RAW file is cropped and different to remote controller

[Amarand]

I think the main problem is, if you're using Lightroom or Adobe Camera RAW (which I do), you lose the functionality of disabling or adjusting/tweaking the embedded camera profile like you can in almost every other RAW editor I've ever used.

I use Lightroom because it's a fantastic database for my close to a million images. It's a part of my workflow.

But I also see where, although Adobe is awesome, and super powerful, there are limitations because it's a "jack of all trades" company. So, for example, Capture One does a great job of RAW tweaking and editing - far better than any of the Adobe products - but for the average photographer, no one cares. Adobe is good enough. The non-overlap features of Capture One (or any other RAW specialty app) don't make up for decades of Lightroom/Photoshop experience that a lot of photographers have.

So...as a subscribing customer, I threw my two cents into a pre-existing bug report, and hopefully, Adobe will add this functionality. Should be as simple as clicking a few checkmark boxes (the embedded lens profile does a few things, maybe you want one but not the others), but the point is, for someone like the OP, they should be able to have complete creative control over the RAW file, including the messy corners and other lens abberations. Lightroom and ACR do not currently do this. Sadly.

 

[blacksheep]

I have been using a micro 4/3 camera for 5 years now. The lenses are designed to be used with software correction. I’ve tried disabling correction and found a built in crop. I’m thinking the issue here is nothing to do with LR or ACR, they are working as designed but rather GO is showing the wrong thing on the display, it should crop to match what LR will give.

 

[WithTheBirds]

I have been using a micro 4/3 camera for 5 years now. The lenses are designed to be used with software correction. I’ve tried disabling correction and found a built in crop. I’m thinking the issue here is nothing to do with LR or ACR, they are working as designed but rather GO is showing the wrong thing on the display, it should crop to match what LR will give.

The reality is that DJI may be pulling a similar stunt to what they did with the P4 pro. Pre process the raw to compensate for exceptionally poor performance of the lens at the edges of the frame.

 

[Amarand]

I have been using a micro 4/3 camera for 5 years now. The lenses are designed to be used with software correction. I’ve tried disabling correction and found a built in crop. I’m thinking the issue here is nothing to do with LR or ACR, they are working as designed but rather GO is showing the wrong thing on the display, it should crop to match what LR will give.

When shooting with my cameras that offer embedded lens correction, I can not disable this correction in LR or ACR. But I can in other tools like Capture One. So the corrections (including the final crop step), are being forced by LR/ACR engine.

Regarding the view on DJI Go app, everything is speed. You are watching a video stream. Quick and dirty processing on the aircraft, streamed to the RC then display device.

Once you’re on the ground, that’s when you have time to process your RAW images. What you see in an LCD display on the back of any camera is always a quick and dirty JPG rendering when you’re shooting in RAW. You’re never looking at the original RAW image until you open it on your computer with an app that has your camera’s very specific RAW decoding algorithm.

Originally, I had misunderstood the OP’s concern with “cropping.” In the end, the difference between what you see on the screen (streaming video) and what is recorded in the RAW file are apple’s and oranges, and always will be. That’s how cameras work.

Now, shooting JPG, you lose a lot of editing latitude, but I imagine the JPG would look closer to the “quick and dirty” encoding of the streamed video from the aircraft.

The resolution (per frame) is 1080p in the streamed video. Completely different from a full single RAW frame.

 

[WithTheBirds]

When shooting with my cameras that offer embedded lens correction, I can not disable this correction in LR or ACR. But I can in other tools like Capture One. So the corrections (including the final crop step), are being forced by LR/ACR engine.

Regarding the view on DJI Go app, everything is speed. You are watching a video stream. Quick and dirty processing on the aircraft, streamed to the RC then display device.

Once you’re on the ground, that’s when you have time to process your RAW images. What you see in an LCD display on the back of any camera is always a quick and dirty JPG rendering when you’re shooting in RAW. You’re never looking at the original RAW image until you open it on your computer with an app that has your camera’s very specific RAW decoding algorithm.

