Mavic Air vs Mavic Pro - Image Quality Deep Dive

[Cliff_622]

Hi Air folks,

This topic is also in the Mavic Pro side but I figured I'd post it here too.

There are some revealing finding there.

CT

 

[Splats]

Excellent video and a great like for like comparison that demonstrates the difference in quality. Not bad for a "selfie-drone"

 

[greginfinity]

Wow, thanks for taking the time to do this. Very interesting results. I know a lot of us Mavic Pro owners spent a lot of time messing around with sharpness settings trying to get rid of watercolor effect and this side by side really shows what we were fighting. Glad to have moved on to the MA, although I did mostly to finally get some real slow motion. Anything above 1080@30fps on the MP was garbage due to the processor (although I hear new MP have this fixed).

 

[Cliff_622]

Wow, thanks for taking the time to do this. Very interesting results. I know a lot of us Mavic Pro owners spent a lot of time messing around with sharpness settings trying to get rid of watercolor effect and this side by side really shows what we were fighting. Glad to have moved on to the MA, although I did mostly to finally get some real slow motion. Anything above 1080@30fps on the MP was garbage due to the processor (although I hear new MP have this fixed).

It's being said that the Pro-II will use the Sony Exmor 1inct-type R sensor. Same as in the Phantom 4 Pro.

DJI has ready sad the Air is using the same image processor as the P4P (Ambarella H1) it's very reasonable to expect the Pro-II will have this Air H1 chip too.

This current Mavic Pro uses an Ambarella A9 that first appeared on the GoPro Hero 3.

 

[Memphis3]

Nice IMO due to Your Super Vid the smaller size and the vents in the Air shell to prevent Mavic over heating the Air wins. I liked the folding Propellers but I guess DJI found they were not needed. Wonder if DJI will provide Air with Pro Platinum a low noise longer flight Propellers Ya know the Pro Platinum propellers with the bent tips.
Air also has what I read as better camera gimble that is protected and repairable but there was a limited tilt and the Air paints in the upper lost picture.
Thx
.

 

[Janjelmer1]

Looks good! There is one thing I found to be unexpected in your video: with the same ISO and shutter speed, the Air image is brighter than the Pro image. I would expect it to be the other way around, as the Mavic Pro has a larger aperture (f/2.2 vs f/2.8). Does anybody has an explanation for this?

 

[lannes]

Looks good! There is one thing I found to be unexpected in your video: with the same ISO and shutter speed, the Air image is brighter than the Pro image. I would expect it to be the other way around, as the Mavic Pro has a larger aperture (f/2.2 vs f/2.8). Does anybody has an explanation for this?

Different metering design or modes might be an explanation

 

[Janjelmer1]

Different metering design or modes might be an explanation

Both were set to manual exposure and ISO, so the metering is not used.

 

[Fmoots]

Interesting results & a good deep dive! I don't think anyone would disagree the MA has better imagine quality than MP. The extra bitrate is very evident. Since I'm 'downgrading' from a MA to a MPP I guess I'll see how much I notice the inferior camera quality. I guess it all depends what you intend to do with the footage. If you're compressing for YouTube/Social media you might not notice a difference, but if you're after the best imagine quality possible or are using it for professional work, there's no doubt the MA is the way to go. I guess the MP2 might fill this gap...

 

[lannes]

Interesting results & a good deep dive! I don't think anyone would disagree the MA has better imagine quality than MP. The extra bitrate is very evident. Since I'm 'downgrading' from a MA to a MPP I guess I'll see how much I notice the inferior camera quality. I guess it all depends what you intend to do with the footage. If you're compressing for YouTube/Social media you might not notice a difference, but if you're after the best imagine quality possible or are using it for professional work, there's no doubt the MA is the way to go. I guess the MP2 might fill this gap...

I disagree that the MA has a better camera, the wider F2.2 aperture and the better ISO 3200 in video, gives you some more options in low light with the MPP or MP.
You also have the C4k mode on the MP.

The MA is a fixed focus lens while in the MP you can focus it

 

[Cliff_622]

The Pro's f/2.2 lens is technically only 3/4 of ONE stop faster than the Air's f/2.8 aperture. How does this difference help you in any way other than night or dark cave flying?

