MINI 2 NOISE/GRAINY PHOTOS

[DroneFlyer569]

Hi,

So just got my Mini 2 today and have been taking some photos, but noticed all of them have a high amount of noise/grain in the images? I have played around with diffrent exposures as well as using auto mode and manual, but the noise still stays in the photos, especially when looking on land.

Has anyone had this issue before and is this just me taking the pictures or an actual error with the camera?

Have attached

 

[surfbird]

Cant see the image.

Did you pull the photos from the drone?

 

[Meta4]

Hi,

So just got my Mini 2 today and have been taking some photos, but noticed all of them have a high amount of noise/grain in the images?

Attaching a couple of examples would help.

 

[DroneFlyer569]

Cant see the image.

Did you pull the photos from the drone?

Yes this is the originial file off the drone as you can see the high amount of grain on the land

 

[Repaid1]

Yes this is the originial file off the drone as you can see the high amount of grain on the land

Hard to say without some sample pics, but you could try turning down sharpness by a click. Sounds like your not setting exposure right, or it's just too dark if your getting pixelization (Is that even a word?)

 

[Meta4]

Yes this is the originial file off the drone as you can see the high amount of grain on the land

No-one can see your picture because you didn't attach any picture.

 

[DroneFlyer569]

No-one can see your picture because you didn't attach any picture.

I did attach the image as i can see it now

 

[DroneFlyer569]

Hard to say without some sample pics, but you could try turning down sharpness by a click. Sounds like your not setting exposure right, or it's just too dark if your getting pixelization (Is that even a word?)

thats weird as did attach it, will attach it again

 

[Repaid1]

I did attach the image as i can see it now

Try again??

Okay got it now . Can't tell but looks like your ISO is way to high. Go with Manual settings, get your ISO to 100 or so, use your histogram to adjust, Lock ISO and go to lowest shutter speed if possible. Again your sharpness might need to come down a notch but with one picture hard to say...need video or more pictures The overcast sky isn't optimal as well, but it's that time of year in UK.

 

[DroneFlyer569]

Hard to say without some sample pics, but you could try turning down sharpness by a click. Sounds like your not setting exposure right, or it's just too dark if your getting pixelization (Is that even a word?)

the exposure was correct and have tried it on lighter exposures as well as dark, but the noise/grain still stays very clear on the ground, also shot it with auto mode as well so same issue, possibly a camera sensor issue

 

[DroneFlyer569]

Your doing something wrong...it's not there. It is just text that says: Have attached XXXXX.jpg

Try again??

 

[DroneFlyer569]

Try again??

Okay got it now . Can't tell but looks like your ISO is way to high. Go with Manual settings, get your ISO to 100 or so, use your histogram to adjust, Lock ISO and go to lowest shutter speed if possible. Again your sharpness might need to come down a notch but with one picture hard to say...need video or more pictures The overcast sky isn't optimal as well, but it's that time of year in UK.

this was another shot i got with the correct iso, does this look normal for a mini 2 image?

 

[Repaid1]

this was another shot i got with the correct iso, does this look normal for a mini 2 image?

Didn't really pixel-peep, but looks much better. It's not the best low light camera, but with a few settings here and there you should be able to find a happy medium..I don't see a sensor error at this point as your sun highlighted areas seem to be pretty darn close. But if you want...... exchange it if it is new enough and not a big hassle. If the second comes back giving same results then you will have your answer.

 

[Meta4]

this was another shot i got with the correct iso, does this look normal for a mini 2 image?

The metadata has been stripped off the first image you posted so I can't see what the camera settings were to compare.
The second photo looks great at ISO 100.
If you use ISO 100 whenever possible and otherwise keep the ISO as low as possible you should get good results most of the time.

 

[surfbird]

No need to change. No problems with the photos. It's more about how they are shot.

* Against the sun (mini lens is _very_ bad for sun glares).
* Exposed for the sky, makes the ground grainy.