Originally, I had misunderstood the OP’s concern with “cropping.” In the end, the difference between what you see on the screen (streaming video) and what is recorded in the RAW file are apple’s and oranges, and always will be. That’s how cameras work.

Now, shooting JPG, you lose a lot of editing latitude, but I imagine the JPG would look closer to the “quick and dirty” encoding of the streamed video from the aircraft.

The resolution (per frame) is 1080p in the streamed video. Completely different from a full single RAW frame.

Nearfield monitors in the studio control room or mastering suite won’t give you the full audio range that might be resolved by a big high end reproduction system either. If you understand the limitations it doesn’t matter. At least not to the extent that it may have relevance to producing the final product. The image rendered in the GO downlink is more than might be required to ensure the image is composed and exposed in line with creative and technical decisions. How accurate was the viewfinder image on a film camera in informing you what the prints/transparencies might look like?

All you have offered has little to do with the OP’s question as you have now seemingly realised.

The solution is to frame inside the boundaries of the frame as depicted in the live feed.

What you loose at the extents if the frame you probably wouldn’t want in your images anyway. DJI didn’t decide to crop it out in pre processing because it was good.

 

[Amarand]

All you have offered has little to do with the OP’s question as you have now seemingly realised.

The solution is to frame inside the boundaries of the frame as depicted in the live feed.

What you loose at the extents if the frame you probably wouldn’t want in your images anyway. DJI didn’t decide to crop it out in pre processing because it was good.

That's not true at all. The OP made the assumption that DJI Go was at fault, and that's an inaccurate statement.

When shooting RAW (which the OP is doing), there are several types of "crops" happening:

1) When switching between 16:9 and 4:3 (or 3:2) mode in the still photos settings, you are introducing (or removing, if you select the native aspect ratio of your sensor) a sensor crop. The sensor itself ignores the pixels outside of that range. This is not what the OP is talking about.

2) When you are flying, and looking at the 1080p screen, that's 1980x1080 pixels. That is NOT the same aspect ratio as the sensor (unless you're running in the sensor-cropped mode listed in #1 above, but why would you do that, when you can do a better job of cropping/fiddling with the bits later on your image editor at home?), so what you see on the screen may differ from the recorded RAW image you get when you get home. I don't think this is likely, however, because I shot some test shots myself, and DJI Go appears to place black bars on the side, on my iPhone XS Max, because the 4:3 native resolution/aspect ratio of the Mavic Air is narrower than the native resolution/aspect ratio of my phone. THIS IS IMPORTANT to the discussion. However, it's less important than....

3) There's a bug in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw, not present in other RAW editors like Capture One, where embedded lens profiles are forced - there's no way to turn them off. All of the items above are true, and matter when composing a shot, but this is likely the underlying reason for the problem, and the eventual fix.

Right now, the OP has four choices:

• Continue to use LR/ACR, accept the weird post-cropping, and do what they do in the TV/movie studios on monitors: put some tape (physical or mental) in the areas you know are going to be cropped every single time, and just pull back to give yourself some extra wiggle room. It's not rocket science. I've worked as an engineer for decades. Just ignore the margins.
• Continue to use LR/ACR, and use the work-around mentioned in a previous post, where you remove the lens profile from the RAW file, which means LR/ACR won't have a mandatory set of rules to apply, leaving you with the original RAW image (and all that cheap-lens weirdness in the corner that now, YOU will have to crop out and tweak manually for every image).
• Switch to a different RAW editor like Capture One. I'm personally not a fan of asking someone to change their workflow, as I know I have a lot of time invested in mine.
• Put up with the bug/feature in LR/ACR until Adobe fixes the problem and adds the ability to ignore the lens profile.

Adobe and competitors are always neck-and-neck with features. If the community complains loud enough - and shows how a competitor has an important professional feature that the Adobe offering does not - they'll fix the problem. It's just a few days worth of coding.

In the end - and I want to be very clear on this - this is NOT a DJI Go bug. There are many ways to look at this issue, and some of them involve the way you capture the image ("ignore the margins" and "pull back"), some of them involve your workflow ("choose a different, more powerful RAW editor that gives you the control you need" or "accept the limitations of the inexpensive lens with aberrations and shoot around that").

