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RAW file is cropped and different to remote controller

Is THIS your card!? ?

(I meant controller.)

 

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I am using my Huawei phone. But I was wondering if the smart controller screen they are selling uses the same aspect ratio as the drone's, that would solve the problem

The answer is just as complicated as it is with your phone. The aspect ratio of your sensor is 3:2, the aspect ratio of standard HD (1920x1080) is 16:9.

I created a scale comparison of 3:2 to 16:9 in illustrator for you. (Attached.)

Your image sensor (3:2) is in red, and the DJI Smart Controller (16:9) is in blue. So basically, the "black bars" are on the right and left in this scenario, whereas your "black bars" are at the TOP with a 3:2 source and a 4:3 display.

My guess is, and this is only a guess, they've "optimized" the display of the DJI Smart Controller so that it looks awesome with the M2P, but you'd want to test that out before plunking down all that money.

Quick question: when you shoot with your phone, do you -not- have actual black-bars on the right and left or on the top and bottom? (I do on my phone.)

Cite:


Ultra-bright Screen: The built-in 5.5 inch screen boasts a high brightness of 1000 cd/m² and a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels.


Again, hope this helps!
 

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The point is that the aspect ratio of anything does not matter unless there is a bug somewhere since the default/correct behavior should be to just fit to screen without cropping anything.
If that is not done then it is a bug as first suggested.

I never noticed a framing issue with my M2, but since I mostly shoot landscapes with it it wouldn't pop up.
 
The answer is just as complicated as it is with your phone. The aspect ratio of your sensor is 3:2, the aspect ratio of standard HD (1920x1080) is 16:9.

I created a scale comparison of 3:2 to 16:9 in illustrator for you. (Attached.)

Your image sensor (3:2) is in red, and the DJI Smart Controller (16:9) is in blue. So basically, the "black bars" are on the right and left in this scenario, whereas your "black bars" are at the TOP with a 3:2 source and a 4:3 display.

My guess is, and this is only a guess, they've "optimized" the display of the DJI Smart Controller so that it looks awesome with the M2P, but you'd want to test that out before plunking down all that money.

Quick question: when you shoot with your phone, do you -not- have actual black-bars on the right and left or on the top and bottom? (I do on my phone.)

Cite:


Ultra-bright Screen: The built-in 5.5 inch screen boasts a high brightness of 1000 cd/m² and a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels.


Again, hope this helps!

For comparison, if you look at the image I shared of my iPhone XS Max screen, my "black bars" are HUGE because my screen's has a resolution of 2688 × 1242, with an aspect ratio of 448 : 207. Closest approximation is 4.5:2? I guess? Weird? So yeah. Huge black bars.
 
I don't remember seeing the black bars, everything is very close to the right and left edges on my mobile when using 3:2

Thanks for the link to the smart controller, I couldn't find the aspect ratio of the native dji smart controller in the pdf, nor when I googled for it
The answer is just as complicated as it is with your phone. The aspect ratio of your sensor is 3:2, the aspect ratio of standard HD (1920x1080) is 16:9.

I created a scale comparison of 3:2 to 16:9 in illustrator for you. (Attached.)

Your image sensor (3:2) is in red, and the DJI Smart Controller (16:9) is in blue. So basically, the "black bars" are on the right and left in this scenario, whereas your "black bars" are at the TOP with a 3:2 source and a 4:3 display.

My guess is, and this is only a guess, they've "optimized" the display of the DJI Smart Controller so that it looks awesome with the M2P, but you'd want to test that out before plunking down all that money.

Quick question: when you shoot with your phone, do you -not- have actual black-bars on the right and left or on the top and bottom? (I do on my phone.)

Cite:


Ultra-bright Screen: The built-in 5.5 inch screen boasts a high brightness of 1000 cd/m² and a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels.


Again, hope this helps!
 
The point is that the aspect ratio of anything does not matter unless there is a bug somewhere since the default/correct behavior should be to just fit to screen without cropping anything.
If that is not done then it is a bug as first suggested.

I never noticed a framing issue with my M2, but since I mostly shoot landscapes with it it wouldn't pop up.

Inaccurate. Aspect ratio always matters, when recording at an aspect ratio that differs from the display output.

As mentioned in a previous post, you have four options: You can crop the output, you can stretch the output, or you can put "black bars" (pad the output). Unless your screen is the same aspect ratio as your sensor, you MUST do one of those three things. Period. No argument or discussion. Stretch, crop, black-bar.
 
