Hello Everyone,

So over the last five months of flying my Phantom 4 Pro, I have not yet been able to shoot images with the camera that aren't overexposed. Up until now, it's not really been an issue since I've been focused on shooting video. Yet with the new panorama modes, my needs have changed. While in the field most recently, I could not for the life of me get the drone to take a shot with the proper exposure, even when shooting in manual mode. On the display, everything looked great prior to taking the shots. And any videos I took looked great. I've seen old message traffic online suggesting I'm not alone in seeing this behavior. And yet, I've not seen any messages that share the resolution. I got the latest firmware installed a few weeks ago prior to going in the field so that wasn't the issue.

Any suggestions about how to resolve this?

Thanks for your assistance,

Chris

If you get the settings right, it shouldnt be over exposed as long as not in the direction of the sun that is.... if you cannot rectify it in fully manual by lowering the ISO to 100, f stop (aperture) to 11, increase the shutter speed as well, if that does not darken the image than you actually have camera issues.... Theres also ND filters but i would try to get to grips in fully manual 1st, its much easier than it seems...

If you have a consistent overexposure problem, it sounds like you have accidentally set the exposure compensation to over expose.
Look at the line of camera data in the upper right of the screen.
Between the Aperture and White Balance you should see EV.
Lok below that to see what exposure compensation you have adjusted to.
If you are overexposing all the time, it probably shows something like +1.0 or more.
Dial that back to zero and your over-exposure problem is gone.

Is it only the pano's that give you trouble?
Have to agree they are very annoying as they take over all settings, even if you adjust the image settings and lock the exposure it mess it up as soon the trigger is pushed.
If taking a 360 pano it start pointing straight down and lock exposure making rest of the images overexposed, when taking a 180 and the other narrow type it raise gimbal to horizon and lock the exposure making the ground completely dark, specially in the morning/evening when the sun is low.
Even it is nice with the speed it takes the pictures in auto pano it is not worth using as is, better take the time and shoot them manually.

In regard to normal pictures i also have noticed that something has changed in the latest version, if you wanna stick to the manual settings, then try just lowering the EV a little.
I could be wrong but i think also something has happened with the color profiles, most of my stills have been shot with "None" as the "TrueColor" looked too saturated for me, now it seem to be the opposite like the "None" has got to much saturation, i just can't figure out really what is going on with this thing, it does to me seem very inconsistent at the moment.

Again for your issue, try just lowering the EV a little and check, not sure it change a thing on the pano shots.

Edit: As also Labrorides say, play with the EV. But i would think you might already have at 0 and still need to lower it, that has been my experience, just -0.3 help a lot.

What tablet/phone do you have?
It seems that your screen brightness is set too high.
There are some devices where you need to lower the brightness below to what you find right
in order to get correct exposure.

I experience this with the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3.

Bashy Posted at 2018-5-3 20:21
If you get the settings right, it shouldnt be over exposed as long as not in the direction of the sun that is.... if you cannot rectify it in fully manual by lowering the ISO to 100, f stop (aperture) to 11, increase the shutter speed as well, if that does not darken the image than you actually have camera issues.... Theres also ND filters but i would try to get to grips in fully manual 1st, its much easier than it seems...

What's baffling is how the results are not consistent across images and video. The result in video always spot on and consistent with what I'm seeing live on the display.

Labroides Posted at 2018-5-3 22:00
If you have a consistent overexposure problem, it sounds like you have accidentally set the exposure compensation to over expose.
Look at the line of camera data in the upper right of the screen.
Between the Aperture and White Balance you should see EV.

I was actively adjusting the EV and what was super curious is that it didn't seem to have any material impact on the resulting overexposed images.

KedDK Posted at 2018-5-3 22:30
Is it only the pano's that give you trouble?
Have to agree they are very annoying as they take over all settings, even if you adjust the image settings and lock the exposure it mess it up as soon the trigger is pushed.
If taking a 360 pano it start pointing straight down and lock exposure making rest of the images overexposed, when taking a 180 and the other narrow type it raise gimbal to horizon and lock the exposure making the ground completely dark, specially in the morning/evening when the sun is low.

