Good morning lovely drone flying community,

I've been playing with my new drone yesterday and am really astonished about the device.
My main purpose is to make images and therefore went out to have a first take on it.

Coming home I noticed that all images tend to falloff to the left side, whereas the centre and the ride sight are in focus and sharp.
It seems that this issue is known as soft or blurry corners, especially during gen 1 but also for some with gen 2.
I've taken all these images in manual mode with f4, focus to the centre. Later test shots showed, that raising the aperture to f5.6 did help a bit but the difference is still quite noticeable.

I am aware as taking pictures with my DSLR for a long time, that corners tend to be softer for wide angle lenses especially if you don't stop down. But the distribution of sharpness here makes me worry.

I am still in the 30 days return time frame of Amazon but I fear receiving another drone that's even worse (after reading of some members here with 3 or 4 unsuccessful attemps) ...

What do you think, it this a 'normal', tolerable deviation?

full picture

crop marks

lower left side

lower right side

upper left side

upper right side

Other images





Thank you for your consideration and tips!

https://forum.dji.com/thread-165897-1-1.html

here is the 3ad, it is said that the lens sensor is decentralized.
Your how is it?

anyway come also said a forumer then banned (I do not know why) each photograph can not have the same precision at the corners as the precision that is at the center!

If you are feeling disapointed now, you won't get over it and it will bug you. Send it back and keep sending bad stuff back if it is still unsatisfactory. Before you give up on it, just try a full camera reset and use a proper test card so you can measure the fault. This link might help http://bobatkins.com/photography/technical/lens_sharpness.html

AlansDronePics Posted at 5-19 05:24
If you are feeling disapointed now, you won't get over it and it will bug you. Send it back and keep sending bad stuff back if it is still unsatisfactory. Before you give up on it, just try a full camera reset and use a proper test card so you can measure the fault. This link might help http://bobatkins.com/photography/technical/lens_sharpness.html

I agree! but I must also say that I also spent stages of life replacing objects (gopro, apple products, etc. looking for perfection) that never arrived and I lost the taste of enjoying myself and having fun with the objects I bought ... and I learned that a perfect product does NOT exist, or if it exists it will have to cost a fortune!
So if the problem is not so serious, I would try to replace it with the knowledge that it could even be worse!
IMHO

Thank you AlansDronePics and EnricoBrun for your replies.
I've reshot some pictures today with f5.6 and can tell, it got better but still the left side is comparable more blurry than the right (for no obvious reason). As I made a couple of images, one can see, that the AF is not always spot on and therefore the sharpness seems to amble a bit.

Soft corners are expectable to some degree, but I feel that the left side in general is more blurry than the right, not only the corners.
I have filed a replacement with Amazon and hope the next unit will not have this issue.

I am willing to accept some degree of soft corners with this small construction but here I feel something was not built right as the problem affects only one side. At least I need to try to resolve this issue for once.

f5.6, 1/800 s, ISO 100, AF centred

small photo taken with mavic 2 pro nd4 polarP but in jpeg stored on iPhone
Example:

Thank you EnricoBrun,

I never doubt that downsampling from 20 MP to somewhat HD size, the soft corners won't necessarily caught your attention right away.
I am working on 4K though and I have to admit, now knowing about the soft area bottom to top, it is noticeable.

My shot of the parking lot is not interesting but shows the falloff of focus and contrast.
Other areas with sometimes little detail as the sky will not show this behaviour I guess. But even with grass it is visible as the texture becomes muddy with no real distinction.

Yamanote Posted at 5-19 09:26
Thank you EnricoBrun,

I never doubt that downsampling from 20 MP to somewhat HD size, the soft corners won't necessarily caught your attention right away.

what I wanted to say that the corners will never be as precise/sharp  as the center of the image, I don't know if I can make myself understood due to a translator

Enrico, I get you even through the translator.
Normally, in the camera world I am coming from, stopping down your lens to apertures like f8 to f11 will reduce corner softness. However, with the Mavic 2 Pro, at these "high" values the diffraction sets in, so it is better to stay in the range of f4 - f5.6 otherwise the whole image will get more blurred.
Your shot of the canola (awesome by the way) is somehow typical that corner softness is not always a bad thing. But the focus area is different (and to be expected to drift in your shot) as in a 90 ° down image. Although most likely like a hyperbole, the edges should be at least soft equally but not differently. This is why I suspect some misalignment in hardware with the sensor, lens or gimbal.

Just being comprehensible soft in the edges is something different if just a portion of the picture shows this behaviour in my opinion.

Yamanote Posted at 5-19 09:53
Enrico, I get you even through the translator.
Normally, in the camera world I am coming from, stopping down your lens to apertures like f8 to f11 will reduce corner softness. However, with the Mavic 2 Pro, at these "high" values the diffraction sets in, so it is better to stay in the range of f4 - f5.6 otherwise the whole image will get more blurred.
Your shot of the canola (awesome by the way) is somehow typical that corner softness is not always a bad thing. But the focus area is different (and to be expected to drift in your shot) as in a 90 ° down image. Although most likely like a hyperbole, the edges should be at least soft equally but not differently. This is why I suspect some misalignment in hardware with the sensor, lens or gimbal.

the photo of the asphalt seems to me seems homogeneous, much more than the first photos you posted, I think the real problem would be seen even in this your last photo

PS : Have you looked with a magnifying glass if the lens sensor is centered? some users saw him visibly decentralized ..

I guess the problem could be better called 'Resolution fallof due to decentred sensor/lens/aperture/gimbal ... optical element'.
It's not the typical wide angle softness but parts of the images look like they are not proberly focused.

I'll take a look on the lens itself now, maybe there's something suspicious.
Thanks you so far!

Too bad that we can't get an official response to this issue after all that time.
Cross my fingers for tomorrow's replacement from Amazon ...

A quick update: I can tell, that the replacement unit has been delivered and the quality is far superior than the first bird. Softness is now negligible and not appearing like a dramatic falloff of resolution, more like out of focus area. It's equal on either side and I am very happy now. Cannot wait until weather cheers up and hopefully this bird will fly as good.