To fix:
* Sun in the back (even 90 degrees seems to affect mini)
* Expose for the part of image you want to show. The example image is exposed for the sky, if you want to show the ground, expose for that.
* Lower contrast

Lens flares is the minis weakest point. I almost thought I got a bad drone myself. Sometimes the whitebalance even gets off.

 

[DroneFlyer569]

No need to change. No problems with the photos. It's more about how they are shot.

* Against the sun (mini lens is _very_ bad for sun glares).
* Exposed for the sky, makes the ground grainy.

To fix:
* Sun in the back (even 90 degrees seems to affect mini)
* Expose for the part of image you want to show. The example image is exposed for the sky, if you want to show the ground, expose for that.
* Lower contrast

Lens flares is the minis weakest point. I almost thought I got a bad drone myself. Sometimes the whitebalance even gets off.

so manual wise, what is the best common set up for it, like you hacve EV in auto, then the shutter speed and stuff.

Also do i just need to expose mainly for the ground?

 

[DroneFlyer569]

Didn't really pixel-peep, but looks much better. It's not the best low light camera, but with a few settings here and there you should be able to find a happy medium..I don't see a sensor error at this point as your sun highlighted areas seem to be pretty darn close. But if you want...... exchange it if it is new enough and not a big hassle. If the second comes back giving same results then you will have your answer.

since i got it second hand cant exhange it, but what settings should i use when shooting images to get good results without grain at 100iso, like the shutter speed and stuff?

 

[DroneFlyer569]

No need to change. No problems with the photos. It's more about how they are shot.

* Against the sun (mini lens is _very_ bad for sun glares).
* Exposed for the sky, makes the ground grainy.

To fix:
* Sun in the back (even 90 degrees seems to affect mini)
* Expose for the part of image you want to show. The example image is exposed for the sky, if you want to show the ground, expose for that.
* Lower contrast

Lens flares is the minis weakest point. I almost thought I got a bad drone myself. Sometimes the whitebalance even gets off.

Ok, applied the method you said so its blown out a bit on the sky, but does it now look better on the ground with no graib or noise?

 

[NDWildBill]

Keep ISO as low as possible, Set exposure (shutter speed, Ev) to keep histogram more to the left, then lighten the shadows in post. I shoot everything in raw and use lightroom to edit. There is other photo editing software that is cheaper or free that you can use to do the same thing.

this was another shot i got with the correct iso, does this look normal for a mini 2 image?

Here is your photo with just a couple minor lightroom tweeks. Adjusted highlights and shadows mainly. Its difficult to get everything properly exposed on cloudy days as you are discovering...expose for the shadows, blow out the whites, expose for the whites and shadows are too dark. Ansel Adams is one of my photographic heroes. He was probably more creative in the darkroom than he was behind the camera. Keep flying, keep trying. There is nothing wrong with your drone, in my opinion.

 

[DroneFlyer569]

Keep ISO as low as possible, Set exposure (shutter speed, Ev) to keep histogram more to the left, then lighten the shadows in post. I shoot everything in raw and use lightroom to edit. There is other photo editing software that is cheaper or free that you can use to do the same thing.

Here is your photo with just a couple minor lightroom tweeks. Adjusted highlights and shadows mainly. Its difficult to get everything properly exposed on cloudy days as you are discovering...expose for the shadows, blow out the whites, expose for the whites and shadows are too dark. Ansel Adams is one of my photographic heroes. He was probably more creative in the darkroom than he was behind the camera. Keep flying, keep trying. There is nothing wrong with your drone, in my opinion.

Cool, thanks for clearing it up. This is my first ever drone so very diffrent to my dslr camera that i normally use for photography as used to shooting underexposed and recovering it in post well with no grain due to the much bigger sensor it has.

Photo editing wise I actually use Luminar 4 as has all the manual controls of lightroom, but also has ai tools as well which you can see here how it is able to recover even the sky compared to the lightroom edit.