I don't remember seeing the black bars, everything is very close to the right and left edges on my mobile when using 3:2

Thanks for the link to the smart controller, I couldn't find the aspect ratio of the native dji smart controller in the pdf, nor when I googled for it

I think your padding (black bars) are at the top and bottom of the screen, so you wouldn't notice them as much. Take a screen capture on your phone, with your M2P shooting a white background/piece of paper full frame (doesn't need to be in focus), and share what you see. My guess is, you'll see white in the center, and black bars at the top and bottom.

If you -DON'T- see black bars, then DJI Go is either stretching the output (to make it taller) and/or cropping (making it less wide). There are no other options.
 
Just for a little perspective, people sometimes forget that we've been dealing with aspect ratio issues for decades.

Image attached shows what happens when you try to watch a wide-screen movie (16:9) on an NTSC screen (4:3 standard old-style TV, not HD).

Back then, you had TWO choices:

They would either do "black bars" so you could see the entire picture, OR, they would do this, called "pan and scan" or whatever, and they would "pan/scan" the screen, so you could see the "important" part, which effectively crops the left and/or right, so it fits on the 4:3 screen. Was super ugly. You'd miss a lot.

The main problem with padding with black bars is, although it's visually more accurate (you see everything from the original film), there is wasted space in the black bars.

They also had a third option, where it would basically "stretch" (either the TV or the media player would do this), so that it would "stretch" the output into the black bar area.

The smarter "stretching" would stretch logarithmically, so the center (where you are normally looking) stretched less than the edges (top and bottom, usually), so you don't notice the stretching as much. Linear stretching, you absolutely notice, especially if you look at another TV next to it with the log stretching or no stretching. It's ugly.

Anyway, hope this helps!
 

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I don't remember seeing the black bars, everything is very close to the right and left edges on my mobile when using 3:2

I think the best way to test to see exactly what DJI Go is doing when displaying on your phone, would be to just have some sort of white-card with grid lines in front of the camera. If the card is white, you can see the black bars much more obviously. Depending on if your phone has a bezel or not (mine has a very small bezel which is covered 100% by my case), the black bars might be small enough to appear to be a part of the bezel itself, if your screen has a high enough contrast ratio, and your blacks are really black, the "black bar" might look identical to your bezel.

I just looked up the Huawei Mate 20 Pro and they sell it as a "bezel-less" phone so...yeah, that's not your problem.

I'd say hold the M2P up to a white piece of paper, full frame, doesn't matter if it's in focus or not, just fill the frame/image sensor. Then look at what you're seeing on-screen.

If it's full-white, then they are either cropping visually, or stretching (ick, not likely).

If it's black-bars (padded) at the top and bottom, that's expected. It's possible the black bars might be small, but they should still be there. A place where the "white" of the image of the paper doesn't show up. With a bezel-less phone, it should be noticeable.

You can also take a screen capture, which would show the black bars in the stored screen cap itself, and that's 100% obvious they're padding it. The screen capture will "prove" to you if they're padding versus stretching or cropping.

Not owning an Android phone, I can't really test how they've implemented this in the Android version of the DJI Go app. They could be wildly different. I can only say my iOS devices pad (black bars), not crop or stretch.
 
Actually Lightroom ACR both crop the image from what is captured natively. Most don't realize this, as they don't have multiple raw converters to view. LR uses the DJI Manufacturer profile, there is no way to LR or ACR to change this that I know of. See screen shots below, from LR, and Capture One. Capture One allows multiple lens profiles besides the manufacturer profile, but also, when you load a DNG from the M2 Pro, by default C1 crops the image back to the profile. Note in my screen shot, the dark black edges. YOU can get this back in C1 by use of the crop tool, however the details towards these edges especially the side tend to be less than stellar with the stock profile. C1 allows use of a "generic" profile. I use this 90% of the time. Has other issues which can be worked around, however the edge sharpness is much better.

I don't know of anyway to alter LR/ACR to allow you to use full the full image. The Mavic 2 Pro has no 4:3 ratio offering, 4:3 is similar to output like 16 x 20, or 11 x 14. The P4 Pro offers this. The 16:9 ratio is not the same as 4:3.

My attachments:

1. is C1 with the manufacturer profile where I used crop tool to stretch it.
2. is C1 with manufacturer profile showing stock load of image
3. is LR showing it's only view available of same raw file, note it's available image info is equal to C1's before I stretched it.



