P4P Still settings.

[Ripper7620]

Like Meta points out, NDs are more for video than for stills. There are a couple reasons why you would use NDs with stills - say you were hovering over a waterfall and wanted that cotton candy look to the water. The right ND might get your shutter speed slow enough to blur the water, like around 1/2 sec or more. So NDs are useful when you want to add blur to moving elements in a scene. If you wanted to make a drone hyperlapse without the staccato jumpy look, you could also shoot the stills with an ND giving a slight movement blur that will make the movement more fluid in your final product. But for standard everyday aerial shots, NDs are not needed or desired.

Thank you very much for detailed explanation, it's a big help for a beginner like myself, and I appreciate it.

 

[KAOS Imagery]

Thank you very much for detailed explanation, it's a big help for a beginner like myself, and I appreciate it.

You're welcome. I've been into photographer for many years, the drone just adds another dimension. Good luck!

 

[ChrisLX200]

Does anyone else use DxO Optics Pro to process their RAW images? Wondering if there is a lens distortion correction profile for the Phantom 4 Pro camera.

Answer my own question - yes, the new version (now called DxO Photo Lab) does support the Phantom 4 Pro...

 

[KAOS Imagery]

Does anyone else use DxO Optics Pro to process their RAW images? Wondering if there is a lens distortion correction profile for the Phantom 4 Pro camera.

Sorry, no, I use Lightroom

 

[ChrisLX200]

I just upgraded my old version of DxO Optics Pro 9 to their new program called Photolab 1. Works with DJI Phantom 4 Pro (and a few other DJI drones) RAW and JPG files, though not sure why you would want to work with JPGs! By 'works with' I mean DJI have profiled the optics in the Phantom Pro camera and have produced a distortion correction filter which you can apply to your images. Anyway, I'm having a play with it now on some old files and will report back.

 

[Meta4]

Works with DJI Phantom 4 Pro (and a few other DJI drones) RAW and JPG files, though not sure why you would want to work with JPGs!

To read the forum you would think that DJI jpg files are terrible and not worth looking at.
Actually they are quite good and for most photographers, most of the time are quite adequate.
I shoot jpg because my subjects are often fast moving and I bracket my shots.
Waiting to write large multiple dng files woudln't be practical and I could miss good shots so I shoot jpg.
Every shot in this gallery was shot in jpg only and they look great full screen on a big monitor and very good blown up and framed:
Shipping 2018 - Above & Beyond Photography

 

[Ripper7620]

I'd be inclined to agree that DJI jpg's are decent enough, but I prefere to get my jpg's from RAW images, so I can control the quality, even if it means I gotta wait longer between shots.

 

[ChrisLX200]

To read the forum you would think that DJI jpg files are terrible and not worth looking at.
Actually they are quite good and for most photographers, most of the time are quite adequate.
I shoot jpg because my subjects are often fast moving and I bracket my shots.
Waiting to write large multiple dng files woudln't be practical and I could miss good shots so I shoot jpg.
Every shot in this gallery was shot in jpg only and they look great full screen on a big monitor and very good blown up and framed:
Shipping 2018 - Above & Beyond Photography

Nothing wrong with jpg for displaying your final result, but to reach that result you want to be working with RAW files as they contain all the information the camera captured. Highlight and shadow detail (for e.g.,) can be recovered from a RAW file without the compression artifacts that a jpg would show if you tried to manipulate it.

 

[Meta4]

Nothing wrong with jpg for displaying your final result, but to reach that result you want to be working with RAW files as they contain all the information the camera captured. Highlight and shadow detail (for e.g.,) can be recovered from a RAW file without the compression artifacts that a jpg would show if you tried to manipulate it.

Any comment on the shots I make using jpg?

 

[ChrisLX200]

Any comment on the shots I make using jpg?

You have some amazing photos there! I love this one: Land - Above & Beyond Photography

 

[Meta4]

You have some amazing photos there!

Thanks ... and all shot in jpg ... it's not as bad as some people imagine.

 

[KAOS Imagery]

Thanks ... and all shot in jpg ... it's not as bad as some people imagine.

You images are great, Meta! JPG out of a modern camera is essentially in camera post processing of a raw capture. Most cameras do it very well. Yes, there is a little more information in a RAW photo, but one has to know how to pull that information out. Post processing is a skill. There are plenty of ways to make a processed RAW look worse that a straight out of camera JPG. RAWs tend to be a little better for recovering shadows and highlights. BUT...RAW is not magic, you still need a good correct exposure. A correct exposure JPG is better than a poorly exposed RAW, no matter what PP you do to the RAW.