Also, one thing I noticed was that the Air's image was considerably BRIGHTER at every identical shutter speed to the Mavic-2. This test also shows that the Air's low light performance is significantly better to say the least. The Air's Ambarella H1 image processor is much more advanced than the Mavic Pro's very old Ambarella A9 image processor. This is just noise and image processing. We haven't even started to talk about h.264 bitrate.

From a brightness and low light stand point, the Air is far superior. I think this test EASILY demonstrates that. Did you get a chance to watch it? The second half deals with low light.

I fly mostly in bright daylight and I need plenty of NDs to keep my shutter speed down on the Air and I rarely fly at night or even with a clear filter on. So this 3/4 stop advantage is a complete non-issue for me.

CT

 

[Fmoots]

I disagree that the MA has a better camera, the wider F2.2 aperture and the better ISO 3200 in video, gives you some more options in low light with the MPP or MP.
You also have the C4k mode on the MP.

The MA is a fixed focus lens while in the MP you can focus it

I appreciate the MP has a wider aperture so should technically should let more light/be better in low light, however have you seen any real life examples where that is the case? In regards to the ISO, from my experience, anything above 800 ISO was completely unusable due to noise on the MA. So unless you have professional noise reduction software, I don’t see many people making use of 3200 ISO. But hey, considering i’ve just swapped my MA for a MPP I would love for you to prove me wrong!

In regards to the focus, I think the whole tap to focus on the pro was intended to give users more flexabilty & to achieve shallow depth of field/bokeh if they were flying by close objects, however I think it just ended up being a hinderenc, as people would often find parts of the image were out of focus, so for many, the fixed focus on the MA is an advantage.

The video below also shows some interesting results - note the night time city scape - the MP doesn’t hold up too well:

 

[djorgen]

Really impressed by the IQ on the Air. In the video above the Air is pretty much on par with the P4P while the MP is lagging quite far behind. Great little package the MA!

 

[Paul_in_WA]

Hi Air folks,

This topic is also in the Mavic Pro side but I figured I'd post it here too.

There are some revealing finding there.

CT

Hi Cliff,

Thanks for taking the time to post those results. I assume those were stills of the room at the end of the video? Were they the JPEGs or Raw files? If JPEG did the MP still show that lack of detail in the raw files?

Thanks.

Paul

 

[Cliff_622]

I didn't take any still photos. Everything was video. As far as detail goes. There is one VERY important thing to remember about detail and sharpness. (for one, they are two very, very different things)

When you look at a raw file from any camera, it literally has no image processing inside of it. Raw sensor data is not even an "image" as we know it. It is merely a data set of pixel voltage readings and lots of metadata that tells what address that voltage was collected and what RGGB flag it sat under as well as many other things. Raw sensor data has no "color" whatsoever. Every pixel outputs a gray scale set of readings. It's an image processor that actually assembles the data parts into an actual "image". This would be the Ambarella A9 or H1 (MP, and MA/P4P) in-drone processor for video or .jpg, and for raw files, for PC, this would be your favorite app like Lightroom.

So what do image processors do with this raw sensor data? They de-Bayer the RGGB optical filtered checkerboard and blend those voltage readings together. They assign red, green, green (twice) and blue colors and start to build an "image". Contrast, gain/ISO, saturation, noise reduction and SHARPENING are added. No raw sensor data file has any sharpening applied since it never went through that camera's image processor. This is totally normal. Sharpening is something that needs to be added in post if you are working with raw sensor data files. Every .jpg you have ever seen went through an image processor that assembled it into an image with sharpening added at this point.

Unprocessed raw sensor data needs "you" to be that image processor and "you" need to adjust the colors and noise reduction and sharpness and so forth. Without image processing, either in-camera for .jpg and video or "you" in Lightroom with raw sensor data,...somebody needs to add sharpness to that image.