Paul C
 

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Actually Lightroom ACR both crop the image from what is captured natively. Most don't realize this, as they don't have multiple raw converters to view. LR uses the DJI Manufacturer profile, there is no way to LR or ACR to change this that I know of. See screen shots below, from LR, and Capture One. Capture One allows multiple lens profiles besides the manufacturer profile, but also, when you load a DNG from the M2 Pro, by default C1 crops the image back to the profile. Note in my screen shot, the dark black edges. YOU can get this back in C1 by use of the crop tool, however the details towards these edges especially the side tend to be less than stellar with the stock profile. C1 allows use of a "generic" profile. I use this 90% of the time. Has other issues which can be worked around, however the edge sharpness is much better.

I don't know of anyway to alter LR/ACR to allow you to use full the full image. The Mavic 2 Pro has no 4:3 ratio offering, 4:3 is similar to output like 16 x 20, or 11 x 14. The P4 Pro offers this. The 16:9 ratio is not the same as 4:3.

My attachments:

1. is C1 with the manufacturer profile where I used crop tool to stretch it.
2. is C1 with manufacturer profile showing stock load of image
3. is LR showing it's only view available of same raw file, note it's available image info is equal to C1's before I stretched it.



Paul C

Ahh, okay. So let's be clear. This is not a problem with anything other than Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom (which uses the same engine under the hood).


The problem is, these lenses are cheap, and the corners look like garbage, so they have these lens profiles embedded into the RAW files. ACR and LR both ENFORCE the embedded lens profile with no known way to turn that off. So yes, you get some cropping. That's not a bug with your M2P, DJI Go, your phone, the controller you were considering buying.

The bug is with Adobe, and the fix is to make embedded lens profiles optional (with a checkmark box or a slider), so you can effectively turn them off. That would give you the full, unadulterated image. The RAW file isn't being cropped. The RAW file is fine. The program interpreting the RAW file is "adjusting" the image in ways that effectively crops the image. It's not really cropping...it's doing a transform to fix the known lens aberrations, which, to keep things square, has to crop as the last step.

If we could turn that off, we could then have the full image as shot.

Thanks for weighing in!
 
Correct, but in LR/ACR as you point out, there is not way to disable the built in profile. But I believe it's the DJI profile, that is being read. Remember with any mirrorless camera LR works the same way. All Fuji X cameras for example LR is reading the built in lens info from the exif. With a Nikon Z7, you have a check box to "enable profile corrections" but this is misleading as again LR is pulling them from the exif. If you hit the check box LR has nothing listed for the Z7. This is the all mirrorless work in most situations.

Capture One is allowing you to see the full size of the 3:2 image without any profile corrections applied.

It's my opinion DJI made this info as is due to the fact that they knew the edges would be softer and have less details. Also if you aim the M2 Pro gimbal up at all, there is a ton of distortion on the horizon, which the LR profile is removing to the loss of overall image. C1 does the same thing again.

I still prefer the generic profile in C1 as it give by far the most edge details, you have to do warping on any files that were not shot level, but it's small price to pay.

Note, you can check the box in LR for the DNG, to load a manual profile. LR lists older DJI products like Inspire 1, Phantom 3 and 4 (not pro) and zenmuse. None of the fix the issue of the missing image material. In fact, no profile from any camera will do it that I found.

Paul C
 
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As an aside, I have added my (paying, Adobe Creative Cloud subscription) voice to the Feedback.Photoshop link, requesting that they add a check-mark box (or boxes - the lens profiles contain multiple fix types).

In the short term (they've been complaining about this for over two years, so who knows how long this will take to actually get this fix implemented by Adobe), here's a "temporary" workaround that someone mentioned, if you need to stick with ACR/LR:

Here's how to remove embedded lens corrections:

1. Convert a folder of raws to DNG using Adobe's DNG Converter:
Adobe Digital Negative Converter

2. Run ExifTool over the folder to remove the lens corrections:
https://forums.adobe.com/message/10070106#10070106

3. Import the modified DNGs into LR.

Hope this helps even more! ?
 
Correct, but in LR/ACR as you point out, there is not way to disable the built in profile. But I believe it's the DJI profile, that is being read. Remember with any mirrorless camera LR works the same way. All Fuji X cameras for example LR is reading the built in lens info from the exif. With a Nikon Z7, you have a check box to "enable profile corrections" but this is misleading as again LR is pulling them from the exif. If you hit the check box LR has nothing listed for the Z7. This is the all mirrorless work in most situations.

Capture One is allowing you to see the full size of the 3:2 image without any profile corrections applied.

