Flew my Mavic 2 today to take my first photos.  I HAVE to be doing something wrong because the images were horrible at ISO 200.  I get better low light performance out of my 15 year old Nikon crop sensor that only goes to ISO 1600.  Lots of noise in the blue sky.

Settings on this photo were: 1/60th of a second at ƒ11 and ISO 100.  I shot raw.  Any ideas?  This is my first drone, so maybe I have settings incorrect somewhere.

You better have to try the lens before. Shoot the same picture from F2.8 to F11 and compare the quality. In my opinion F11 has to much diffraction and the result is bad.  Never use more than 100 iso and choose the best diaphragm and it'll be ok. On my P4pro best result is f4.5 and 100 iso.

When taking photos, instead of increasing the aperture (f), increase the shutter speed to reach the desired exposure level. For photos you're gonna want a faster shutter speed than 1/60 as it'll reduce the chance of motion blur. 1/60 is great for cinematic video at 30fps but not so good for photos unless you want a blur effect. As an example for your picture... f2.8 (always for night shots) shutter speed 1/200 (estimate, you need to experiment and it will always be different depending on the available light), iso 100. If you can't get a fast enough shutter speed to stop the motion blur this is when you need to increase the ISO as a last resort. It's better to have a noisy image than no image at all and you can work on reducing the noise in software afterwards.

As a sidenote. Your picture looks absolutely fine noise wise for general social media, if you can only see the noise when zoomed right in then don't worry about it.

I hope you don't mind but I opened your photo in photoshop and added a curve layer and increased the shadow areas of the city, I have to say I'm impressed with how much data is there to play with and especially from a jpg screen capture. Let me know if you want the photo removed and I'll delete it right way. Great picture btw, love seeing everyone's city's around the world.

Chasing Light & Shadows Posted at 2018-8-31 00:14
When taking photos, instead of increasing the aperture (f), increase the shutter speed to reach the desired exposure level. For photos you're gonna want a faster shutter speed than 1/60 as it'll reduce the chance of motion blur. 1/60 is great for cinematic video at 30fps but not so good for photos unless you want a blur effect. As an example for your picture... f2.8 (always for night shots) shutter speed 1/200 (estimate, you need to experiment and it will always be different depending on the available light), iso 100. If you can't get a fast enough shutter speed to stop the motion blur this is when you need to increase the ISO as a last resort. It's better to have a noisy image than no image at all and you can work on reducing the noise in software afterwards.

As a sidenote. Your picture looks absolutely fine noise wise for general social media, if you can only see the noise when zoomed right in then don't worry about it.

This is a bit late, but I've finally had time to do some more low light testing.  I see the same noise no matter the aperture/shutter sped combination.  While yes, this is fine for general social media, my standards need to be higher.  I'm a real estate photographer and was hoping to use this drone for some twilight photos at times.  This level of noise isn't acceptable for that, imo.  Maybe my expectations are too high, but from what I've seen of other Mavic 2 photos, I'm not seeing the same noise (admittedly they may be post processing).  Maybe I'm getting what I'm supposed to get.  But I was just shocked to see so much noise at ISO 100.

On a possibly related note, I'm also seeing uncool artifacts around the sun that I'm not seeing on other Mavic photos.  The orange banding around the sun is what I'm talking about.
It did not matter what aperture/shutter speed combo I was at, I was getting the same result:

If RAW, what capture sharpening and noise reduction settings are you using and in what software?  *ALL* raws regardless of camera need some capture NR.  Thats how it works.

Secondly, f/11 is where you went wrong.  You're well into the realms of diffraction here which will massively degrade image quality, create smearing and lots of ugly effects.

The orange banding is just due to the camera running out dynamic range and everything else for the scene - that really needs to be bracketed.  Quite probably a manual bracket and 1 1/3 or so between each shot.
Whats happened it the shadows have been listed massively to cope with the massive burnt out sun and thats brought up noise.

You will get some noise in low light conditions with a 1" sensor.

A CW Posted at 2018-9-16 03:11
You will get some noise in low light conditions with a 1" sensor.

Thats the issue - people seem to think a 1" sensor is huge.  It's not.  It means its upgraded to a compact camera from a cellphone camera.

Its a decent camera within that level for sure - im very happy with it but people are expecting a bit much.

From my tests ive found 100 clean, 200 is usable, even 400 with careful post.  Compared to the mavic 1 where anything over 100 was awful.

gnirtS Posted at 2018-9-16 03:31
Thats the issue - people seem to think a 1" sensor is huge.  It's not.  It means its upgraded to a compact camera from a cellphone camera.

Its a decent camera within that level for sure - im very happy with it but people are expecting a bit much.

Yeah - even an MFT has noise.

Hi,

I have the same problems with ISO higher then 100, but why are there so much noise with f.e. only ISO 400?
I can understand this, when you use ISO higher then 800 or so ...

