Photo Quality - so so

[minipro3]

After a Phantom 1 with a GoPro 3, and then a Phantom 3 with ultimately a "pro" camera, I bought a Mavic Air 2. I got it from the catalog internet place B&H. I've purchased other equipment from them and have been fine with it. Admittedly not really well-versed in drone cameras, I asked the salesman if the photo and video quality would be as good as my previous Phantom, and he said it would be better. It is definitely NOT. It's not even quite equal.

I love the way it flies, handles, the RTH capabilities, and lots of the other aspects of the Air 2, but the main reason I have it is for photography and I'm anything but thrilled. I've had it for awhile now, but today thought I'd let them know that I wasn't happy with the salesman telling me what I wanted to hear, just so he could make a sale. Ironically, if he'd taken a minute to find out, I would probably have gone up a notch or two and he'd have gotten a larger commission. But no, he just decided to make the sale and be done with it.

B&H's reply was mostly, "Uh, sorry." I'm not sure what I expected them to say, but I'd think they'd be more concerned about their salespeople's techniques.

True, I could have done more homework, but he could have also asked me to hold for a moment while HE looked into it... better yet, he could have been knowledgeable about the products he was selling and not made up the answers.

OK, I'm vented. Thank you.

 

[minipro3]

That’s why I don’t like salesmen across the board. Been lied to many times.

 

[Melvoid]

There's something wrong with the settings or the drone if you aren't getting great quality better than the Phantom.

I recently hired someone to do some photos for me. He had a nice website and seemed to know what he was doing. BUT he sent me dog **** quality. I asked him to reshoot and second round was just as bad. I hadn't realized how small the file sizes were initially. But realized he was taking the low resolution previews from the SD card on his controller. I was shocked when he told me that's the way he'd been doing it for years.

Yeah, not sure if that's in settings, but mine currently only gives me .JPG, .DNG (RAW), and .MP4. My GoPro does the THM extension, which are thumbnails but I usually delete those right away. I look at the .JPGs to decide what to use, then use the corresponding .DNG in Photoshop to dress it up a bit.

Part of it might be that the Phantom had a "Vivid" setting for stills, which was sort of an HDR result, and the Mavic doesn't. I'm comparing those, where the Phantom's were richer or more colorful. The Mavic has an "HDR" setting for video and I usually use that because of the colors.

 

[Melvoid]

That’s why I don’t like salesmen across the board. Been lied to many times.

Yup. As I said, I'm at least partially to blame for not doing enough of my own homework.

 

[Meta4]

Yup. As I said, I'm at least partially to blame for not doing enough of my own homework.

Maybe a little more for not having much understanding of photography too?
There's a lot more to getting good photographic results than having a good camera and using "correct" settings.
Both of those drones have good enough cameras to get good photos.
But even with the best camera and using "correct" settings, you can still capture a lot of mediocre images.

 

[Melvoid]

Well, if that's the case, then the Phantom's defaults or auto settings were better than the Mavic's.

I appreciate everyone's input, but I think we've exhausted the subject.

Thanks