Hey guys! I took my Phantom 4 out for it's first night flight. I shot in auto and just edited the exposure. It's OK but the light from very bright objects and areas ON THE LEFT OF THE LENS looks blurry and has a glow around it.

***UPDATE*** - After a suggestion that the lens cover possibly may have some grease or something on it, I cleaned the lens cover inside and out and took it out again for another test flight. As you can see in this video when I pan from left to right, everything on the right is clear and barely any glow. As soon as those same objects get to the far left of the screen they completely glow and blur. What would be causing this? Do I need to send back to DJI?
This first video is a vlog style video. If you arent into that type of video just skip to 8:00 and you can see just the night footage in question.

This type of lens flare is usually caused by either grease on the lens or an uncoated or cheap filter, or both.  Camera settings alone won't help.

What city is that mate? Cool video

nigelw Posted at 2016-4-16 03:25
This type of lens flare is usually caused by either grease on the lens or an uncoated or cheap filte ...

I don't have any lens filters and it's definitely a clean lens. Weird

Mike_ellis_18@h Posted at 2016-4-16 03:32
What city is that mate? Cool video

Thanks man. It's Philadelphia. Just moved here

Cool! Looks stunning, looks like you have an ace life lol

Very Strange. I do not get those types of lens flares when filming at night. those are definite blurs around the brighter lighting. But my P4 does not do this. Also, assuming your still where your picture shows your at, that's Philadelphia, PA, correct? Love Park?

nigelw Posted at 2016-4-16 03:25
This type of lens flare is usually caused by either grease on the lens or an uncoated or cheap filte ...

Hey man. So, I inspected the lens again and noticed it wasn't 100% clean and did have a tiny bit of something on it. Hopefully that is the cause. Will try again tonight and see

cocktail5555 Posted at 2016-4-16 16:36
Hey man. So, I inspected the lens again and noticed it wasn't 100% clean and did have a tiny bit o ...

Yep, it doesn't take much for bright lights to flare.  I've had the problem many times over the years shooting into the sun with my stills camera.

FatedFilmsNC Posted at 2016-4-16 19:01
Very Strange. I do not get those types of lens flares when filming at night. those are definite blur ...

I think maybe the lens had something on it. I have cleaned it again and will report back on my next night flight. Yes, we are in Philly. However, that isn't love park. It was Dilworth park. They are doing work at Love Park and moved the LOVE sign to Dilworth for the time being

Mike_ellis_18@h Posted at 2016-4-16 18:36
Cool! Looks stunning, looks like you have an ace life lol

Haha it's average

This is nothing to do with drones. They are just walking with a phone on a "selfie" stick.

michaelfinney_h Posted at 2016-4-17 20:12
This is nothing to do with drones. They are just walking with a phone on a "selfie" stick.

If you read the post the OP says

"Here is the video. It's also a vlog, so just skip to 7:58 to watch the footage. <br>"

And the effect is most likely caused by pixel blooming, i.e. it is saturated with too much light, see HERE

Aardvark Posted at 2016-4-18 03:20
And the effect is most likely caused by pixel blooming, i.e. it is saturated with too much light, se ...

I didn't think ND filters were good to use for night footage. I thought they were mainly for bright day light. Wouldn't the filter darken everything a bit, depending on how many stops to the filter?

Love Philly! Anyway, I would also turn off the red lights in your settings so you dont get the 2 red glares.

Love Philly! Anyway, I would also turn off the red lights in your settings so you dont get the 2 red glares.

cocktail5555 Posted at 2016-4-17 20:33
I didn't think ND filters were good to use for night footage. I thought they were mainly for brigh ...

I was pointing towards an explanation on blooming, as you say ND filters would not be used at night, but blooming can still occur with bright light sources.

Nice footage, Philadelphia really does look beautiful at night.

On a side note I wonder how many different cities that LOVE sculpture is in? I have seen it in Tokyo, New York and at least on other City that currently slips my mind.

Also it is clear that you are a fan of Casey Neistat.

Kirtus Posted at 2016-4-17 16:41
Nice footage, Philadelphia really does look beautiful at night.

On a side note I wonder how many d ...

I was going to say the same thing. Almost a direct clone of a Casey vlog!

Kirtus Posted at 2016-4-18 04:41
Nice footage, Philadelphia really does look beautiful at night.

On a side note I wonder how many d ...

Thanks! I am actually not sure about the LOVE signs elsewhere. Maybe Philly was the first being the city of brotherly love. I'm intrigued now ;)

And yes, some of my videos are 100% inspired by Casey. He was the reason I pulled my camera gear out of the closet and started filming. I have never done any filming or editing before a few months ago and I am still learning the ropes. Need to follow and mimic the greats in order to become good and create my own style. However, most of casey's techniques is text-book filmmaking.

Thanks for watching though!

cocktail5555 Posted at 2016-4-18 07:08
Thanks! I am actually not sure about the LOVE signs elsewhere. Maybe Philly was the first being th ...