I thought, the sensor is  the "same" as in my Sony RX 100, which has also 1" sensor, but there is even now noise with ISO 400.

Regards,

Martin

Thanks for the replies.  I guess I am expecting too much, this being my first drone.  I know I gave the sensor a lot to do with the high dynamic range.  My main concern was a bad sensor out of the box.  But if this is par for the course, I'll learn to work within the limitations.  Hell, I started my real estate business with a 12 year old Nikon D80 with a crop sensor.  So I can deal with this.

MP2884 Posted at 2018-9-16 06:00
Hi,

I have the same problems with ISO higher then 100, but why are there so much noise with f.e. only ISO 400?

People use "the same" without understanding.

Its a 1" sensor, the same SIZE as the RX100.  We have no idea if its the same sensor or not - Sony make lots of sensors.

Likewise the image processor itself has a lot to do with things but we DO at least know what that is.

Hi there ,

I have try my Mavic 2 last night take photo at Blue hour I realise there lots of Color noise and they a patchy ....

The new CAPTCHA crap is the last straw.
Im tired of DJIs crap and am removing my posts and will be on my way.

my example:
no photo retouching

Agree with the diffraction comment below. the M2P is sharpest from f/2.8 to f/5.6 Max. After that, chaos...

Chasing Light & Shadows Posted at 2018-8-31 00:14
When taking photos, instead of increasing the aperture (f), increase the shutter speed to reach the desired exposure level. For photos you're gonna want a faster shutter speed than 1/60 as it'll reduce the chance of motion blur. 1/60 is great for cinematic video at 30fps but not so good for photos unless you want a blur effect. As an example for your picture... f2.8 (always for night shots) shutter speed 1/200 (estimate, you need to experiment and it will always be different depending on the available light), iso 100. If you can't get a fast enough shutter speed to stop the motion blur this is when you need to increase the ISO as a last resort. It's better to have a noisy image than no image at all and you can work on reducing the noise in software afterwards.

As a sidenote. Your picture looks absolutely fine noise wise for general social media, if you can only see the noise when zoomed right in then don't worry about it.

Friend you are really confusing things here... 1/6osec doesn't necessarily introduces any shake or noise (?) in the photo. in fact, the M2P has a stabilized gimbal that can do 1-2sec exposures with absolutely no problem. In addition, it has a 28mm lens (equivalent) so 1/60th of a second is more than fine depending on the available light and ISO settings. Closing, ISO 200 introduces no noise in the M2P. Actually the sensor can hold up to ISO 800 with a little noise reduction.

mnliew Posted at 2-14 00:58
[view_image]

Your photo is too small to see anything and it looks (from what can be seen) that it was edited. Normally the M2P handles shadows quite well in post but it all depends on your original settings and you haven't shared your settings...

Brett Brandon Posted at 2-18 17:38
I got my M2P for photography and real estate work and too was a little dissapointed with the Hassleblad.
A few things that have been noted.

Although I have posted this before, the 1" sensor on the M2P has a x2.7 times crop factor (in 35mm equivalent terms) that need to be applied to the aperture to understand the implications in depth of field, sharpness and diffraction.

To put it simple:

f/2.8 = f/7.6 (2.8 x 2.7)
f/4 = f/11
f/5.6 = f/15 (from my testings, this is the max usuable aperture)
f/11 = f/30 (diffraction softens considerably everything and this is why many folks were complaining about the image quality before ND filters were available)

You are absolutely correct to be alarmed by the image quality. It sucks. Period. This is not a professional quality drone, it's prosumer. You can get away with it for residential real estate but not serious commercial work. Check out the DJI Inspire 2. I'm a photographer and I have the M2P, and it's a fun toy but I was shocked at the image quality. Quite poor.

You are absolutely correct to be alarmed by the image quality. It sucks. Period. This is not a professional quality drone, it's prosumer. You can get away with it for residential real estate but not serious commercial work. Check out the DJI Inspire 2. I'm a photographer and I have the M2P, and it's a fun toy but I was shocked at the image quality. Quite poor.

Just seen this post - I was looking for the topic because I have the same problem. A still clip from a video looks better that a RAW photo!

I, too, am new to the Mavic 2 Pro, and am quite disappointed with the poor low-light quality. From all of the great things I have heard about this drone, I was surprised. I got better low light performance with my Nikon D300. And that camera came out 13 years ago. I get some crappy noise at ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/500. I also get color blotches in the cyan and magenta ranges in shaded areas. Sorry, but I expect better than this from a $1,500 piece of gear. I am attaching a cropped-in section of a photo I took this evening. And there are worst areas of the photo.

djiuser_GcsjnxukYD2u Posted at 3-14 23:09
I, too, am new to the Mavic 2 Pro, and am quite disappointed with the poor low-light quality. From all of the great things I have heard about this drone, I was surprised. I got better low light performance with my Nikon D300. And that camera came out 13 years ago. I get some crappy noise at ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/500. I also get color blotches in the cyan and magenta ranges in shaded areas. Sorry, but I expect better than this from a $1,500 piece of gear. I am attaching a cropped-in section of a photo I took this evening. And there are worst areas of the photo.[view_image]

Thats a very weird choice of settings for the scene.  Noise is always going to be in the shadows.

