Photo Quality?

mikeve · Mar 7, 2016

His Gang

Fairly new to the P3A and starting to explore stills. The attached is an extract from the centre/center of a recent frame at full size and I'm not impressed with the quality. Very soft. Is there something wrong with my camera or are they all like that?

Thanks

Mike

dand. · Mar 7, 2016

Check Style settings. Try add or remove sharpness and contrast.
I heard some P3 cameras have some issues and required DJI support.
If you just got it send it back.

Just keep flying.

garykeithmead1 · Mar 8, 2016

Is that image from the sd card ?.

4wd · Mar 8, 2016

There is a softness in the centre, it will likely seem worse in cold conditions.
It's less obvious in video but you'll see it there too.
For best results use RAW, in lower light increase the ISO rather than have the shutter too slow.
Some additional Noise reduction followed by sharpening on the PC will often work wonders.

mikeve · Mar 8, 2016

The image was shot in RAW and converted to jpg in LR and then the central area was cropped so that I was able to upload it full size. After reading a number of posts elsewhere, I had set the profile to -2,-3,-3. I should be able to go out today and try again and I will zero to profile.

Thanks for your help.

mikeve · Mar 8, 2016

I took some pictures out a window late today after setting the profile to default (0, 0, 0) and it was better. Not great, but better. I guess it is what it is.

Thanks for your help.

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KyleMaxxUAV · Mar 8, 2016

Both my cameras stills are junk in my opinion but my pro was very soft compared to my advanced as you can see here. Same time, location, camera settings, lightning, etc. The advanced is mediocre for focus and the pro is garbage so I sent it back yesterday for repair.

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Trackman1 · Mar 8, 2016

Cropping is zooming in. When you view an image on the computer screen (unless its high end)
the image is zoomed out to fit the screen. A normal screen is 1920 x1080 or perhaps 1920 x 1200.
So the image on the screen is roughly 40% . If you zoom in to 100% where the whole image does not fit on the screen the defects show up.
If you post a full sized image, we can download it to look at in a veiwer and not a web page.

KyleMaxxUAV · Mar 9, 2016

Trackman1 said:
Cropping is zooming in. When you view an image on the computer screen (unless its high end)
the image is zoomed out to fit the screen. A normal screen is 1920 x1080 or perhaps 1920 x 1200.
So the image on the screen is roughly 40% . If you zoom in to 100% where the whole image does not fit on the screen the defects show up.
If you post a full sized image, we can download it to look at in a veiwer and not a web page.

Trackman1 · Mar 9, 2016

Try setting up the camera on something with edges. Brick wall, fence as example.
The same thing should be across the whole image.

When I first got my P3A I was already aware of some camera problems. So the first thing I did was test it.
Here is that image. You can see it is a softer focus on the right side. Bring it up to 100& in your viewer.

A good free image viewer is Faststone. No ads, no nags. Small and gets the job done.
FastStone Image Viewer - Powerful and Intuitive Photo Viewer, Editor and Batch Converter

If you right click on this image you can save as and view original on you hard drive.

CaptainDrone798 · Mar 9, 2016

mikeve said:
His Gang

Fairly new to the P3A and starting to explore stills. The attached is an extract from the centre/center of a recent frame at full size and I'm not impressed with the quality. Very soft. Is there something wrong with my camera or are they all like that?

Thanks

MikeView attachment 46400

This is a common DJI Phantom Advanced issue. It usually seems only Photographers notice the issue.

I say it's common because I had the same issue and did some research. It seems DJI cameras in the Advanced, Professional and Inspire 1 share the same issue. Apparently the problem is due to the way DJI's cameras squish the feed from the center outward and how the inner components are connected. The Phantom Standard is not affected because it does not compress the center footage outwards and inner (gives a truer picture).

So the fix is this.... Fly in the summer and you're problem should resolve itself.... really. If you fly in the Cold you must leave the Phantom in the cold with no battery for at least 15 minutes so that the camera components align themselves to the cold.

The above is what has worked for some Phantom owners.

For me I do keep the Phantom cold and place the camera sharpness to +1 in the camera settings, which seems to make everything good enough.

isopro · Mar 9, 2016

CaptainDrone798 said:
This is a common DJI Phantom Advanced issue. It usually seems only Photographers notice the issue.

I say it's common because I had the same issue and did some research. It seems DJI cameras in the Advanced, Professional and Inspire 1 share the same issue. Apparently the problem is due to the way DJI's cameras squish the feed from the center outward and how the inner components are connected. The Phantom Standard is not affected because it does not compress the center footage outwards and inner (gives a truer picture).

So the fix is this.... Fly in the summer and you're problem should resolve itself.... really. If you fly in the Cold you must leave the Phantom in the cold with no battery for at least 15 minutes so that the camera components align themselves to the cold.