Mimic the greats. That is definitely  what I would do. Nice job. The fact that we recognized the style says you are doing it right.

Hey everyone, please see my update in the original post. I cleaned the lens cover and took it out for a second test flight and still having the issue with light glow on the left.

nigelw Posted at 2016-4-17 00:05
Yep, it doesn't take much for bright lights to flare.  I've had the problem many times over the ye ...

Hey Nigel. I cleaned the lens cover and tried again. Still had the same results. You can see the new footage in my updated original post. Is my camera shot? Thanks for your help!

cocktail5555 Posted at 2016-4-18 04:40
Hey Nigel. I cleaned the lens cover and tried again. Still had the same results. You can see the n ...

I'd look at the lens behind the front cover glass as well as well as inside the cover glass, as it might be dirty from assembly.  If other Phantom's don't exhibit the same issue, then it could just be a fault in your lens.

cocktail5555 Posted at 2016-4-18 04:40
Hey Nigel. I cleaned the lens cover and tried again. Still had the same results. You can see the n ...

You can switch off the front red LEDs by going to 'Main Controller Settings' / 'Advanced Settings' and then toggle 'Turn on front LEDs'. This will get rid of the red glow at top right and left hand in both videos.

Aardvark Posted at 2016-4-18 15:57
You can switch off the front red LEDs by going to 'Main Controller Settings' / 'Advanced Settings' ...

Thanks for the tip. Will definitely turn them off next night flight. Although, I don't think I will being flying much at night since the footage looks like crap with this lens issue.

Since viewing the second video, do you maybe have any other ideas as to why this is only happening on the left side of the lens?

Thanks again for you help

Maybe try taking the lens off and cleaning inside and outside with alcohol? It could be a bad lense though.

levik1990 Posted at 2016-4-18 22:54
Maybe try taking the lens off and cleaning inside and outside with alcohol? It could be a bad lense  ...

I did that and it didn't help. I also don't want to touch the actual lens. So I left it alone.

here is an image of the footage to help explain my issue:

cocktail5555 Posted at 2016-4-18 16:23
I did that and it didn't help. I also don't want to touch the actual lens. So I left it alone.

Clean the actual lens.  It's just as likely to be the culprit.

Yeah, so .... I did another thread on this, but .....

When I got my P4, it seemed to be doing OK. the video was amazing, as far as I was concerned. I was really just blown away. I was getting an awful lot of lens flares - I just thought it was something I was going to have to look out for, and be aware of when shooting. So, then I bought a ND8 filter. As I took off the "stock lens" (I have since been informed it is a UV filter), I noticed it looked pretty dirty. I tried to clean it with a microfiber to no avail. Then I tried lens cleaner. Previously, had not inspected it closely. The good news is that they are supposedly going to replace it. Or at least they keep telling me that on the phone. I am not getting the email that they say will confirm it and give me tracking info, but they keep saying it is coming. So, you could have a bad stock UV filter as well.

cocktail5555 Posted at 2016-4-18 17:35
here is an image of the footage to help explain my issue:

Why also appear two red halo? Have you turned off the red lights in front of the aircraft?

Hey cocktail. I live in philly as well and just purchased the phantom 4. Are you up for meeting up? It be cool to learn some drone tips. I reside in center city

ifemedebe Posted at 2016-4-21 07:24
Hey cocktail. I live in philly as well and just purchased the phantom 4. Are you up for meeting up?  ...

Definitely man! I live in center city too.

Looks like bad chromatic abberation - happens on a particular color at the edge of the field of view.  The P3/4 lenses are really pretty cheap things - the filters even worse.

You can try a couple of things.  First, remove the filter housing entirely.  Go naked.  Just be careful.  That might help a bit.  Next, shoot some stills by rotating the camera, say 30 degrees each shot and see if the issue always occurs at all the edges.  If it's just one edge, the lens might be decentered (happens a lot) and DJI can fix it.

The other thing to try is shoot the stills in DNG format and run them through Photoshop / Lightroom using the available lens correction file.  At least this would isolate the issue.

If all else fails, pretend you are JJ Abrams....  It's a feature, not a bug.

cocktail5555 Posted at 2016-4-18 16:35
here is an image of the footage to help explain my issue:

Can I ask what the outside temperature was?

Have a watch of this video, it may be of some use

I have the same problem with my Phantom 4, I get a glow on white subjects in daylight. I will post a few examples in another post.

I have the same issue with my P4! In my opinion it was not from the beginning... rather then after one of the last updates... I downgraded already, adjusted/recalibrated the gimbal, reset of all settings... nothing changed...
even i cleaned the lens.. tried different filters - nothing....

What could be the problem ? A faulty lens or faulty sensor?

Best regards

I have the same issue with my P4! In my opinion it was not from the beginning... rather then after one of the last updates... I downgraded already, adjusted/recalibrated the gimbal, reset of all settings... nothing changed...
even i cleaned the lens.. tried different filters - nothing....

What could be the problem ? A faulty lens or faulty sensor?

Best regards