If I were you I would not waste time on any of that. Just bind the controller to the drone so you can operate it and test the cameras. You do not even need to fly the drone. Just stick it in an open window with a distant view or drive somewhere, put the drone on roof of your car or do anything which allows you to take a few good testshots. Then download the files into your comp and do your rigour. Only if satisfied with IQ of all 3 cameras do the cleaning of the sticky stuff, FW upgrades etc etc..and when the batteries looked dirty like that, check if they have any cycles..
Had DJI call to confirm the drone was received in good order. They also asked if I had flown it and checked the camera and lenses whilst in flight. They also asked if I would mind checking it in flight and test the camera in flight.
So it would appear I cannot do the minimal check you suggested.
I took it out this morning.
The 1x camera suffers from the same affliction the previous one did.
The 3x and 7x are sharp, edge to edge at f2.8
The x3 48mp mode is effectively interpolated, whilst it produces a large file, the 12mp file and enhanced in photoshop AI is way better.
f2.8 for the 1x is blurred at the bottom right, soft significantly top left and marginal blur bottom left.
Oddly, slower shutter speeds work better - anything below 60th/sec. 15th sharpest. Makes no difference until 2 secs.
100 iso smoothest as to be expected.
200-400 passable but with colour noise in the green range.
800 iso starting to get heavy grain and significant colour noise, and if left with the manufacturers profile starting to defocus at even f5.6 with default manufacturers noise reduction.
1600 falling apart and very noticeable grain and colour noise.
1600 iso onwards, forget i, unless you like grain and colour noise without a lot of tweaking in post where you will lose quality.
When printing, leaving the grain is better than noise reduction.
Any of the shots have artefacts in the dngs when sharpening. Way more than the Autel.
The manufacturers profile produces more distortion to the edges than less. Now using capture one 23 which is better than C1 21.
Lightroom 2023 and manufacturers lens profile results in hardware produced distorted edges.
Oddly using a generic profile or Fuji 100s profile works best but still blurred edges at f2.8 with the 1x lens.
F3.5 better edges
F4.5 almost there
F5.6 best minimal blurring to edges but still noticeable but correctable with selective sharpening to price a sharpish image.
F6.1-f11 no difference (no diffraction) as long as the iso is set to 100 and shutter speed can be as low as needed.
Autel is sharper edge to edge at f2.8 and amazing at f5.6
All shot in dng.
Panoramic mode jpg is a bag of crap at the bottom most likely due to the distortion of the lens.
The drone flies really well and if I was buying it for flying I would keep it.
x100 photos, and x15 videos later, at pretty much, every iso and f stop and shutter speed combo that matters.
Anything above 400 iso produces grain in video and photos. Too much gain imposed by sensor.
Shutter speed makes no difference to sharpness even when kept slow. High shutter speeds are as useless as f2.8.
This one is going back as well.
If the next one is the same I’ll just go back to Autel, least I know the camera and digital files from it will be fine out of the box.
It’s just the flying Autel struggles with along with the OA issues.
