Hi all ! new drone user here. I bought this dji mini 2 fly more brand new from a store and everything so far appears to be great, except for the footage. every recording i make whether 2.7k60 or 4k30 appears to be grainy/noisy. I have no idea how to adjust it and manual doesn't have any information. Let me know what information you need and ill gladly provide it. im unable to upload a video here for some reason

Hi, djiuser_TC0LPWGbWc7g. Thanks for reaching out! We recommend checking whether the Camera Mode Switch was either set to Manual or Auto. You can set it to Manual and lower down your ISO to improve or lessen the noise/grain produced.

DJI Gamora Posted at 2-25 06:27
Hi, djiuser_TC0LPWGbWc7g. Thanks for reaching out! We recommend checking whether the Camera Mode Switch was either set to Manual or Auto. You can set it to Manual and lower down your ISO to improve or lessen the noise/grain produced.
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thank you for a quick reply. So how do i determine what settings to use? i messed around with those and decreasing iso just gives me darker screen. increasing shutter gives me brighter screen but the grain is still there. any tips ?

"im unable to upload a video here for some reason"

You have to upload to a file sharing site like YouTube or Vimeo and then post a link to that in this forum.

djiuser_TC0LPWGbWc7g Posted at 2-25 07:50
thank you for a quick reply. So how do i determine what settings to use? i messed around with those and decreasing iso just gives me darker screen. increasing shutter gives me brighter screen but the grain is still there. any tips ?

Settings may vary depending on the desired result, your subject, and the location wherein you're shooting. To give you some idea about camera settings, you can check out this info link: https://store.dji.com/guides/drone-camera-setting/

Hope that helps!

The less light, the higher the ISO value, the higher the grain will be ...
Keep the ISO value low in low light, then the shutter speed has to be longer and/or the resolution has to be lower.

MM and DM2 generally produce noisy footage even in perfect conditions. I use NeatVideo and SpectrumGrades profiles to remove noise from the video.

Tuxtard Posted at 2-26 00:28
MM and DM2 generally produce noisy footage even in perfect conditions. I use NeatVideo and SpectrumGrades profiles to remove the noise from video.

is it easy and convenient to remove? would it be something like just 1 click of a button? i never edited videos before

djiuser_TC0LPWGbWc7g Posted at 2-26 01:39
is it easy and convenient to remove? would it be something like just 1 click of a button? i never edited videos before

Well NeatVideo is just a plugin for editing software, so if  it is convenient to use or not depends of your editing software choice.  If you buy NeatVideo profiles for DM2 as I did, then the process is as follows:

1. Load the video in your editing software
2. Apply NeatVideo filter
3. Choose NeatVideo profile (SpectrumGrades provides 8 profile levels. Each level removes more noise than the previous, but also reduces detail. You should go with smallest profile level that produces good enough result in preview to save as much detail as possible)
4. Export

You can also build your own profiles. There are tutorials on how to do it on Youtube, for example:

If you don't want to use complex editing software like Adobe Premiere you can use simple and free editing tool VirtualDub and get NeatVideo plugin for it.

but why do those cameras produce so much grain? i feel cheated because i did so muich research, and not a single "reviewer" spoke of this. do higher end models do this as well? is there no way to prevent it aside from editing ?

messing with iso and shutter doesnt do anything...

ozoffi Posted at 2-25 23:20
The less light, the higher the ISO value, the higher the grain will be ...
Keep the ISO value low in low light, then the shutter speed has to be longer and/or the resolution has to be lower.

ill come back to you after i try this thank you

djiuser_TC0LPWGbWc7g Posted at 2-26 03:09
but why do those cameras produce so much grain? i feel cheated because i did so muich research, and not a single "reviewer" spoke of this. do higher end models do this as well? is there no way to prevent it aside from editing ?

messing with iso and shutter doesnt do anything...