Blaming your RC software (DJI Go) for this reported issue is a fallacy. Also, you'd have the same issue with the Smart Controller.

I suspect that I'll need to pull out the test charts and take actual pictures with numbers to show folks, because some in this thread are confused.

 

[Amarand]

Nearfield monitors in the studio control room or mastering suite won’t give you the full audio range that might be resolved by a big high end reproduction system either. If you understand the limitations it doesn’t matter. At least not to the extent that it may have relevance to producing the final product. The image rendered in the GO downlink is more than might be required to ensure the image is composed and exposed in line with creative and technical decisions. How accurate was the viewfinder image on a film camera in informing you what the prints/transparencies might look like?

Part of this is borderline off-topic.

I'm not talking about the quality of the viewfinder. I've used various viewfinders in hundreds of cameras since the 70's. I know how they work, I know their limitations. I know that some technology has parallax (physical separation from viewfinder and lens), and some technology does not (TTL/SLR). Some of the TTL/SLR technology has near 100% coverage, while others do not. Depends on how the prisms, mirrors and lenses are aligned. I have a few cameras that are close to 100% coverage, and a few that are closer to 90%.

I also shot film for decades, and know that what you see through the lens is generally close enough to what you get on the film. I had to work with the concept of waiting days or weeks (depending on if I had an active darkroom nearby) before I could see the final output/print.

The image rendered in the DJI Go downlink is a 1080p video stream, compressed for transmission over a beefed-up WiFi connection. The quality of the stream is not what's being discussed here. It's the coverage of what the sensor sees (and records raw) versus what the video algorithm sends out to the downlink. I don't know if the coverage is the same. I'd have to test it, with a chart, and see what's missing.

I'd have to take LR/ACR out of the equation, first, to make sure that it's absolutely the embedded lens corrections that were the problem. I'd take screen captures of what I saw on-screen, and compare them to the resulting RAW file in Capture One. Take a screen shot of that. And then compare that to what LR/ACR shows on-screen with the embedded lens profiles.

I haven't fiddled with Capture One in years, so it's not installed on my computer. If it were, I'd already have all of this here in the forum.

Also, I don't have a large enough sensor-filling target, because my Mavic Air has a minimal focusing distance of a few feet out, which means the target has to be big in order to be in-focus. I haven't had a chance to make one up yet. Perhaps someone here in the forum has already done this work?

Every single thing I've offered in this thread should be useful to a person who says that "DJI Go is cropping my RAW images." It's all useful information. True, there's some information that's more useful (it's actually LR/ACR that's "cropping" your image as a part of the application of the mandatory embedded lens profile process), and some information that's less useful (your 1080p video stream has a different aspect ratio than the sensor - but with padding [which they do] should be enough to accurately compose shots), but this is all germane information for the OP.

 

[Amarand]

Here's a set of "mask" comparisons for video. A decent visual example of how aspect ratios are important.

When I worked in special effects, back in the day, we'd just put physical masking tape on the studio monitors, so everyone could easily ignore all but the safe recording area. We always had to crop for final output.




I share this because, if you're recording one thing, but your output is cropping, just pull back, into the safe-zone, and you can choose exactly where to crop.

I recently took a Lynda.com videography course where they recommended (as an exercise) putting masking tape on the monitor, to get you used to pulling back, to account for edge lens aberrations in cheap lenses, but also, to account for various differences in output. If you're recording at 4:3 or 3:2 but your final output is 16:9, something's going to get cropped or padding will need to be added.

 

[Paul2660]

The M2 Pro has no 4:3 setting. It’s either 16:9 or 3:2. I have double checked this. As I remember the older MPP does have this setting. If selected on a P4 Pro your image view is altered to that effect. I tend to use the 4:3 setting on the P4 Pro for stills as the edges tend to be softer.

C1 shows the full size of the raw. See my previous post.

