Can anyone help me understand why my brand new Mavic Air has this horrible red cast while shooting a sunset?



I was able to correct it slightly in post, but if this is what I have to put up with I'm gonna be really unhappy...

Same problem here in broad daylight with my skin tone:


Fixed in post



Surely this is an issue with my drone. I haven't seen this cast in anyone else's footage, and I can't find anything about this online.

Not sure if this is it, but I’ve got two thoughts.  

Firstly, what are your white balance settings?  Have you left at auto or have you set it on a specific setting?  If so, what?  I personally set manually to sunny or cloudy as appropriate.

Secondly, have you played with the style settings and maybe adjusted the saturation? I personally prefer to leave those at the defaults.

have you tried not using that movie viewer/ editor, is the cast there when you use VLC on a PC to view the movie

KlooGee Posted at 12-28 04:25
Not sure if this is it, but I’ve got two thoughts.  

Firstly, what are your white balance settings?  Have you left at auto or have you set it on a specific setting?  If so, what?  I personally set manually to sunny or cloudy as appropriate.

I manually set white balance in the first (the sunset). It's correct, because shifting warmth does not fix the issue and when I remove the red, the WB is correct.

The second is auto WB (skin tone). Again, the white balance is not the issue, because adding or removing warmth does not fix the issue, and after lowering reds the WB is correct.

I use Cinelike, and -2 saturation. I've since changed that to 0 saturation, but this has not fixed the issue.

Thanks though

lannes Posted at 12-28 04:25
have you tried not using that movie viewer/ editor, is the cast there when you use VLC on a PC to view the movie

This is Final Cut Pro. It's definitely not the video editing software.
Thanks though

warwickajones@gmail.com Posted at 12-28 21:14
This is Final Cut Pro. It's definitely not the video editing software.
Thanks though

I'd return it for a replacement, fixing everything in post is not a good option

I have contacted DJI support and confirmed the unit is faulty.

The new unit has the exact same fault (albeit slightly less).

At this point I'm considering demanding an upgrade. I use the drone for my work and I can't adhere a $1,000 camera being unusable.

And I don't want to wait two weeks for them to confirm the problem only to have them replace it with another unit with the same problem.

That's strange, two units having the same issue

Are you using full auto  (e.g AWB. landscape, colour = none), or have you set some manual settings

The only red / orange like cast I can engineer is setting AWB to custom and using 10000k plus D-cinelike

warwickajones@gmail.com Posted at 12-30 00:29
The new unit has the exact same fault (albeit slightly less).

At this point I'm considering demanding an upgrade. I use the drone for my work and I can't adhere a $1,000 camera being unusable.

something's really not right with those 2 drones.  The second photo you posted it's clear to see the WV is correct given the wood is white.  Confirm what firmware you're running but I'd suspect a faulty batch or the fact the replacements are often refurbished units

lannes Posted at 2019-12-30 00:57
That's strange, two units having the same issue

Are you using full auto  (e.g AWB. landscape, colour = none), or have you set some manual settings

Manual and auto WB have the same issue. I've tried fixing WB in post, but it fails to remove the red cast while also making the image look too cool/warm. In other words, the white balance is correct while the image is still red shifted.

warwickajones@gmail.com Posted at 1-1 21:29
Manual and auto WB have the same issue. I've tried fixing WB in post, but it fails to remove the red cast while also making the image look too cool/warm. In other words, the white balance is correct while the image is still red shifted.

I agree. It's bonkers, no?

I'm in contact with DJI again, supplying them again with the information about hardware/software.

Despite having sunk $150 into ND filters for this drone I'm hoping for un upgrade to a Mavic 2 series drone. Honestly such a f*** around.