Mavic Pro 2 Blurry Footage Mid Shoot

[Lokinator]

Hi

I have a Mavic Pro 2 (my 2nd DJI drone and about my 5th overall). I was shooting today and 3 out of 17 clips came out soft. Nothing in focus at all. Batteries were changed but besides that no changes made to focus exposure etc. Funny thing is the first 10 clips sharp 3 bad then 4 sharp again. Conditions were optimal for flying, no wind. This is the 10th time atleast Ive shot with the mavic and all shoots were ok previously. Any ideas on what would cause this?? I am recharging batteries to take it out again to see if I can replicate the problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Phantomrain.org]

No need to fly to check you camera, just put it on the table and start recording and taking pictures.
Start off In Auto and than go Manual. You can also take a pano and make sure the movement is smooth.

You can also test by using the Drone as a Gimbal my just moving it around .
Its also a great time to test your IMU angles with the drone by tilting it around until you get the IMU Error and it should go away quickly when it gets level.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Mavic 2 In the Rain.

 

[Camino Ken]

Is it set for manual or automatic focus?

 

[Lokinator]

It was set to Autofocus

 

[manowar_gub]

It was set to Autofocus

That is. Always shoot in Manual focus @ m2p: before takeoff adjust it into far objects in AF, then switch to MF. Check AFC option - to "disabled"

 

[Cymruflyer]

Where all those images, the sharp and un sharp during the same flight? Or were they all different flights? Seems like you did not focus before taking the photo or video. With that said, it is always best to take off, then hover and tap the screen to focus off in the distance somewhere usually toward the ground in case it can't grab the sky to focus properly, then go off and do you filming or still shots.

The only time I have had a problem with my M2Pro is when I forgot to manually tap the screen to set a focus point, so user error, not the drone.

There should be no need to set it to manual focus if you tap to focus, since everything is going to be in the depth of field of your first tap to focus function. Nothing will change as you fly around.

 

[Camino Ken]

Just as an experiment set it to AFC, autofocus continuous, and verify all are in focus.

 

[Lokinator]

I just wanted to say thanks for everyone's replies comments and feedback. I have NOT been able to recreate the problem so I will chaulk it up to user error.

Cymruflyer you asked - it was all the same day/hour but batteries were changed. its a live event with about a 45 min to 1:15 window so got it up made sure it looked great used the first battery...landed switched batteries blurry footage occurred during this battery , landed (not realizing they clips were blurry (small phone bright day so little harder to see) and went to the the 3rd battery - clips were sharp.​

Maybe I hit something with my fingers in a rush...it would be a first for me doing it as I have flown easily over 100 live events with other DJI drones and never saw this happen. I think maybe it went to macro mode (?) and then nothing was in focus but I would have thought it would have searched for something as NOTHING is in focus. A few had mentioned maybe a bad battery (as that seems to be the only link I can find) I have charged and used all 4 multiple times this week with no issues I played with both infinity focus and MF and it held fine.​

**** Pilots LOL!!
Thanks again for everyone's feedback!!

 

[Cymruflyer]

I just wanted to say thanks for everyone's replies comments and feedback. I have NOT been able to recreate the problem so I will chaulk it up to user error.

Cymruflyer you asked - it was all the same day/hour but batteries were changed. its a live event with about a 45 min to 1:15 window so got it up made sure it looked great used the first battery...landed switched batteries blurry footage occurred during this battery , landed (not realizing they clips were blurry (small phone bright day so little harder to see) and went to the the 3rd battery - clips were sharp.​

Maybe I hit something with my fingers in a rush...it would be a first for me doing it as I have flown easily over 100 live events with other DJI drones and never saw this happen. I think maybe it went to macro mode (?) and then nothing was in focus but I would have thought it would have searched for something as NOTHING is in focus. A few had mentioned maybe a bad battery (as that seems to be the only link I can find) I have charged and used all 4 multiple times this week with no issues I played with both infinity focus and MF and it held fine.​

**** Pilots LOL!!
Thanks again for everyone's feedback!!

Quite possibly you chose a close point of focus just before taking off and then the whole time it would not have been in focus. That has happened to me with both my old Mavic and the Mavic 2 Pro.

