Stuff Posted at 2-22 12:26
I was creeping around these forums for a while now, researching the issue, but I was never going to post. Congratulations, you win, your comments appearing over and over again made me do it. Although this will likely fall on blind eyes, here I go:
I got two OA3, the first one is 2022/08, second is 2022/11. I corrected the focus on both.
The 2022/08 was abysmal, turned the lens about 30°ccw. This video I made after the fact - I wanted it to be out there as a resource for people, as judging by DJI responses on this forum I do not think you can achieve anything productive talking to them.

Your video proves nothing and particularly the last video which is certainly no improvement on any well edited and posted videos on this forum or YT. You prove only one thing that anyone carrying out this procedure will not end up with better footage but will no longer have access to use their warranty. This thing is so crude with no noticeable improvements. But those who have done it will tell you it has it looking at their videos its clear it hasn’t.And yes the advice you give is bad and helps no one except those who like the conspiracy.

Stuff Posted at 2-22 12:26
I was creeping around these forums for a while now, researching the issue, but I was never going to post. Congratulations, you win, your comments appearing over and over again made me do it. Although this will likely fall on blind eyes, here I go:
I got two OA3, the first one is 2022/08, second is 2022/11. I corrected the focus on both.
The 2022/08 was abysmal, turned the lens about 30°ccw. This video I made after the fact - I wanted it to be out there as a resource for people, as judging by DJI responses on this forum I do not think you can achieve anything productive talking to them.

Thank you for such a clear demonstration. While you first attempted twisting the lens, you had me holding my breath!

Your demo shows exactly what I have with mine. The focus is so slightly off, you begin to wonder whether it’s your eyes, but seeing them side by side shows that there is a clear difference between them in focus and contrast.

Mine sits in its box now because of this issue and I’ve ‘defected’ back to GP. The worst part is that I prefer the usability of the Action and actually, its colour profile, but I find that softness hard to ignore on anything close.

Once you start seeing it, you can’t ‘unsee’ it!

Its just so bad that, I will eventually do the same get back to a Better camera

Fishycomics Posted at 2-23 03:42
Its just so bad that, I will eventually do the same get back to a Better camera

The field of view isn’t great for what I want to video either in all honesty. Too wide but that focus thing which he showed really clearly on the video, is exactly the same as mine. After he turned the lens, it looked significantly better to me but still that fish eye look……

Iancraig10 Posted at 2-23 03:46
The field of view isn’t great for what I want to video either in all honesty. Too wide but that focus thing which he showed really clearly on the video, is exactly the same as mine. After he turned the lens, it looked significantly better to me but still that fish eye look……

agree upvoted:

I do not want to tear again open and try, and DJI will not offer or  replace wit ha narrow fisheye lens   as a company its Either like it or not

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osmonauta Posted at 2-23 04:48
I am very happy with mine - especially now that we're starting to have more daylight and sun. I love the UltraWide for biking.

I guess that’s what ultrawide is designed for. It’s similar on the GoPro, but I rarely use it because of edge distortion. What surprises me is that bikers don’t find their arms looking disproportionately long.

I was watching ‘Camera Conspiracies’ using the extreme wide view on his GoPro and his arms almost double in length when he stretches them out!

With  bike shots though, it’s more about being placed in the scenery I guess, so perhaps it’s way more suited to that.

Also, moving and shaking around means that critical closer focus is maybe not that important really. The times I notice focus the most is in the 'vlog' type videos when people point at themselves from arm's length rather than distance.

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I tested the replacement camera I received from DJI for 2 weeks. For comparison, I set my self-adjusted cam the way I would have liked it to be. But even if the results of the first cam were like those of the replacement cam, there wouldn't be a single video on this subject from me.

Rocktheasphalt Posted at 2-23 09:50
I tested the replacement camera I received from DJI for 2 weeks. For comparison, I set my self-adjusted cam the way I would have liked it to be. If the results of the first cam were like those of the replacement cam, there wouldn't be a single video on this subject from me.

https://youtu.be/HbiKeu0XPqk

I studied this video very carefully, pausing several times to check. And I came to the conclusion that the one you adjusted yourself is the best, and the one you got from DJI (the latest one) is a bit more blurry.
Then I think that mine probably corresponds to your newest one, which is "good enough" for me. When you filmed your face, there was a clear difference.

But for a longer distance, I think I would be satisfied. But I have to say that the one you have adjusted is just incredibly good.

Stuff Posted at 2-22 12:26
I was creeping around these forums for a while now, researching the issue, but I was never going to post. Congratulations, you win, your comments appearing over and over again made me do it. Although this will likely fall on blind eyes, here I go:
I got two OA3, the first one is 2022/08, second is 2022/11. I corrected the focus on both.
The 2022/08 was abysmal, turned the lens about 30°ccw. This video I made after the fact - I wanted it to be out there as a resource for people, as judging by DJI responses on this forum I do not think you can achieve anything productive talking to them.