I believe LR and ACR treat the raw as they do all mirrorless raw i.e. they read the embedded exit for lens info and apply it to the file.

Either DJI’s embedded info is incorrect or Adobe is reading it incorrectly. Either way LR crops the raw. And selection of a different profile (lens) makes no difference that I can tell.

I agree that ones workflow is important and changing it is not a quick thing.

It’s worth looking at C1 as I find it’s overall raw conversion is preferred over ACR for color, noise, and sharpness. 30 day trial will let you see the difference in how the raws are treated. Remember C1 also loads the same lens info and the file shows the same degree of cropping on import. But hit the crop tool and you will see the black borders which can be removed in C1 to see the entire raw.

The vast majority of folks using this drone are using jpgs and not raw so are not aware of the issues around the raws.

Paul C

 

[Amarand]

The M2 Pro has no 4:3 setting. It’s either 16:9 or 3:2. I have double checked this. As I remember the older MPP does have this setting. If selected on a P4 Pro your image view is altered to that effect. I tend to use the 4:3 setting on the P4 Pro for stills as the edges tend to be softer.

I believe the 4:3 versus 3:2 is the difference between the two drone’s Native resolution aspect ratio. Whereas 16:9 (full HD) is a more common screen resolution.

So if you’re shooting stills for, say, an HD desktop display and you want the sensor to crop down to 16:9, you lose data, but it’s an option.

It’s better to shoot native, get all the pixels you can, and crop later in your much more powerful computer and image editor.

Shooting RAW is superior to JPG as all editing is done in a non-destructive manner, after the fact. Whereas you’ve already lost fidelity after the first save-out into the drone during the initial RAW to JPG conversion. All sharpness and color is baked in. Adjusting white balance in a JPG is an exercise in futility. Sharpness, also, can be added (like salt) but not removed (without loss of original signal), in a JPG either. RAW offers the most editing latitude of current formats.

But yes, most people likely shoot JPG for the reason that it’s ready to go out of the drone.

 

[Paul2660]

As I understand it, 4:3 creates a 11 x 14, 16 x 20 non 35mm sensor size output, I.e. more in like with MF cameras. 3:2 is standard for all 35mm sensors. I have never seen.a profile of the 1” Sony sensor in the M2 Pro, but supposedly it’s the same as the Sony RX100, which takes a normal 35mm ratio style image, in 3:2. In the Phantom 4 Pro selection of a 4:3 image does crop the image, and reduces overall output resolution very similar to how a crop factor works on a full frame DSLR, say a APS-C or (DX) crop on a Nikon 35mm full frame.

I have personally switched from ACR/LR for all my M2 Pro raw, mainly due to the fact I have a lot more control of the image, much better noise control, (the sensor is pretty basic, and has very limited DR), but more importantly if you select “generic” for the lens profile, the edge details improve dramatically. You gain a bit of distortion when the camera is level and it brings back the “natural” lens distortion if you are aiming up or down, but the increase in edge details along is worth it for me.

Paul C

 

[Amarand]

I have personally switched from ACR/LR for all my M2 Pro raw, mainly due to the fact I have a lot more control of the image, much better noise control, (the sensor is pretty basic, and has very limited DR), but more importantly if you select “generic” for the lens profile, the edge details improve dramatically. You gain a bit of distortion when the camera is level and it brings back the “natural” lens distortion if you are aiming up or down, but the increase in edge details along is worth it for me.

Have you ever compared M2 Pro versus Capture One? I have experience with neither but I love more control.

 

[Paul2660]

M2 Pro? Not sure what you mean, M2 Pro (jpg) vs Capture One? Capture one for me is the best by far. It only lacks a built in pano creation, but I can get there fast enough in CC, or LR but it does involve an additional step. The difference in colors, and details to me make it worth it. LR/ACR has very limited color profile capability for the M2 Pro (any DJI drone) for that matter. C1 imports them with a terrible color profile, (default ding) but by picking the C1 profile for Sony RX100 (same sensor as the M2 Pro), the colors look great. You can also select other cameras (there are a ton of them available) to find one that might work better for you.