You could easily open the aperture (to one with less diffraction to sharper!) and get the ISO down to 100.

Ultimately you bought a drone with a decent but not amazing camera.  Its got limitations.

Of course you're going to get better low light performance from a D300 - its got a MUCH bigger sensor!

f/4,  iso100 would have done the job there with significantly less noise.

djiuser_8f3r24yKQIK8 Posted at 2018-9-17 22:06
Thanks for the replies.  I guess I am expecting too much, this being my first drone.  I know I gave the sensor a lot to do with the high dynamic range.  My main concern was a bad sensor out of the box.  But if this is par for the course, I'll learn to work within the limitations.  Hell, I started my real estate business with a 12 year old Nikon D80 with a crop sensor.  So I can deal with this.

Hi,

had a D80 too. Gave that to my daughter and upgraded to full frame because of the noise.
For only a 1" sensor I find it's not doing that bad. I shoot only in RAW and process the images with LightRoom.
Had the first mavic before. And the mavic 2 pro is visually a lot better.

Sorry, but I have been shooting a variety of digital cameras for 16 years, and under no circumstances would these settings produce this kind of noise in even the Nikon D300. These are not a "very weird choice of settings" for a photo taken without a tripod in these lighting conditions.  The D300 had only a 12 mp sensor; this drone allegedly has a 20 mp sensor. I think the last camera I had that looked this crappy was the Nikon D100, a 6 mp sensor.

ArcticAngel Posted at 3-15 11:35
Sorry, but I have been shooting a variety of digital cameras for 16 years, and under no circumstances would these settings produce this kind of noise in even the Nikon D300. These are not a "very weird choice of settings" for a photo taken without a tripod in these lighting conditions.  The D300 had only a 12 mp sensor; this drone allegedly has a 20 mp sensor. I think the last camera I had that looked this crappy was the Nikon D100, a 6 mp sensor.

You completely fail to understand CMOS v CCD sensors and also fail to understand sensor size and pixel density.

A D300 has a much much much bigger sensor based on different technology so obviously it'll have far less noise.

And yes, the settings are odd,  They make no sense from a small sensor point of view.  You're deliberately and needlessly operating it outside the optimum zone.  Your aperture is too narrow which (i) cuts down light and (ii) is going to introduce softness due to diffraction.  The ISO is too high which on a small sensor with lots of shadows is going to show noise.  The shutter speed is pretty high and could safely be dropped 1-2 stops to allow the ISO to be at a sensible level.
Again, basic digital camera photography.

You then go to state the D300 has a 12mp and M2P a 20mpixel sensor.  Correct.  This shows you dont understand the role of pixel density in noise levels.

The D300 has a much bigger sensor and the density is significantly lower.  So low noise.  The M2P has a small sensor with  much higher density therefore a lot more noise.

Comparing a DSLR to a little 1" compact sensor is like comparing apples to microwave ovens.  They're totally different tech and it doesnt work.

Pretty much all the independent tests show the M2P sensor to be behaving within the expected range of small 1" sensors of the same age.

You're also not saying what post-processing you're doing.  Every single raw image whether its from a mobile phone to a 1DX  III requires noise reduction applies at the input stage.

Well, thanks for calling me an idiot, it's greatly appreciated. Great selling point for your product. I have seen other photographers use this drone and not have these problems with noise at such a low ISO level, and yes, ISO 400 is a low level. The camera is a total POS and DJI should admit it.

ArcticAngel Posted at 3-16 14:47
Well, thanks for calling me an idiot, it's greatly appreciated. Great selling point for your product. I have seen other photographers use this drone and not have these problems with noise at such a low ISO level, and yes, ISO 400 is a low level. The camera is a total POS and DJI should admit it.

So you firstly say you've seen other photographers use the drone and have no problems then call the camera a POS.
So which is it?  Both cant be true.

You failing to understand how to use the camera doesn't make it a POS....

Everything about your choice of settings and reasoning is flawed.  Unfortunately you aren't understanding the basics here which is why you're unable to get anything like the best out of the camera.

gnirtS Posted at 2018-9-16 03:31
Thats the issue - people seem to think a 1" sensor is huge.  It's not.  It means its upgraded to a compact camera from a cellphone camera.

Its a decent camera within that level for sure - im very happy with it but people are expecting a bit much.

it's not that much of the size, than its from heat from that small enclosure (while it's live view all the time without mechanical shutter), imo. that's why p4p is little bit better in this part, probably.