Thanks for sharing, the improvement is very obvious.
My camera form 09/2022 is near your second camera, maybe a tad sharper than before your adjustment, but not as good as your adjusted one. As I don't want to use it for vlogging atm, I'm fine with it.
But that may change.
Maybe I try the adjustment someday, seems not too complicated.

DJI Mindy Posted at 2-22 03:45
Hi there, we are sorry for any inconvenience. May I confirm if this issue is resolved? If there is anything we can help you with, please let us know.

When I adjusted the lens it solve the problem of near focus but it is not much focus on distance subjects as earlier. I am still testing...but i feel either we have to loose Near sharpness or distant sharpness,which is not good.

djiuser_i3zt0NMy2j4m Posted at 2-23 23:04
When I adjusted the lens it solve the problem of near focus but it is not much focus on distance subjects as earlier. I am still testing...but i feel either we have to loose Near sharpness or distant sharpness,which is not good.

You are right, you have to choose close, mid or distance focus. Even GoPro doesn't have distance in focus.

djiuser_i3zt0NMy2j4m Posted at 2-23 23:04
When I adjusted the lens it solve the problem of near focus but it is not much focus on distance subjects as earlier. I am still testing...but i feel either we have to loose Near sharpness or distant sharpness,which is not good.

Maybe you overdid it a bit and could try turning it back a little.
I may give it a shot this weekend and try "breaking" my camera to slightly lower the close focus distance. I was pleased with 45cm, 60cm is tack sharp on my one, so maybe it is just a little nudge in the right direction. But when I start filming myself - what I normally don't do, but who knows - I sometimes tend to fall below the close focus distance (45cm on mine).

As it's a fixed lens, there is technically just one distance, where the lens is actually sharp, but the depth of field is huge cause of the short focal length, so nearly everything appears in focus.
The depth of field should extend from about 30cm to infinity from the specs of the camera, but that is just an approximation by judging, how big the circle of confusion is allowed to be so that the focus seems acceptable. The more sensitive you are - and the better you eyesight is ;) -, the better you realize the point where soft focus kicks in.
The trick is to move the focal plane just as far as infinity still appears in focus (hyperfocal distance) - remember, it never is but that should not be noticable. From what I have seen in many reportings, 30cm should easily be possible without loosing infinity sharpness.

It may even vary with your use case. When the action takes place right in front of you (self shots/vlogging), you may even choose to sacrifice a little bit of sharpness at infinity as that may feel less disturbing than a slightly blurred face against a sharp background. When you do more panoramic shots, you obviously don't want to loose a sharp scenery.
I sometimes experienced blurred foreground objects with active stabilization. Seems weighted on the whole FOV with background having a large share. As one or the other has to be blurred by parallax movement the algorithm seems to choose the background to be sharp.

30cm to infinity would give good enough focus (circle of confusion) IF it was in film days, but now in digital age it is not in my opinion.
From my calculations you need to have close focus way longer than 30cm (more like 50) to get desent sharp infinity focus.

But what should be in focus is more for what people would like to record, for me mid to infinity is good enough.

It would be so great to have manual focus on a action camera so we could adjust it ourself

djiuser_i3zt0NMy2j4m Posted at 2-23 23:04
When I adjusted the lens it solve the problem of near focus but it is not much focus on distance subjects as earlier. I am still testing...but i feel either we have to loose Near sharpness or distant sharpness,which is not good.

Could you please contact our support team through the link below and provide some sample photos or videos? Our team will help you further. http://www.dji.com/support

johansenfoto Posted at 2-24 02:00
30cm to infinity would give good enough focus (circle of confusion) IF it was in film days, but now in digital age it is not in my opinion.
From my calculations you need to have close focus way longer than 30cm (more like 50) to get desent sharp infinity focus.

You are right, the circle of confusion has to be much smaller for a 1/1.7" sensor, but that's true for every action cam with comparable focal length and sensor size. That's why short close focus range has to come with some tradeoff at infinity. Action cams don't need to be tack sharp at close distances and at infinity for most of my use cases. A sweet range from 1m to 30m with acceptable sharpness from 45cm to infinity is enough for me. But that obviously does only apply to me.

djiuser_i3zt0NMy2j4m Posted at 2-23 23:04
When I adjusted the lens it solve the problem of near focus but it is not much focus on distance subjects as earlier. I am still testing...but i feel either we have to loose Near sharpness or distant sharpness,which is not good.