As far as I know, higher end models don't have this problem. There is another thread where user is experiencing similar problems with DM2 that are not present on his MA2 - https://forum.dji.com/thread-229115-1-1.html

DM2 is not advertised as a professional, but entry level device. Reviewers probably have that in mind when they are testing it. On the other hand, many people are not bothered with the noise level that DM2 produces, or they are using too small screens to even notice. I was disappointed with the level of noise, flicker and compression artifacts that MM1 produces, but still got DM2, even when I knew that it has the same camera and sensor that MM1 has. I got it because of the other factors, like weight, size and portability.

There were similar problems with the GoPro ... but they were able to fix this with a firmware update.
Perhaps the resharpening is being carried out too heavily.

Here is a video from yesterday trying to film deer. Unfortunately, the digital noise can be seen very clearly here:

djiuser_TC0LPWGbWc7g Posted at 2-26 03:09
but why do those cameras produce so much grain? i feel cheated because i did so muich research, and not a single "reviewer" spoke of this. do higher end models do this as well? is there no way to prevent it aside from editing ?

messing with iso and shutter doesnt do anything...

Low iso, ND to control your shutter and learn to expose (this takes time and experience with each different cam).
I see plenty of shots with very high detailed textures without the use of nd's. Not having motion blur is kiling the encoding.

Go to YouTube and look up what settings others have used ..It’s very helpful

AlexanderK Posted at 2-28 04:19
Low iso, ND to control your shutter and learn to expose (this takes time and experience with each different cam).
I see plenty of shots with very high detailed textures without the use of nd's. Not having motion blur is kiling the encoding.

In my opinion, motion blur is just masking the problem. Lets take a look at a clip I've taken recently:

https://media.itsinbox.com/uploa ... 8/field_flicker.MP4

This video is taken with my MM1 that has the same camera (same part number) as DM2. Settings used are as follows: 24fps, ISO 100, SS 1/50, ND16 filter. We can see that the image is slightly underexposed (-0.7) and that the drone is not moving at all, but still the noise is very obvious. There is a lot of noise on the dark part of the ground, a bit less on the light part of the ground and even on the sky. To me this looks like a encoder problem where P-frames are loosing too much quality between I-frames, which are crisp.

From what I've seen DM2 has a similar issue, but it is less obvious because of the higher resolution and bitrate.

How should an ND filter "improve" digital noise ?!
If DJI can't make any changes here in the firmware, you have to do this in post-processing ...
e.g. with DaVinci Resolve Studio or a dedicated plugin:
Neatvideo (see: )
It's interesting that some see an ND filter as a panacea ...
An ND filter can neither eliminate digital noise nor jerk because of too fast panning at too low a frame rate ... And what is the much-vaunted "motion blur" good for?
Why should I want to artificially blur a video?
A video should reflect reality as far as possible and reality is not fuzzy - at most my perception is fuzzy and they (e.g. my eyes) do it all by themselves.

djiuser_TC0LPWGbWc7g Posted at 2-26 03:09
but why do those cameras produce so much grain? i feel cheated because i did so muich research, and not a single "reviewer" spoke of this. do higher end models do this as well? is there no way to prevent it aside from editing ?

messing with iso and shutter doesnt do anything...

but why do those cameras produce so much grain?
Because they have tiny sensors and tiny sensors have trouble dealing with low light levels.

do higher end models do this as well?
Bigger sensors = less grain under low light conditions.

is there no way to prevent it aside from editing ?
Shoot under good lighting conditions.
Shoot with the sun behind the drone and lighting your subject.

messing with iso and shutter doesnt do anything...
It would help to learn some basics of photography and exposure.
There are plenty of websites with this information.

"Shoot under good lighting conditions.
Shoot with the sun behind the drone and lighting your subject."

That would be the standard answer (followed by "use an ND filter") - only so much light cannot be present that there is no digital noise ...
Even if this decreases sharply in good lighting conditions and is hardly present, it is not completely gone.

ozoffi Posted at 3-1 07:14
"Shoot under good lighting conditions.
Shoot with the sun behind the drone and lighting your subject."

That would be the standard answer (followed by "use an ND filter")
It's all you can do if you only have a tiny sensor.
It has more noise in low light and high ISO settings ... so keep the ISO at 100 and shoot in good light.