 

[ChrisLX200]

You're not going to be getting 'bad' photos by staying with jpg and I'm not suggesting any such thing, you can be perfectly happy with the results as produced in-camera. The only reason for using RAW is if you want to experiment with (for e.g.,) lighting/colour effects then you have more opportunity to experiment by using the RAW files (as you won't be revealing the compression artifacts that were hidden during conversion to jpg). Yes, it's more work and for sure there is a learning curve, but you can change the character of an image dramatically using RAW if you wish - you might even like the results you can achieve. You still end up with a jpg at the end - just one that looks different to what the camera would have produced alone. It's not a snobbish photography thing, just a bit of fun. You go to a lot of trouble and expense to get your photos so why not see what else you can do with the data?

I'm also involved with astrophotography and there it is all about post-processing, a huge amount of computer work is needed to produce the final rendered image. I guess I'm used to the idea that I have to work on the image data to get the best out of it

 

[Meta4]

You're not going to be getting 'bad' photos by staying with jpg and I'm not suggesting any such thing, you can be perfectly happy with the results as produced in-camera.
.. You go to a lot of trouble and expense to get your photos so why not see what else you can do with the data?
.. I'm used to the idea that I have to work on the image data to get the best out of it.

Just because I shoot jpg doesn't mean that I'm happy with the results as produced in-camera.
I put in quite a bit of time in Photoshop working on my images, just like the folks that shoot raw.
For the prices I get from my best clients, I'm very conscious of the need to give them the best product.
The idea that you can't work on jpg images is a myth.
Perhaps it was true in the past, but not any more

 

[Ripper7620]

Any comment on the shots I make using jpg?

I’ll have to check them out and get back to you.

 

[Ripper7620]

I’d sum things up by just saying it’s all about how you work with what you have. An amateur like myself is not going to pull the same kind of results from RAW that a pro will get from the jpg.

 

[ChrisLX200]

Just because I shoot jpg doesn't mean that I'm happy with the results as produced in-camera.
I put in quite a bit of time in Photoshop working on my images, just like the folks that shoot raw.
For the prices I get from my best clients, I'm very conscious of the need to give them the best product.
The idea that you can't work on jpg images is a myth..
Perhaps it was true in the past, but not any more

Well of course you can tweak how a photo looks using Photoshop (or any other photo processing software), I use photoshop, Affinity Photo and Corel PSP for that purpose. In the past I used DxO Optics Pro 9 for RAW files and have just upgraded to their new version DxO Photolab because it includes a profile specifically to correct distortions of the DJI P4P camera lens. My point is that once in jpg format you have lost some flexibility in how you can process because quite a lot of image data has been tossed away when the data was compressed. If you haven't worked with RAW format then you're not really going to miss something you don't know about. JPG format has not changed, it's just as lossy now as it was before. I'm not saying this to convince you to change to RAW - that's entirely your decision, but don't tell me it's no longer true that jpg is a lossy compression format which produces compression artifacts because clearly it is.

 

[jephoto]

Super sweet pano here man! Good info too Paul! I always use manual focus totally and never have to change it as I'm never shooting anything that is closer than 30 or so feet away. One tick off of infinity has always been spot on. And at night you def have to use manual focus for sure. Camera will focus all the way to front because of low light.

“1 tick off infinity” - in which direction...?. Up or down?
Is that pulling the focus Back 1 tick or pushing it Forward?

 

[Meta4]

“1 tick off infinity” - in which direction...?. Up or down?
Is that pulling the focus Back 1 tick or pushing it Forward?

He was suggesting focusing a little closer than at infinity (you can't focus beyond infinity)
Because of the depth of field the lens has, this doesn't matter much.
In this shot, the camera was focused on the Phantom just a couple of feet away.
See how the rest of the photo is still acceptably in focus.
At the other end of the focus scale it even less important.

 

[Basspig]

I had the thought that maybe the ND filter helps cut the incident light falling on the lens which reduces contrast. On the ground, we use matte box with French flags to keep incident light off the lens for this very reason. But I am not sure if the ND will help since all it does is lower the overall light and the camera has to compensate.