Very Poor Images - Your Opinion Please

[Saturnine]

Hello,

I bought my P3A in November but have only had a chance to fly it a few times. After seeing some of your shots, and what the copter is capable of, I'm extremely disappointed with my own images. I should preface that by saying I'm pretty well versed in ordinary photography, so certainly know my way around DSLRs and camera settings in general.

I've attached a couple of images. In the first one, the main problems I see are:

1. Crazy lens distortion. I thought the P3A wasn't supposed to have too much of a fisheye effect?
2. Chromatic aberration around a lot of the edges (I can live with that.)
3. High levels of noise, for an ISO100 shot - though I appreciate that this may be due to the camera overcompensating in the shadows, due to shooting towards the sun.
4. Extremely blurred image towards the centre of the image (see circled area.)

The second image is a crop of a larger picture which shows some of the above in even greater detail. For instance, I didn't know houses could bend.

Both images were taken from RAW and unretouched, D-LOG and flat settings everywhere. I will be using an ND filter in future (just arrived) but I'm not sure how that would resolve the issues I've mentioned above. I should also mention, for what its worth, I'm seeing the same issues in videos too.

Am I doing something wrong, or expecting too much - or do I genuinely have a camera that needs DJI's attention?

Thanks

 

[With The Birds]

Your croped image to is probably 800%+, less than an uncropped image from a 2mp camera so im not suprised with that image.

The lens does have distortion. The effect here is typical of its performance.

Your shooting into the sun is very high dynamic range as you have pointed out and seems to metered for the sky nicely. Noise in the shadows here is also typical.

I dont see any unexpected issues here. The camera is good for what it is. Basically a high end mobile phone sensor with better optics.

You will get some great images wirking within the limitatuons of the camera.

 

[Saturnine]

Thanks for your reply. What do you mean the cropped image is 800%? It hasn't been upscaled. I just cropped in the original as I'm on a slow Internet connection and didn't want to post too large a file.

 

[4wd]

An ND filter is the last thing you need for stills.
The shutter speed is rather low as it is due to the gloom.
It isn't a brilliant camera in low light conditions, but your example could be improved significantly with quite modest tweaks in Lightroom.
Try to fly it on a brighter day, use RAW, aim for a shutter speed around 1/500 or more.

 

[dragonmuzz]

Had my p3a 4 weeks now and the stills images are awful. Video is acceptable at best even on 2.7k.
I've tried everything but no luck.
This camera is nowhere near as good as a high end phone camera.my galaxy s6 edge blows the phantom 3 camera away in stills and video performance.
My dealer has ordered me a new advanced drone which is coming this Monday because they agree my drone has a faulty camera

 

[With The Birds]

Looking at the size of the red box in the original image it would seem to be roughly one eighth of the total image area, less than 2mp.

Given you are familliar with photigraphy and know your way around settings i didnt bother suggesting you could have got better results by blending shots with different EV's and/or HDR processing and playing with lens correction profiles.

A little unsharp mask goes a long way with this canera also.

My intent was to give you comfort that the canera seems to be performing as can be ordinarily expected.

 

[Saturnine]

An ND filter is the last thing you need for stills.
The shutter speed is rather low as it is due to the gloom.
It isn't a brilliant camera in low light conditions, but your example could be improved significantly with quite modest tweaks in Lightroom.
Try to fly it on a brighter day, use RAW, aim for a shutter speed around 1/500 or more.

Hello,

I had it the shutter speed set to manual and was trying to get a balanced exposure for both the sky and the ground. I'm still learning to fly the thing at the moment, so the photography is of secondary concern. I was just worried that the videos and pictures I am getting are not as good as they could (should?) be. I'm sure I could do some bracketing and some retouching to get nicer images - I just wanted to make sure I'm not working with a faulty camera first. Thanks for your advice, for sure.

 

[4wd]

I opened it in photoshop and with slight noise reduction and sharpen after resize it looks reasonable to me.
There isn't really any fish-eye, it's more of a perspective effect from the wide angle.
Look at a Vision Plus or GoPro still with the horizon not in the centre of frame to see fish eye!

 

[Saturnine]

Looking at the size of the red box in the original image it would seem to be roughly one eighth of the total image area, less than 2mp.

Given you are familliar with photigraphy and know your way around settings i didnt bother suggesting you could have got better results by blending shots with different EV's and/or HDR processing and playing with lens correction profiles.

A little unsharp mask goes a long way with this canera also.

My intent was to give you comfort that the canera seems to be performing as can be ordinarily expected.

Well that's fine then. If it is what it is, I'm happy enough. Of the issues I'm seeing, it's the blurriness towards the middle of the picture that was worrying me - but I might have just solved that...