Appreciate the feedback KedDK. I was manually adjusting the EV through a bunch of values and the regular images I took keep coming out overexposed consistently. It wasn't even clear the EV adjustments were having an effect.

Eric13 Posted at 2018-5-3 22:49
What tablet/phone do you have?
It seems that your screen brightness is set too high.
There are some devices where you need to lower the brightness below to what you find right

I've got the controller with the built-in display. Looking at the live histogram on the display prior to the shots, everything looks great. And then when I check the images, they are blown out. It's baffling.

mountainpilot Posted at 2018-5-4 09:10
I've got the controller with the built-in display. Looking at the live histogram on the display prior to the shots, everything looks great. And then when I check the images, they are blown out. It's baffling.

What exposure settings are you using?

Whats the ISO? if its set to Auto, turn it off, and go with, if its sunny, 100 - 200, partly cloudy, 200-400, overcast 400> thats what i go by but its not set in stone.....
Are we talking about taking single images? or pano modes? Pano modes and some Intelli modes, i think mess up the settings and you have to set them back to how you had them prior to using those modes
Adjusting the EV +/-  Im not so sure i recall seeing that, but then i shoot in full manual and or dont use others modes often enough
You can always shoot in raw and adjust the exposure in post.

Bashy Posted at 2018-5-4 19:56
Whats the ISO? if its set to Auto, turn it off, and go with, if its sunny, 100 - 200, partly cloudy, 200-400, overcast 400> thats what i go by but its not set in stone.....
Are we talking about taking single images? or pano modes? Pano modes and some Intelli modes, i think mess up the settings and you have to set them back to how you had them prior to using those modes
Adjusting the EV +/-  Im not so sure i recall seeing that, but then i shoot in full manual and or dont use others modes often enough

For the tests I've done today, I've been shooting in manual mode with ISO Auto turned off, ISO set to 100, aperture set to f4, and shutter speed to 400. It's a perfectly sunny day. I've got a ND4 filter on the camera and as before, short video clips come out fine as expected. Single images taken with these settings result in overexposed images. And the quality of the resulting image doesn't seem to change with changes in settings. It's totally bizarre.

Ok so I just made a helpful discovery - when looking through the settings, I saw that the mechanical shutter was turned on. I had a vague memory of reading about an issue with the mechanical shutter, so I turned it off. And after that, the image quality turned out as expected. As I would manually adjust the camera settings, the resulting images would change accordingly and match what I'm seeing on the screen. Any thoughts about what might be going on here with the mechanical shutter?

Thanks again for all your assistance!

I have been using the P4P for over a full year.
I also have the same issue. I was in full panic mode after I upgraded from the Phantom 4 to the P4P.
I spent two weeks in panic mode trying to figure out what was going on with this new camera on my upgraded drone. I actually began to hate it. The phantom 4 was so easy to set up and go. Everything I found online was "adjust in post"

I shoot Panoramas. Hundreds of Panoramas per job. I can not tell you what what I do, but I will tell you I, nor anybody else, has the time to "CORRECT" thousands of photos.

What ended up working for me?  Well I got rid of the histogram, for me it is worthless. I set up my pano, I find the best balance between light and dark (I balance the sky and the ground) then I hit exposure lock. Now I double check by looking around and when satisfied I start the pano. After so many pano's this only takes a couple of seconds to do.

This is what has satisfied me. Not perfect but I can at least deal with the results.

Bashy Posted at 5-3 20:21
If you get the settings right, it shouldnt be over exposed as long as not in the direction of the sun that is.... if you cannot rectify it in fully manual by lowering the ISO to 100, f stop (aperture) to 11, increase the shutter speed as well, if that does not darken the image than you actually have camera issues.... Theres also ND filters but i would try to get to grips in fully manual 1st, its much easier than it seems...

Good advice.

Curt Martini Posted at 11-15 17:21
I have been using the P4P for over a full year.
I also have the same issue. I was in full panic mode after I upgraded from the Phantom 4 to the P4P.
I spent two weeks in panic mode trying to figure out what was going on with this new camera on my upgraded drone. I actually began to hate it. The phantom 4 was so easy to set up and go. Everything I found online was "adjust in post"

Also bear in mind most decent photo editing software does let you edit pictures in batches automatically, so that if you did need to alter many photos in one hit, it can be done.