP is talking about. The frame looks 'bent'.

MichiganMavic · Feb 3, 2018

Janjelmer1 said:
It's not the blur but the distortion of the image where the OP is talking about. The frame looks 'bent'.

In the middle , top and bottom frames

mtnstream · Feb 3, 2018

MichiganMavic said:
In the middle , top and bottom frames

Not horizontal, distorted to a slight curve, interesting.

zezrum · Feb 3, 2018

Ah, okay. I guess I figured that's what your door looked like.

shorttimer · Feb 3, 2018

This issue and video/image issues with the Mavic Air have been discussed quite extensively on both the RC Groups as well as the DJI forums. Many examples are provided including the above posted examples. So if you are interested in the video/image quality and issues people are seeing, there are quite a few with the problem, jump to those forums for an in-depth analysis.

FenTiger · Feb 4, 2018

The "bent" frame looks like quite severe pin cushioning. This can be found in camera lenses costing much more the the Mavic air itself, so I'm not surprised. In images at least It can be fixed using processing software such as Adobe Lightroom. In the picture, the vertical brickwork looks worse because you can just see the different colours on the bottom of the bricks, fooling the eye. Raising the camera slightly would have improved this maybe?

Zandian · Feb 6, 2018

I've been searching for others having similar issues as I am, but I've seen it in video. Right about the spot the window looks bent in those pictures is where mine seems to warp when turning the Mavic Air. Watch that spot in my video:

So, for those familiar with the issue, is it certain units or something with all the units?

Z

LuvMyTJ · Feb 6, 2018

Seems to be the FOV of the lens that is causing the curvature. Any of you guys that have been around a while and used to shoot video from Gopro's will remember the severely curved images that they produced. I think you are seeing something similar here. Has anyone tried the yawing trick with a Mavic Pro to see if it also has this?

Zandian · Feb 6, 2018

LuvMyTJ said:
Seems to be the FOV of the lens that is causing the curvature. Any of you guys that have been around a while and used to shoot video from Gopro's will remember the severely curved images that they produced. I think you are seeing something similar here. Has anyone tried the yawing trick with a Mavic Pro to see if it also has this?

But wouldn’t the curvature be around the outer edges vs warping in towards the middle? I haven’t seen my Mavic Pro do this. It’s not something I notice in most cases but just happened to here. The horizon seems pretty straight. It’s just at a point center from left to right, down from the top about 1/4 the way down.

Z

Janjelmer1 · Feb 6, 2018

Did a quick test, and I have the same issue:
.
You can see the warping distortion very clearly in the roofs during the yawing motion. It's pretty bad, not happy about it...

Janjelmer1 · Feb 6, 2018

Test image shows distortion clearly:

DJI_0011

Janjelmer1
Feb 6, 2018

Mavic Air lens distortion test

DJI_0008

Janjelmer1
Feb 6, 2018

Mavic Air lens distortion test

Zandian · Feb 6, 2018

Janjelmer1 said:
Test image shows distortion clearly:

DJI_0011

Janjelmer1

Feb 6, 2018

Mavic Air lens distortion test

DJI_0008

Janjelmer1

Feb 6, 2018

Mavic Air lens distortion test

Seems from those pics that what I see as warping in the middle is actuallly warped edges straightening out in the middle, so it might really be the pincusioning other replies have said. With that said, so some of the more experienced people think this is simply an issue with the Mavic Air lenses have in general or anomalies only some may have?

Z

R1Mavic · Feb 6, 2018

Hmmm...

mtnstream · Feb 6, 2018

R1Mavic said:
Hmmm...

Distortion appears to be in its’ optics - no FW can correct.
Bad batch of plastic lens?

Edit: if in fact they’re plastic.

R1Mavic · Feb 6, 2018

mtnstream said:
Distortion appears to be in its’ optics - no FW can correct.
Bad batch of plastic lens?

Edit: if in fact they’re plastic.

I will test this later today as well.

Cliff_622 · Feb 6, 2018

R1Mavic said:
I will test this later today as well.

I too noticed this same "warp" on panning!!

There are a couple of things.

1.) The lens is formed just that way.
2.) The lens image processor "compensation" is not set right or deactivated.

Lenses can now be designed optically to allow for a "warp" problem...that is DESIGNED to be corrected by the image processor. This is fine for video and .jpgs as the correction happens at that level. However raw sensor data saved in raw format will not have this correction. You will need to correct in post.

Im guessing this is a problem with the image processor lens correction warping tools not set right in the Air's firmware.

If DJI are aware, they can fix it with a firmware update.