The rubber ring holding the UV filter is all over the place, and the filter itself is flexing on one side. I would imagine the wind at altitude could cause it to flap in and out. That would also explain why my indoors test shots are fine. I'll see if DJI can replace it for me, although I've just gotten my PolarPro filters through which I think will largely replace the factory UV filter anyway.

 

[dragonmuzz]

I opened it in photoshop and with slight noise reduction and sharpen after resize it looks reasonable to me.
There isn't really any fish-eye, it's more of a perspective effect from the wide angle.
Look at a Vision Plus or GoPro still with the horizon not in the centre of frame to see fish eye!

That's a lot better quality then I'm getting with my camera.mines always out of focus

 

[With The Birds]

Had my p3a 4 weeks now and the stills images are awful. Video is acceptable at best even on 2.7k.
I've tried everything but no luck.
This camera is nowhere near as good as a high end phone camera.my galaxy s6 edge blows the phantom 3 camera away in stills and video performance.
My dealer has ordered me a new advanced drone which is coming this Monday because they agree my drone has a faulty camera

The s6 sensor (exmor RS) (shared with note 4, 5 and others) is almost 1mm smaller diagonally than the exmor R in the phantom and has more pixels. I am suprised you are getting better oerformance, esp in low light. I dont. Younhave said the canera is faulty on your phantom though.

 

[With The Birds]

My standard filter looks like that also. Just re seat the ring before installing itband there ahould be no wobble in the glass element.

 

[Saturnine]

My standard filter looks like that also. Just re seat the ring before installing itband there ahould be no wobble in the glass element.

Does the UV filter itself flex or wobble on yours, or does it feel like it's glued to the mount?

I've just reseated the rubber seal and the filter plastic popped off completely. I think the rubber seal will keep it in place but it's going to wobble a bit from now on - still, that's better than flexing on one side as it was doing before.

 

[With The Birds]

Does the UV filter itself flex or wobble on yours, or does it feel like it's glued to the mount?

I've just reseated the rubber seal and the filter plastic popped off completely. I think the rubber seal will keep it in place but it's going to wobble a bit from now on - still, that's better than flexing on one side as it was doing before.

Filter plastic? Not the protective plastic iver the filter that is sipposed to be peeled off and thrown away?

 

[Saturnine]

Okay, not the plastic, the 'glass.'

 

[With The Birds]

No wobble in mine with ring seated and installed. If you really want to get the baseline for canera performamce shoot an evenly lit detailed subject on the ground with no filter abd a brick wall straight on to get a feel for the distortion also.

People who say their phone shoots better are fooled by the in ohone processing designed to make images look better than their competitors. Usually oversaturated and high contrast.

 

[Saturnine]

Yes - I'll just point out I haven't said that myself.

I live in the city centre, so flying this thing legally is a full day out for me. Before I take it out and start to try and get decent videos, I just want to be sure everything is operating as it should. Clearly this UV filter isn't as it should be, though it's not too much of an issue as I'll probably be using the PolarPro ND8 as minimum, at least for video.

 

[With The Birds]

Yes - I'll just point out I haven't said that myself.

I live in the city centre, so flying this thing legally is a full day out for me. Before I take it out and start to try and get decent videos, I just want to be sure everything is operating as it should. Clearly this UV filter isn't as it should be, though it's not too much of an issue as I'll probably be using the PolarPro ND8 as minimum, at least for video.

No need to point anything out, no suggestion you said it. My intent was to give you comfort in a reasonable expectation for baseline performance of the phantom camera.

The whole imaging process is more enjoyable when you arent second guessing the hardware, thats my experience.

I was initially dissapointed with the performance but put it in persoective quick, i need to spend a lot on a quad to carry a true pro spec camera. The compromise i am happy with is the X5 on an inspire and i really only need that for low light shooting. The P3 camera works extra well inside its limits. And the P3 attracts a lot less attention. Most people dont look up and ay 40m+ on height dont seem to hear it either.

 

[Meta4]

1. Crazy lens distortion.

All lenses have some distortion but there's nothing about the P3 lens that could be described as crazy.
If you want to remove any minute distortion, use the lens profile in Photoshop just like you can for the most expensive lenses that Canon and Nikon make.

I thought the P3A wasn't supposed to have too much of a fisheye effect?

A lens can't have some fisheye. Either it is a fisheye lens or it isn't.
The P3 lens is a rectilinear wide angle. It's not a fisheye lens.

 

[normr]

Are there any videos or sites that you might know that show and explain the advantages of various filters on our Phantoms for us non photographer types? Thanks in advance.


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