And how does an ND filter make any positive difference?

That was meant more ironically ..... As I said, there can't be that much light - even in bright sunshine and ISO 100 there is a minimal amount of noise.  But that can't just come from the small sensor alone.  Other cameras also have a small sensor and no noise in optimal lighting conditions ....

ozoffi Posted at 3-1 05:24
How should an ND filter "improve" digital noise ?!
If DJI can't make any changes here in the firmware, you have to do this in post-processing ...
e.g. with DaVinci Resolve Studio or a dedicated plugin:

Having smoother footage is easier to encode. Thats why I mentioned this in cobination with content with high detailed textures. So flying over a grassland with relative high speeds en with high shutters match up to a difficult scene to encode. Also don't underexpose on these consumer entry level drones and tiny sensors (learn how to expose). Anyway sofar I have zero "grain" issues with the mini 2 (given it's price I adjust my expectations)

I understand what you mean. But it's also kind of unsatisfactory ...
In my case (video with deer) the noise can be clearly seen even when the machine is standing still. Perhaps it would be helpful to be able to specify an ISO-MAX value also with automatic.
The DJI Pocket 2 has the same camera as the Mini2? The pocket does not seem to have such a strong noise.
In any case, the fact is that with the Mini2 you have to work more in manual mode in order to get a good result.

AlexanderK Posted at 3-1 11:24
Having smoother footage is easier to encode. Thats why I mentioned this in cobination with content with high detailed textures. So flying over a grassland with relative high speeds en with high shutters match up to a difficult scene to encode. Also don't underexpose on these consumer entry level drones and tiny sensors (learn how to expose). Anyway sofar I have zero "grain" issues with the mini 2 (given it's price I adjust my expectations)

Makes sense. Blurry image is easier to encode. But still, DJI should investigate the issue and try to mitigate because noise is apparent even when the drone is not moving.

Can you please post one of your clips that you are satisfied with so we can compare?

Tuxtard Posted at 3-2 00:47
Makes sense. Blurry image is easier to encode. But still, DJI should investigate the issue and try to mitigate because noise is apparent even when the drone is not moving.

Can you please post one of your clips that you are satisfied with so we can compare?

This is some random stuff, first minute or so is all without ND but not that bad either.


I look at this drone as a toy that makes pretty nice shots. Take it with me during walks (gotta stay fit). For more serious work I would go to the Phantom 4 pro (small and simple commercial work) and for more high end we hire a drone operator (I co-own a videoproduction/animation company). For the price and size this drone is very capable of producing nice images. For personal work good enough for me, but for commercial work I would switch to something else.

AlexanderK Posted at 3-2 01:13
This is some random stuff, first minute or so is all without ND but not that bad either.
https://youtu.be/2K4V2E2zI84

Thank you.

With a good editing program you can get a lot out of a bad video ...
I did this in my study this morning in very poor lighting conditions with manual settings (ISO 200 - Autoamtik would have been set to ISO3200, the video would be well exposed, but there was a terrible noise). The post-processing was done in a few simple steps - you can certainly achieve an even better result.

ozoffi Posted at 2-28 03:30
Here is a video from yesterday trying to film deer. Unfortunately, the digital noise can be seen very clearly here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwJESphzJYY

I hate to say it and you'll not like it... but what you call 'digital noise' is just fine detail jumping around. Every frame tries to be sharp and capture detail and then loosing the film feel of blended frames and fails in creating a smooth motion.  
Sure there are tools for noise reductions etc etc. But thats not what this is and these tools are great but with good exposure etc the should not be necessary for these kind of shots (in general we fly during daylight and not in candle lit rooms). Look around on this forum and you'll find plenty of clips that don't jitter around, this can easily be avoided.

WB + expose/shutter is the start. And set you exposure for the subject and not the frame. This tiny sensor simply doesn't have the headroom to push the material around that much so choose what you want. Sometimes the sky will be a bit blown out, or you choose to let blacks clip... but always keep in mind what the subject of that shot is.
And then make shots with purpose... reveal something, have a compelling perspective etc etc.