Mavic Mini 2: Very curved horizon when stitching 9 .dng images into panorama using Lightroom and other panorama-creators

[CJG]

Does anyone else have this problem? And have you found a quick and easy solution?

I have found a rough and ready solution (by chance) using the free programme Hugin: but the complexities of Hugin are really way above my pay grade!!

I know that if you use the DJI Fly app to auto-stitch a .jpg 9 image panorama, it generates a straighter horizon: but I prefer RAW and the straight horizon comes at the cost of a very distorted foreground.

Thanks all, from a locked-down UK (I got the mini so I could do some back garden flying due to the sub 250g weight!!)

 

[Meta4]

Does anyone else have this problem? And have you found a quick and easy solution?

There are several different projection methods for stitching and no one method is suitable for all panoramas.
If the camera isn't horizontal you're going to have more problems with the foreground bowing out and the longer the panorama strip, the bigger the issues.

Try shooting with the camera level, go for smaller panoramas and experiment with different projections.

 

[CJG]

Thanks for this.

The panoramas I am talking about are the automatic ones built into the MM2 firmware: in particular the 9 image one. I can, of course, “manually” take images for a panorama; but it is nice once in a while to let the MM2 do it all itself! I don’t have this problem with my M2P (but there again the M2P is a more capable beast!!)

 

[inkytog]

Thanks for this.

The panoramas I am talking about are the automatic ones built into the MM2 firmware: in particular the 9 image one. I can, of course, “manually” take images for a panorama; but it is nice once in a while to let the MM2 do it all itself! I don’t have this problem with my M2P (but there again the M2P is a more capable beast!!)

The images aren't RAW if you use the in built panorama settings - or are they? I am set to shoot RAW but it only shoots them as JPEGS anyway. Unless I'm wrong?

 

[inkytog]

The images aren't RAW if you use the in built panorama settings - or are they? I am set to shoot RAW but it only shoots them as JPEGS anyway. Unless I'm wrong?

Apparently I’m wrong. You have to set the raw setting separately in the pano mode. Never realised.
Why they don’t make these settings global is beyond me. Same for hd/4K in quickshots

 

[hchen]

In LR, try select different Projections in Panorama Merge Preview. You'll find a one you want.

 

[jos A]

Problem is already told to DJI.
Normal panorama is oke, wide panorama showed curved horizon. Stich in fly app shows less curved horizon, but stitching in other programs showed a curved horizon.
When shooting wide angle panorama the mini 2 is still in the turn when shooting the photo's, the gimbal isn't level yet.

 

[inkytog]

It's pretty poor tbh. Not sure how to make it better and I'd consider myself advanced as a Lightroom user.

 

[Lister]

If you have Photoshop, you can "warp" the image to create a more level horizon.
Load image into PS, select all (ctrl-a) then choose "edit/transform/warp" and drag the handles on the edges of the image.

 

[RogerDH]

With Microsoft Image Composite Editor (ICE), there are a dozen different projection methods, but in any of them, if the horizon is curved, you can just drag the center of the image up or down to fix it. If the horizon isn't level, you can rotate the image. (Either of these will cause the composite image itself to be curved or tilted, so you will also need to crop to a rectangle or use the auto-crop function.) You will need to have the DNG codec installed, but I assume you do if you can open the files in LR.

 

[PhotoAK]

Does anyone else have this problem? And have you found a quick and easy solution?

I have found a rough and ready solution (by chance) using the free programme Hugin: but the complexities of Hugin are really way above my pay grade!!

I know that if you use the DJI Fly app to auto-stitch a .jpg 9 image panorama, it generates a straighter horizon: but I prefer RAW and the straight horizon comes at the cost of a very distorted foreground.

Thanks all, from a locked-down UK (I got the mini so I could do some back garden flying due to the sub 250g weight!!)

Did you ever find a solution for this? I just got a mini 2 for travel and am coming from a pro 2. I love taking pano's, but the distortion really ruins it.

 

[Meta4]

Did you ever find a solution for this? I just got a mini 2 for travel and am coming from a pro 2. I love taking pano's, but the distortion really ruins it.

What distortion?
Some details of what you are doing and examples would help if you want assistance.

 

[PhotoAK]

What distortion?
Some details of what you are doing and examples would help if you want assistance.

Sorry - meant to respond to original poster to see if they had resolved their issue - having the same curved horizon issue in LR. Better with perspective stitching, but could still be improved

 

[Meta4]

Sorry - meant to respond to original poster to see if they had resolved their issue - having the same curved horizon issue in LR. Better with perspective stitching, but could still be improved

It still would be a lot easier for anyone to help if you could some details of what you are doing and examples to show the issue.

 

[CJG]

Did you ever find a solution for this? I just got a mini 2 for travel and am coming from a pro 2. I love taking pano's, but the distortion really ruins it.

Not really: I use Hugin for stitching MM2 panoramas now. I don’t really understand Hugin, and more by luck than judgement I found a way to fix the curved horizon: after aligning the images and then creating a panorama, if you click in the middle of the curved horizon it straightens everything out. But I have no real understanding of what I am doing.

If you could post some examples for @Meta4 that would be great (I haven’t got any as I have Hugin-ed the main offenders)