The above is what has worked for some Phantom owners.

For me I do keep the Phantom cold and place the camera sharpness to +1 in the camera settings, which seems to make everything good enough.

You are always off using unsharp mask in post, and reducing in-camera sharpening, then using camera sharpening first...

KyleMaxxUAV · Mar 9, 2016

All that is great info, my issue specifically: both cameras were the same temp, same manual camera settings, etc. the pro was junk quality. Look at the time on my computer or the 4 framed pictures on the wall or the batteries on the end table. All three points the advanced is much sharper (still not as sharp as it should be to be honest but it will do)

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CaptainDrone798 · Mar 9, 2016

isopro said:
You are always off using unsharp mask in post, and reducing in-camera sharpening, then using camera sharpening first...

From a JPEG photographic image quality this is true, but plenty of Phantom owners don't bother since it's only a JPEG. I don't believe image sharpening in the Phantom camera settings has any effect on RAW, hence shooting in both will allow for post processing.

Joe Gray · Mar 9, 2016

There's nothing wrong with your camera - mine is equally as poor at stills. I have to run my images through Photoshops shite-lens-fixer to pull back sharpness and process a fair bit in LR to get something worthwhile. Wouldn't print much over A4, maybe A3.

KyleMaxxUAV · Mar 9, 2016

Joe Gray said:
There's nothing wrong with your camera - mine is equally as poor at stills. I have to run my images through Photoshops shite-lens-fixer to pull back sharpness and process a fair bit in LR to get something worthwhile. Wouldn't print much over A4, maybe A3.

If you are talking to me, you didn't look at the images. The advanced one is 8/10 I'll say .. The pro is 5.5/10 .. It's already back at DJI for replacement as they said it was unacceptably unfocused

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Trackman1 · Mar 9, 2016

I have been follow the threads on the camera problems for a while.
All of them have some issue with soft focus. But it changes across the screen. Most I have read about are the same as mine. Good on the left side and softer on the right. Mine is plenty acceptable. But some peoples have not been and they have had them replaced under DJI warranty.

There is one guy in here that took his back to Besybuy only to find the others they had were not perfect either. So he took the best one they had.
It seems obvious that DJI has had some quality Control problems.

There have been some that reported bad cameras. But it turned out to be settings.
I have not touched my settings and the pictures are good enough. If I want better I run the DNG's thru Lightroom.

I have been flying in 10c below to 10c above. If the pics are different I cannot tell.

mikeve · Mar 10, 2016

The first image that I posted is displayed at 100% or 1:1 so it is not over or under zoomed. It was shot as RAW (DNG) and imported into Lightroom. Using Photoshop, I extracted the centre section only (to speed download times). When coming into LR, the lens profile was used. This corrects for barrel/pincushion distortion. It will not improve or worsen focus/sharpness.

If you right-click on my first image and select "Open in new tab", you will set it 100%.

Once the weather improves this weekend (we're W0X0F right now), I take a series with different sharpness profiles in the camera settings.

P3P Canada: I see what you mean. My question is if that is the difference between all Pros and all Advs or is it the difference between one camera (that happens to be on a Pro) and another camera (that happens to be on an Adv)?

I'll take your Adv as a target. Have you possible got any pictures outside that show fine details, like bare branches?

KyleMaxxUAV · Mar 10, 2016

mikeve said:
The first image that I posted is displayed at 100% or 1:1 so it is not over or under zoomed. It was shot as RAW (DNG) and imported into Lightroom. Using Photoshop, I extracted the centre section only (to speed download times). When coming into LR, the lens profile was used. This corrects for barrel/pincushion distortion. It will not improve or worsen focus/sharpness.

If you right-click on my first image and select "Open in new tab", you will set it 100%.

Once the weather improves this weekend (we're W0X0F right now), I take a series with different sharpness profiles in the camera settings.

P3P Canada: I see what you mean. My question is if that is the difference between all Pros and all Advs or is it the difference between one camera (that happens to be on a Pro) and another camera (that happens to be on an Adv)?

I'll take your Adv as a target. Have you possible got any pictures outside that show fine details, like bare branches?

I only shoot raw as well & I do see what you mean. It seems to be a camera to camera situation regardless of pro or advanced designation. Mine was received by DJI and they noticed the issue straight away !! They have sent it for replacement under warranty. It seems to me as though the quality control over lens focus and sensor placement was hit and miss during some production runs of the cameras ! But that may just be my opinion ?

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KyleMaxxUAV · Mar 10, 2016

Don't be afraid of sending it back to DJI, call in and speak to them, open a ticket & upload some photos. Call them again and explain your unhappiness (be polite but assertive). Ask for a pre paid shipping label, send it back now while the weather isn't perfect and you should have it back in a couple weeks (hopefully rock solid)

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