P3P out of focus defect - no more!

Joined
Jan 14, 2015
Messages
907
Reaction score
233
Location
Orange County, California
I bought a replacement P3P during Black Friday sales. Like many who purchased around the same time or earlier, was disappointed with the soft focus image in close range videos and photos. Some on the forums tried exchanging them with other units at retail stores only to find it look in focus / out of focus in random parts of the view (top, edges, etc). I finally took someone's suggestion on the DJI forum to send it into DJI California for warranty repair. Before doing so, I made discretionary marks on the gimbal and camera.l- just in case DJI did not communicate the resolution.
Fast forward a week and a half later, the P3P arrived. Sharp closeup pictures and video- yeah!! No info from DJI on what they did, but it's obvious they replaced the camera, gimbal and updated the firmware (this part sucks!).
The camera is not perfect and distant shots may not be as sharp, but it's very good for the price point. Of course I had a perspective from my previous P3P which I purchased the first day it was released in April 2015. It unfortunately was the victim of a battery cell failure and is at the bottom of a canyon in Hawaii [emoji19]. Still trying to get DJI to accept my healthy drones data to get some type of compensation.... sorry to digress.

The point is, don't except this defect. Obviously there is a batch of bad cameras out there and DJI knows.... Get your money's worth and make them fix it!
 
I bought a replacement P3P during Black Friday sales. Like many who purchased around the same time or earlier, was disappointed with the soft focus image in close range videos and photos. Some

I also bought it in black Friday and I am hesitating about RMA. It is hard to tell if the camera is defective or not. The videos are great, howver, the pictures are worse than my P2V+. Please, can you check this post and see if mine can be defective:
Professional - Could you check picture quality/focus? | DJI Phantom Forum
 
I find your lower example even worse than mines... not acceptable for me. Try also grabbing some frames frome stable movies and you shoud see the problem there also.
 
I find your lower example even worse than mines... not acceptable for me. Try also grabbing some frames frome stable movies and you shoud see the problem there also.
you mean tape in 4K video and extract pictures? did not get it....
 
Get your money's worth and make them fix it!
Pls, can u post some pictures with the repair phantom. I just sent mine to fix the focus issue but I am wondering how it will look. Thanks in advance,
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sinisalo
I have done 3 exchanges at Bestbuy, this last P3P seems to be the best out of them all but I haven't had a chance to fully test it compared to the rest. I have been using a scoreboard on a kids soccer field to test. I would also like to see pics from the camera after it has been sent in for repair.
 
Pls, can u post some pictures with the repair phantom. I just sent mine to fix the focus issue but I am wondering how it will look. Thanks in advance,
Sorry for the delay. I tried to get an apples to apples comparison shot. So had to wait for the sun to come out and be at right angle.
Outside of the white balance setting, you should be able to see a clear difference. It's not perfect, but much better and equal to my first P3 and good enough for my videos when I use ND filter producing a little motion blur.

Old cam
ImageUploadedByPhantomPilots1453831907.051946.jpg

New cam
ImageUploadedByPhantomPilots1453831922.401252.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sinisalo
you should be able to see a clear difference
yes, there is a difference. Now, you don't need to use "sharpness" any more. I have to go thru a sharpness process on each picture of my P3P. In my P2P+, the pictures were like you show in "new cam" without using photoshop. I am happy I am requesting a RMA for my P3P.
 
Tks for the information on bad cameras. Very interesting to this newbie.

I am looking for a good used one and I have to bet that some of them for sale at good prices have an issue where the current owner either did not know how to proceed or was too lazy to send it in. Makes me want to wait and buy a new one come spring.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app
 
It is actually possible to adjust the focus by partially dissasembling the camera and rotating winding the whole lens assembly in or out, it seems someone got lazy at the factory on some cameras. When focussed results are very good in reasonable light. I had issues with a camera but fairly pleased now. Frame grab from 4K video.
 

Attachments

  • Morning light.jpg.jpg
    Morning light.jpg.jpg
    2.7 MB · Views: 475
Has anyone removed their stock filter to make sure it's not defective filters causing this?

Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk
 
distant shots may not be as sharp
This thread has been an interesting read but this statement caught my eye the second time around. I'm not willing to sacrifice infinity focus for 10 - 20' focus if this is the trade-off. I remember GoPro had an issue with great "selfie" range focus but soft infinity and people here were not too happy about it. I would be interested to see a distance focus comparison if you are able. Seems to me we should getting good focus from 3' to infinity with these cameras.
 
I'm not willing to sacrifice infinity focus for 10 - 20' focus
I've made many tests. The fact that does not focus close means it wont focus long either. I had a very low bar as a benchmark: a $70 mobious action cam...that one worked better than my P3P in short and long distances. I already sent my P3P to exchange the camera. Hope the new one is much much better than the mobious.
 
I've made many tests. The fact that does not focus close means it wont focus long either. I had a very low bar as a benchmark: a $70 mobious action cam...that one worked better than my P3P in short and long distances. I already sent my P3P to exchange the camera. Hope the new one is much much better than the mobious.
Thank you @lalvar40 for your reply. I will be conducting tests today and will post pics here should I need confirmation of a focus fault. Good luck getting your P3P repaired.

And thanks to @2nd2non for bringing this issue to my attention. I mostly shoot video so I may not have even noticed a soft focus problem before the warranty expired if you had not brought it up.
 

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
143,066
Messages
1,467,358
Members
104,935
Latest member
Pauos31