C1 is free to try for 30 days and still has a non subscription payment. Tends to be on sale in December.

Paul C

 

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

There are tons of examples of photographers and filmgraphers that shoot for the resulting medium / format, meaning they compose with the preconception / knowledge of matting or cropping in post.

I think it's possible to undo all of the auto-corrections that Adobe products do. They make a tool called the "DNG Profile Editor". which you can use to create .dcp profiles that you can chose with the Profile Browser in ACR.

But then you're back with the distortions and corrections that you're probably going to want to crop out anyway.

I would just compensate when composing in DJI Go.

Chris

 

[Amarand]

M2 Pro? Not sure what you mean, M2 Pro (jpg) vs Capture One? Capture one for me is the best by far. It only lacks a built in pano creation, but I can get there fast enough in CC, or LR but it does involve an additional step. The difference in colors, and details to me make it worth it. LR/ACR has very limited color profile capability for the M2 Pro (any DJI drone) for that matter. C1 imports them with a terrible color profile, (default ding) but by picking the C1 profile for Sony RX100 (same sensor as the M2 Pro), the colors look great. You can also select other cameras (there are a ton of them available) to find one that might work better for you.

C1 is free to try for 30 days and still has a non subscription payment. Tends to be on sale in December.

Paul C

Oh, sorry! M2 Pro is Mavic 2 Pro. I thought we were talking about another Capture One competitor, sorry! ?

 

[MaxHam]

3) There's a bug in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw, not present in other RAW editors like Capture One, where embedded lens profiles are forced - there's no way to turn them off.

I don't know on what data/profile C1 relies when opening a M2P DNG but it definitely applies color and distortion correction.
Most obvious with any images showing a horizon: In C1 the horizon is straight. The untouched RAW does have a curved horizon.

If you want to view your DNG without being 'harmed' upon opening, try it with Affinity Photo.
There you will get the ugly RAW as it is: Vignetted, distorted and greyish/flat. And quite a bit more to the left and right.
Even after manual distortion correction and cropping you'll still have more on the sides than C1 gives you.

 

[Paul2660]

I don't know on what data/profile C1 relies when opening a M2P DNG but it definitely applies color and distortion correction.
Most obvious with any images showing a horizon: In C1 the horizon is straight. The untouched RAW does have a curved horizon.

If you want to view your DNG without being 'harmed' upon opening, try it with Affinity Photo.
There you will get the ugly RAW as it is: Vignetted, distorted and greyish/flat. And quite a bit more to the left and right.
Even after manual distortion correction and cropping you'll still have more on the sides than C1 gives you.

In C1 use the generic lens profile or generic pincushion. Neither corrects the curved horizon if camera is aimed upwards but allows for sharpness falloff slider to be used.

Use a color profile other than C1’s default DNG color profile.

Paul C

 

[Djicase]

(Explitive deleted)!!!!! Today I saw that the image I took with my m2p is cropped when imported to Lightroom. I can’t believe I haven’t seen this effect before. Maybe because I was on jpeg often or the picture had enough frame in raw so I didn’t notice the cropping. But today I placed a road on the upper corner, windows preview shows the embedded jpeg as shot, road fully on the picture. Importing the raw into Lightroom and boom, the road is cut. I do not exaggerate when I say this makes the Mavic 2 pro nearly useless for raw photography. You spend 1500 bucks and then the picture you see is not the dimensions you shoot. I cannot (Explitive deleted) believe this!

 

[MaxHam]

That is a Lightroom issue and has nothing to do with the DNG that the camera delivers.
Other software like Affinity or ACDSee let you view/edit your DNG uncropped.

 

[Paul2660]

Consider other raw converters, C1 (Capture One) will also crop by default. PLEASE NOTE, the exif of the camera is telling LR what to do as it's a mirrorless camera. LR is doing with DJI is telling it to do. Not vise versa.

Capture One will allow you to expand to the full size, and if you want a free one, consider Raw Therapee note the spelling. Both will allow you to over ride the built in crop.

Paul C