It's my opinion DJI made this info as is due to the fact that they knew the edges would be softer and have less details. Also if you aim the M2 Pro gimbal up at all, there is a ton of distortion on the horizon, which the LR profile is removing to the loss of overall image. C1 does the same thing again.

I still prefer the generic profile in C1 as it give by far the most edge details, you have to do warping on any files that were not shot level, but it's small price to pay.

Note, you can check the box in LR for the DNG, to load a manual profile. LR lists older DJI products like Inspire 1, Phantom 3 and 4 (not pro) and zenmuse. None of the fix the issue of the missing image material. In fact, no profile from any camera will do it that I found.

Paul C

Yeah, I've worked with C1 and other RAW conversion tools/utilities before. There's a lot that goes on "under the hood" with lens profiles - either embedded or detected.

When ACR/LR detects a RAW image, it forces the embedded profile.

But if there's no embedded profile, it looks at the EXIF data to see what camera and lens the image was shot with. If there's a match, it pulls up automatically. You can enable/disable this, which is nice. You can also manually select a camera/lens combo if it doesn't auto-detect (happens to me sometimes - I have a lot of cameras and lenses).

But it's a HUGE oversight on Adobe's part to not have an option to disable the embedded profile, and manually dial-in those settings so the image looks good to -your- eye and taste, not the manufacturer's eye and taste.

Hopefully we'll get Adobe on the ball and implement this missing feature. I can't imagine it would take Adobe engineering more than a day or two to fix the problem - just add a switch that bypasses that processing. Easy.
 
I wish you all the luck with that, (no offense meant), Adobe is strictly a one and done. They never hardly ever re-look at anything. I agree that they totally need to rework the Mavic 2 Pro profile. Note also they color profile suck for this also, and they don't give you anything beside the stock Adobe and Modern, both of which IMO suffer compared to C1. C1 is not a cake walk but it's so much better IMO for the Mavic 2 Pro. You have to pick a camera color profile, but the Sony RX100 works great out of the box, it's the same sensor or close. But thats' another story. Adobe has never re-worked their pano algorithms since around CC 2015, (lots of room for improvement), their Content aware is based on the same old version of CC even though they claim it's not.

I am just surprised folks are just seeing this issue, I guess most are shooting jpg and with jpg it's I don't believe it's an issue.

Paul C
 
You can crop the output, you can stretch the output, or you can put "black bars" (pad the output). Unless your screen is the same aspect ratio as your sensor, you MUST do one of those three things
Yes, and padding is the only valid option for a "viewfinder", so if that's not done here it's a bug. Especially since it's (correctly) always been that way for DJI things.
My point is, once you've chosen the proper method for your application the aspect ratio does not matter, it'll always be displayed in the intended way.
 
I am just surprised folks are just seeing this issue, I guess most are shooting jpg and with jpg it's I don't believe it's an issue.

I just did a quick test on the Mavic Air, and saw two things:

1) The aspect ratio appears to be a sensor setting - so that when the RAW file is written out, it writes out the aspect ratio you choose. This means that the sensor is cropping what it sees to the specified aspect ratio, if that aspect ratio does not match the image sensor's native resolution. (As discussed, the Mavic Air is different from the Mavic 2 Pro)

2) The built-in/embedded lens profile is only seen in RAW files.

That does not mean that the "weird cropping issue" mentioned by the OP goes away. I think it's just a difference between who/what does the cropping.

In the case of a JPEG, the aircraft does the tweaking/fixing/cropping on-board, then writes out the JPEG. It's baked in.

In the case of a RAW file, if you select the aspect ratio of the native resolution of your camera's image sensor, you get that sidecar/metadata embedded lens profile which, in every other RAW application, you can disable, and ta-daaa, see the entire image, terrible corner blemishes and all. If you select a "cropped" aspect ratio (one that differs from the native resolution of your camera), then you are not getting the whole picture (what the image sensor sees) anyway.

But I'm assuming that in ALL cases listed above, if you shot a big target that more than filled the image sensor's vision range, you'd see that both JPEG and RAW are doing the same "cropping" step at the end, otherwise, the images would come out looking weird.

I should probably go ahead and buy one of the full-sized camera test targets, because the minimum focusing distance for most of these critters is two or three feet, so you need a larger target to fill the space. (Any closer, to make it "bigger", and it goes blurry.) Hard to test without one.

Or I could just buy a big foam core sheet, and make markings on that. But I'm too lazy. ?
 
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