That’s because you are simply meddling with something you know little about. First shifting the lens hoping you get better focus does not happen. Watch all the videos you will see exactly what you said all that’s happening is focus point is being shifted. The same people on this forum care nothing about making videos they care about spreading ridiculous theory’s and conspiracies without a single iota of proof that what they have done is better. Not a single iota of proof. But one thing is certain all warranties resulting from this nonsense are null and void…

This is not correcting focus its just moving it around and some of the results are appalling….

Rocktheasphalt Posted at 2-23 09:50
I tested the replacement camera I received from DJI for 2 weeks. For comparison, I set my self-adjusted cam the way I would have liked it to be. But even if the results of the first cam were like those of the replacement cam, there wouldn't be a single video on this subject from me.

https://youtu.be/HbiKeu0XPqk

The replacement camera is sharper that is clear. Just look at the furniture the basket weave on the right is so much sharper also knobs on the radio look out of focus.

ff camera will need to be adjusted, why its doesn't have compensation focus

Hallmark007 Posted at 2-24 10:16
The replacement camera is sharper that is clear. Just look at the furniture the basket weave on the right is so much sharper also knobs on the radio look out of focus.

I did not want to be the one who tells you that, but even your eyes give you a sharp spot in the middle and are less sharp at the edges. It is in fact the more accurate representation, of what i saw, if the edges are a bit blurred. In general the things i want to show, are near the middle of the picture, and sharpening the middle is the best way to lead the eye of the person watching it. Sacrificing sharpness in the middle to get more sharpness at the edges, is the wrong approach to make any action cam footage look good. All you get is a muddy picture and people end up searching for a solution. Slightly blurred edges can be explained and bother only people who are using this cam wrong (in my opinion).

Hallmark007 Posted at 2-24 10:16
The replacement camera is sharper that is clear. Just look at the furniture the basket weave on the right is so much sharper also knobs on the radio look out of focus.

Yes, I see the basket weave is moderately better on the replacement!  So! Perhaps DJI have recognized the issue and made appropriate changes to the product.  And I say that without casting  aspersions on anyone.  Simply an observation of fact.

Rocktheasphalt Posted at 2-24 12:33
I did not want to be the one who tells you that, but even your eyes give you a sharp spot in the middle and are less sharp at the edges. It is in fact the more accurate representation, of what i saw, if the edges are a bit blurred. In general the things i want to show, are near the middle of the picture, and sharpening the middle is the best way to lead the eye of the person watching it. Sacrificing sharpness in the middle to get more sharpness at the edges, is the wrong approach to make any action cam footage look good. All you get is a muddy picture and people end up searching for a solution. Slightly blurred edges can be explained and bother only people who are using this cam wrong (in my opinion).

And over sharpening in the centre is basically what film makers would refer to as soap opera footage , there must be balance from whatever lens one uses, trying to adopt nothing but an over sharpened centre focus sounds to me like you expect this to be nothing but a vlogging camera, but its so much more than that. Action comes in many ways it’s not all about sharp centre focus, a picture more pleasing to the eye is what most film makers would look for. But vloggers will always want to be the centre of attention and dji make a perfect camera called pocket 2 for that. Video below shows just how bad things can turn out giving the wrong advice to others.

This is what I ment by using it wrong. Indoors, no movement of the camera (which would make use of the stabilization). A phone camera can do a better job in this situation. Even with the original adjustment this scene would not look "much" better. The moment you move the camera and go closer to where the action is, it will shine.
But I can understand your point of view, and I would agree if there was a way to get more sharpness from the advertised distance, without giving something up.

Yeah, it's simply the wrong tool for the task... but maybe it was the only one availlable. I used an action cam as secondary cam for a circus recording, simply because it was the only option I had in 30 minutes to mangage this when any other people involved just forgot to plan on recording this one time performance.
You can always find a negative example if you look thoroughly. I totally agree, that you can't blame an action cam for not doing things it was not designed for. The problem is, that DJI just released misleading specs and is not transparent enough to correct them. I have no problem with close focus, even if it does not reach 30cm honestly (I just checked today, 30cm is useable for me, 40cm has no disturbing blurring apart from compression, stabilization and general image processing). I see, for the Action 3, DJI had another aproach than GoPro uses and there is more to image quality than detail. ;)I really like the footage I get from my Action 3. It's sharp enough (way sharper than my old yi 4K for 2k-footage upwards but not necessarily for 1080) in mid range and close focus range is enough for my use case. I tends to smooth out some details but gives a pleasant overall picture for me.

But if the focal plane is misadjusted, a nudge may help. I was tempted to try a fix from watching some reportings but judging from what I get with enough light - spring is coming ;) - I am pleased. Enough.