 

[jaybee2786]

Hi

I have a Mavic Pro 2 (my 2nd DJI drone and about my 5th overall). I was shooting today and 3 out of 17 clips came out soft. Nothing in focus at all. Batteries were changed but besides that no changes made to focus exposure etc. Funny thing is the first 10 clips sharp 3 bad then 4 sharp again. Conditions were optimal for flying, no wind. This is the 10th time atleast Ive shot with the mavic and all shoots were ok previously. Any ideas on what would cause this?? I am recharging batteries to take it out again to see if I can replicate the problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

check to see if there is a greasy finger print on the camera lens? check from where its in focus to where its out ie if its a blurred on the same spot ect

 

[Lokinator]

Okay I wanted to follow up with this....it happened again and I think i know and I blame it on DJI LOL!! I shot again in the Bahamas this past week and had a few clips do the same thing. All blurry nothing in focus. I think I was accidentally changing it to Manual focus. why everything would be blurry and nothing in focus makes no sense to me. But I flew several times and end up setting my focus to mid (not macro not infinity) and then set to Auto and that worked. I was also a little horrified that when it was this slightly out of focus I could NOT see that on my cell phone. The screen is just too small and its just slightly out so it does not show that detail. I did program one of my programable buttons to "Focus" just to verify during flying.
I am sure its my ignorance but dont really understand the manual focus. If I turn it to manual with Infinite it was still blurry.....what is it focusing on?
I know your saying this is not DJI fault its user error...my defense is I have flown 1000's of times with multiple drones by different manufacturers and have never had this problem. Not 1 blurry shot from any of them ever!! I chaulk it up to learning the equipment, just concerning it will let me do this if this is the actual problem. Have not had a best expierence with my Mavic Pro 2....dont get me started on the so called "Smart Controller" and what you have to go through to unlock the Geo Fencing.

Thanks
Bob

 

[Lokinator]

A little follow up and maybe my drone is broke or I am missing a setting but regardless of settings when the drone takes off the shot is out of focus and I have to click the AF and click the screen to get it to get and hold focus. Seems if I switch between manual or AF if I dont click at it to focus it starts off soft regardless of settings. Is this my drone?? If I click focus everything looks great...but even if I have AF set the footage looks soft if I dont tell it to verify focus. Any help would be much appreciated as minor it is and I will learn but something I so not have to do with any of my other drones.

 

[CanadaDrone]

You don't want to be using continuous AF for the majority of scenarios. The reason being is if it ever "hunts" or does a quick refocus, your footage is instantly ruined - and you may not notice this until you get home and watch it on a bigger screen if it's subtle. Professional videography in general is almost always done using manual focus for this reason. On top of this, the M2P does not have phase detect AF, only contrast detect AF, which means by design it has to hunt to focus (CDAF is a glorified guess and check algorithm, compared to PDAF which knows both the direction and how far to move the lens elements to focus).

The M2P has a small enough sensor still that with a 28mm (equivalent) lens, virtually everything is in focus from 2-3 feet in front of the lens at typical flight distances. Even at F2.8, it has the equivalent depth of field as F8 on a traditional full frame/35mm camera. By F4, where the lens is sharpest, it is equivalent to F11 on a full frame. So, unless you're flying extremely close to something, you will be much better off using focus peaking to set manual focus and leave it there. Focus peaking will also alert you if you ever do run into a scenario where your focus setting is not ideal. I haven't changed the focus on my M2P since I bought it when it was originally released and everything is always in perfect focus without ever having to worry about it.

You can either set it on the ground or in the air, but once set, you should never have to touch it again outside of some very specific scenarios. Just use focus peaking to set focus once manually on something representative of what you shoot and you're good to go - I think you will find this is just 1 or 2 clicks back from the infinity setting. You do not need to enter AF at any point to set MF either. Also in case it is not obvious, you don't have to touch the focus when switching between photo and video modes provided you have MF set properly in the first place.

 

[Lokinator]

Hi CanadaDrone
Thanks for the information and I totally agree. What totally caught me off guard Is I thought everything more than 5 feet away would be in focus and it wasnt. Never had a drone shoot out of focus footage ever, I agree just a few more clicks and not a big deal at all. I also got the smart controller working (after 6 hours on the phone with DJI) so I am hoping im over the initial "learning curve" with the Mavic.

 

[flysi3000]

Wow, this is illuminating. I've had my drone for 2 years+ and never had an issue with focus, so I've always took for it for granted. Well, I just shot some indoor and outdoor footage for a client; the outdoor stuff is amazing; the indoor test footage is amazing; but the indoor final footage is all out of focus (except for one shot). Never occurred to me that I could even shoot blurry footage with this thing.

 

[Cymruflyer]

Yep, always have to make sure you press that focus button once off the ground, to make sure you are focused on a distant object, or you may find it is all blurred when watching what was filmed later, which is often not possible to detect on your viewing screen while flying.

 

[Lokinator]

The only way I found around this works great it doing the filter that outlines in red what's in focus. I'll find it if need be but it will be your best friend. I won't shoot without now. But yes I agee I never thought I could shoot out of focus. This to me is a mavic thing and personally I don't like it. I'm shooting aerial footage why the hell would I want anything out of focus. And the idea u can shoot with nothing in focus is just messed up.