Photo IQ

[sjrash]

Here's a sample from the mini3p shot with fairly dull light too, for comparison. It was shot raw and run thru lightroom, with a bit of highlight/shadows balancing, sharpeneing, denoising, colour balancing etc.

Note this was shot at the default 12mp rather than the 48mp setting. 48mp only tends to give much of an improvement when lighting is quite good, and can also end up with purple fringing on very high contrast areas. It's an artefact of demosaicing and not typical chromatic abberation. I mostly use the 12mp setting as it typically gives better image quality.

I had a mini1 prior to this, which has the same camera hardware as the mini2 (mini2 firmware gives you raw stills and 4k video) and I find there's a noticable improvement in image quality with the mini3p.

Beautiful photo!

 

[sjrash]

Thanks! This is Stirling Castle in central Scotland. A fascinating place, steeped in history! I hadn't really given this photo much attention until now, and I've grown to really like it too! Reposted in the photos/videos area so more folks can enjoy it

I have a chance to win a trip to Scotland. Would love to see this in person.

 

[Felix le Chat]

Thanks Felix, a very informative reply. I am actually amazed the little 12mp camera does so well...

My pleasure. I was very skeptical about the mini 3 pro claim to '48'mp, having previously owned a nano+ (claimed 50mp). Compared to the Autel bird, the mini 3 pro is like a top quality bridge camera versus one of the cheapo point-and-click efforts.

 

[RogerDH]

Thanks Felix, a very informative reply. I am actually amazed the little 12mp camera does so well...

There seems to be some confusion about Quad Bayer sensors, but it really is 48mp. The 12mp mode "bins" 4-pixel groups into one, which improves low light performance because the 4 small pixels act like 1 large one, and it also reduces apparent noise.

(I blame most of the confusion on one particular "influencer" who misunderstood the Quad Bayer technology and thought that 1 pixel was somehow split into 4, which really makes no sense.)

 

[waynorth]

There seems to be some confusion about Quad Bayer sensors, but it really is 48mp

That depends on how you look at the cooperation between the sensor and the bayer filter.
But the fact is that a 48MP Quad Bayer sensor/filter combination, does not give you more detail in the image than a 12MP image from the same sensor. Higher apparent resolution yes (meaning more megapixels), but not more detail. Because quad bayer sensors put four pixels behind each colour square in the bayer filter instead of just one.
A true 48MP sensor has one pixel behind each colour square (R, G and B), thus captures more detail.

 

[Don Testme]

Yesss, I absolutely and fully agree. I hate TLA's!
(hehe, Three Letter Acronyms)

I went across a CW. The TL turned red. I almost PMPs. A UAV with his PIC was filming me.

Hee Hee LOL.

ANYWAY, I think you should have gotten a mavic 3 mini. I haven't used one , but I hear their imaging is much better.

 

[RogerDH]

That depends on how you look at the cooperation between the sensor and the bayer filter.

Well, no, saying it's really a 48mp sensor depends only on counting the photodiodes on the chip: 48 million. That's 48 million light intensity data points, which is in fact more detail than a 12mp sensor. The Quad Bayer technology means only that the estimated color of those pixels is less accurate than a 48mp sensor with standard filtering. In practice, the Quad Bayer sensors also suffer from having much smaller photodiodes than a standard-filter 48mp sensor. (The reason they're using Quad Bayer is that they can make photodiodes smaller than standard filter lenses.)