Just don't use it for photography.

Oh man stay tuned you just  called for a postcard moment, coming soon

DJ DJ Posted at 2-25 15:50
Yeah, it's simply the wrong tool for the task... but maybe it was the only one availlable. I used an action cam as secondary cam for a circus recording, simply because it was the only option I had in 30 minutes to mangage this when any other people involved just forgot to plan on recording this one time performance.
You can always find a negative example if you look thoroughly. I totally agree, that you can't blame an action cam for not doing things it was not designed for. The problem is, that DJI just released misleading specs and is not transparent enough to correct them.

In fairness, think the  example shown was shot using ultrawide in order to get the whole stage in, so edge distortion would be expected on that kind of view. Also poor lighting and higher iso might well contribute so it's not a great example to use. I think it's also straight from the camera; no tampering in post.

DJI recommend using wide and iso 100-200 in bright lighting.

The same thing shot on a lens that wasn't adjusted would look poor as well in those conditions on any action cam. It is indeed, 'the wrong tool for that task'!

I got the Action 3 based on that 30cm spec quoted by DJI, fully expecting it to outperform the GoPro in that respect. ie: I got it for it's closer focus, but it doesn't deliver that as well as I felt it should have. Probably a mistake to quote that figure in the first place and as you say, really, it needs correcting.

Rocktheasphalt Posted at 2-25 15:18
This is what I ment by using it wrong. Indoors, no movement of the camera (which would make use of the stabilization). A phone camera can do a better job in this situation. Even with the original adjustment this scene would not look "much" better. The moment you move the camera and go closer to where the action is, it will shine.
But I can understand your point of view, and I would agree if there was a way to get more sharpness from the advertised distance, without giving something up.

Most phones will do better, and those phones will cost a lot more so go figure. But the phone also has limits but these are rarely pointed out simply because people who use phones for cameras know their limits.
Some dji cameras have ability to control sharpness contrast etc, I personally believe to keep all happy this could be the best solution . But I do believe firmware helped greatly with this camera and hopefully further updates will continue to improve the camera.

Hallmark007 Posted at 2-26 10:38
Most phones will do better, and those phones will cost a lot more so go figure. But the phone also has limits but these are rarely pointed out simply because people who use phones for cameras know their limits.
Some dji cameras have ability to control sharpness contrast etc, I personally believe to keep all happy this could be the best solution . But I do believe firmware helped greatly with this camera and hopefully further updates will continue to improve the camera.

Yes, I would deeply appreciate some more controls in Pro mode or at least an option in settings to lower the (over-)sharpening. I'd really like to get rid of the halos. ;)
But on the other hand, I don't really care as long as the footage looks appealing enough.

Hallmark007 Posted at 2-26 10:38
Some dji cameras have ability to control sharpness contrast etc, I personally believe to keep all happy this could be the best solution . But I do believe firmware helped greatly with this camera and hopefully further updates will continue to improve the camera.

That might  be a great solution. I do exactly that with my Canon cameras and it might be a first for an Action cam? Even if it meant dialling sharpness back and using a more sophisticated sharpening process in post. Way more control by reducing sharpness in camera ready for later.

Try to take a similarly immersive shot with an unadjusted Osmo Action 3.
Shot in Ultra wide, 4k, 4:3, auto in all other settings, 9:16 in post.

https://youtube.com/shorts/elgNgv2UOJc?feature=share

So at the risk of being accused of beating the dead  horse...I would like to pose a question with regard to this near focus issue.  Why in the world would DJI put a front touch screen on their new version action camera if they did not intend for it to be used by someone within arms reach?  Huh?  Just asking.

well why would you want to constantly reach behind all the time, to change things, why they added to make life easier

the real question is people now want waswas on a 190's camera called Macro it is either a twist of the lens, or a  switch next to it.

skysailor64 Posted at 3-15 17:40
So at the risk of being accused of beating the dead  horse...I would like to pose a question with regard to this near focus issue.  Why in the world would DJI put a front touch screen on their new version action camera if they did not intend for it to be used by someone within arms reach?  Huh?  Just asking.

The exact same question I asked here when the Action 3 was released.

The answer I got was that Action cams aren’t designed to be used close and I needed a Pocket 2 (which I already have)

Being an ‘Action cam’, this camera was apparently designed to capture action, not selfies or use it to vlog.

TBH, that’s nonsense in my view, so I moved on. Still have the camera but don’t use it because of this problem of closer focus.

So as you are suggesting, having a front, touch sensitive screen is kind of a waste unless you are ski’ing backwards or something ………. ;)

When camera is mounted on you, your friend can change the settings needed for your shot. Or even check that it is recording if you can't see it.