Hey guys im Danny. Completly new to this forum and also drone flying. However im a very good photographer so know what im doing in regards to camera settings to shoot,
Iv brought the Mavic air 2, and im finding that the raw files are very grainy. I have the ISO set to 100 and im also using a polar pro 5 stop VND filter. My pictures are properly exposed as i use the histogram for everyshot. But once in Lightroom im finding the .DNG files very low standard. Editing them is throwing up poor results.

Can anyone point me in the right direction as i maybe missing something.

Many thanks Danny

Firstly, welcome to the forum Danny.

The MA2 has a 1/2" sensor so will need plenty of light to reduce the noise in the frame. You do not need ND filters for aerial photography - they are only needed for controlling motion blur in videography and the VND filters are not the best to use IMO. Take the filter off, keep the ISO to 100 as you are already doing and control the exposure with the shutter speed. Try taking a sample of shots such as using AEB, SmartPhoto and 48mp captures and see which gives you the best results. You will however get some grain in the low lights, especially when capturing stills in darker lighting conditions.

A J Posted at 9-20 11:17
Firstly, welcome to the forum Danny.

The MA2 has a 1/2" sensor so will need plenty of light to reduce the noise in the frame. You do not need ND filters for aerial photography - they are only needed for controlling motion blur in videography and the VND filters are not the best to use IMO. Take the filter off, keep the ISO to 100 as you are already doing and control the exposure with the shutter speed. Try taking a sample of shots such as using AEB, SmartPhoto and 48mp captures and see which gives you the best results. You will however get some grain in the low lights, especially when capturing stills in darker lighting conditions.

Cheers for the reply. Iv been taking braketing shots using the 48mp option and controlling the shots manually as iv read the the AEB option only results in 12mp pictures

Also thanks for the advice on the ND filter

acrodanny Posted at 9-20 12:23
Cheers for the reply. Iv been taking braketing shots using the 48mp option and controlling the shots manually as iv read the the AEB option only results in 12mp pictures

Also thanks for the advice on the ND filter

You're welcome

The SmartPhoto mode captures in JPEG+RAW and auto aligns the contrast through scene recognition, HDR and Hyperlight. I often use that in lower light settings and works really well. The only problem with it is that you can not set the camera profiles manually.