This is something that is normal for all cameras. Dang,...that was super nerdy! lol ;-)

 

[DougBlueSkies]

I didn't take any still photos. Everything was video. As far as detail goes. There is one VERY important thing to remember about detail and sharpness. (for one, they are two very, very different things)

When you look at a raw file from any camera, it literally has no image processing inside of it. Raw sensor data is not even an "image" as we know it. It is merely a data set of pixel voltage readings and lots of metadata that tells what address that voltage was collected and what RGGB flag it sat under as well as many other things. Raw sensor data has no "color" whatsoever. Every pixel outputs a gray scale set of readings. It's an image processor that actually assembles the data parts into an actual "image". This would be the Ambarella in drone processor for video or .jpg, and for raw files, this would be your favorite PC app like Lightroom.

So what do image processors do with this raw sensor data? They de-Bayer the RGGB optical filtered checkerboard and blend those voltage readings together. They assign red, green, green (twice) and blue colors and start to build an "image". Contrast, gain/ISO, saturation, noise reduction and SHARPENING are added. No raw sensor data file has any sharpening applied since it never went through that camera's image processor. This is totally normal. Sharpening is something that needs to be added in post of you are working with raw sensor data files. Every .jpg you have ever seen went through and image processor that assembled it into an image with sharpening added.

Unprocessed raw sensor data needs "you" to be that image processor and "you" need to adjust the colors and noise reduction and sharpness and so forth. Without image processing, either in-camera for .jpg and video or "you" in Lightroom with raw sensor data,...somebody needs to add sharpness to that image.

This is something that is normal for all cameras. Dang,...that was super nerdy! lol ;-)

I didn't take any still photos. Everything was video. As far as detail goes. There is one VERY important thing to remember about detail and sharpness. (for one, they are two very, very different things)

When you look at a raw file from any camera, it literally has no image processing inside of it. Raw sensor data is not even an "image" as we know it. It is merely a data set of pixel voltage readings and lots of metadata that tells what address that voltage was collected and what RGGB flag it sat under as well as many other things. Raw sensor data has no "color" whatsoever. Every pixel outputs a gray scale set of readings. It's an image processor that actually assembles the data parts into an actual "image". This would be the Ambarella in drone processor for video or .jpg, and for raw files, this would be your favorite PC app like Lightroom.

So what do image processors do with this raw sensor data? They de-Bayer the RGGB optical filtered checkerboard and blend those voltage readings together. They assign red, green, green (twice) and blue colors and start to build an "image". Contrast, gain/ISO, saturation, noise reduction and SHARPENING are added. No raw sensor data file has any sharpening applied since it never went through that camera's image processor. This is totally normal. Sharpening is something that needs to be added in post of you are working with raw sensor data files. Every .jpg you have ever seen went through and image processor that assembled it into an image with sharpening added.

Unprocessed raw sensor data needs "you" to be that image processor and "you" need to adjust the colors and noise reduction and sharpness and so forth. Without image processing, either in-camera for .jpg and video or "you" in Lightroom with raw sensor data,...somebody needs to add sharpness to that image.

This is something that is normal for all cameras. Dang,...that was super nerdy! lol ;-)

No Cliff, that was super cool. Thanks

 

[Cut.Aussie]

Cliff’s description of Raw is very good. I remember back when RAW data first became available on one of my early Nikon digital cameras, it open up a world of image processing that made highly compressed JPG files look really bad.

 

[Paul_in_WA]

That is a great explanation of what a raw file should be. What I was wondering is how the raw image quality of the Mavic Air and Pro compared with or without any post processing. Obviously, from your tests the processor and software is doing a better job with video on the Mavic Air. My question is how does the raw still output compare which is more of a function of the lens and sensor.

 

[Cliff_622]

My friend's Mavic Pro was on loan and I didn't bother to take even one photo. (that was dumb!) So, with two raw sensor data captures, there is no Ambarella processing on either unit. So our only real quality factors come form:

1.) Lens quality on either camera.
2.) Image sensor quantum efficiency quality. I have read they use the same Sony 1/2.3 sensor.
3.) How clean is the actual sensor read out circuit. Do they pickup the same amount of noise on their read cycles?

These are the only factors at play as the raw sensor data is dumped to the file on the SD card way before any image assembly is ever done by any image processor chip. The .jpg file is the actual "processed" (assembled) image that is written after the raw file is saved.

My dumb @ss should have taken some still shots when I had the chance!