Hello, I bought the DJI Action 2 because I read in your forum, here, there is a sharpness adjustment with the previous osmo model. I contacted your online technical support and they couldn't find it anywhere either on the Mimo app or internal camera settings. So DJI please could you be so kind to add the sharpness adjustment?

-Context: in videography lowering the sharpness is used to achieve the best professional quality image, I could explain with technical examples why and when sharpness is increased/decreased but for now because previous models already had this adjustment and all the standard and action videocameras use this adjustment too I think it's for the best for everyone just to include it in a software update.


I know many people would applaud to include that feature in DJI ACtion 2, does anyone wants the sharpness adjustment too?

Await for your answer, thanks.

Hello there Isaac RC. Good day and thank you for sharing these information with us. This information will be noted and will be forwarded to the designated DJI department for attention. Thank you.

DJI Stephen Posted at 4-7 16:37
Hello there Isaac RC. Good day and thank you for sharing these information with us. This information will be noted and will be forwarded to the designated DJI department for attention. Thank you.

Good day and thanks for your attention, for me the decision of buying Action 2 really came to know if "sharpness" adjustment was included or not so you can imagine my incredulity when I saw it isn't yet.

So if anyone else is also very interested on getting "sharpness" setting implemented on Action 2 please leave here your comments showing your interest to DJI

Thank you

I think the debate is that params like sharpness, saturation ,contrast  is set before shooting or post-process.

Current way is :
For cinelike or D-Log color, there is little sharpness, leaving room for post-process.  
For normal color,  it is sharper. And we develop color science for each DJI product.

since the screen is not big enough to watch the details. if the it is set too sharp, the footage is ruined. post-process cannot save the sharp white edge...

Plz share your thoughs on this.
thanks for the feedback

Thanks for your feedback, I'd very much enjoy to discuss the color science of Action 2 engineering, nevertheless accessible for everyone so allow me to use open concepts without sparing in detail should anyone follow.

I am actually testing thoroughly both color profiles for some weeks now, and first of all state the fine level of quality I see of both color profiles, but regarding "sharpness" let's state an unusual characteristic of color:

- Sharpness doesn't affect color as we could actually blur the color separately on purpose and the image would still be equally sharp, although a color bleeding through black&white edges would be visible in this extreme example.

- Let's note that sharpness is a key refinement process that takes place in the demosaicing of an image and it's role is to render image's pixels edges focused, clean of pixel artifacts and DJI Action 2 does that perfectly if one checks a RAW photography,

- Because RAW format is the maximum quality standard currently used by any digital camera, one should differentiate it from the quality of compressed formats such as JPEG or HEVC and H.264 video settings in Action 2, since RAW quality in video would eat any SDcard storage in a matter of seconds or a few minutes then compression purpose is to lose image data compromising the least of possible the image quality. Important to note that with compressed format attempting to revert sharpness is useless since the original quality is not available it would worsen the already compressed quality even more.

- Even in RAW quality there's the known optical defects that occur naturally regarding sharpness, one can look up more info about "Aliasing", "Moiré", "Fringe" and the inevitable "Pixel Noise" but all those optical effects in video, because the difference from photo is that the image is moving, it makes those defects even more apparent.

- The most used solution to all these compromises in professional cinematography is recording a purposely smoothed detail in order to minimise and protect from unwanted defects and then with video editor use fine sharpening tool adjusting the amount depending on the level of optical defects that may present each specific scene.

So finally to explain my feedback argument: I see DJI Action 2 Sharpness looks perfect with RAW original quality, but with compressed video I see (with a 4K display and tested with D-Cinelike and Normal color) many of the pixel defects and negative tradeoffs described above, further more when Action 2 stabilises the image it's effectively cropping in, the pixels appearance gets bigger, therefore making even more visible the quality issues. Also when scaling down resolutions from its original 4K to 2,7K and 1080p settings Aliasing takes place and makes it even more visible.
To sum up, a sharpness control would allow the image render more natural and open to elevate its quality in postproduction for professional use, fine details, faces detail, etc, although I imagine the concern to present ready made sharp focus images for everyone, I see an avoidable negative cost in image quality for professional purposes when its control it's left out of the consumer.

Thanks

Isaac RC Posted at 4-7 23:26
Good day and thanks for your attention, for me the decision of buying Action 2 really came to know if "sharpness" adjustment was included or not so you can imagine my incredulity when I saw it isn't yet.

So if anyone else is also very interested on getting "sharpness" setting implemented on Action 2 please leave here your comments showing your interest to DJI

Hi there Isaac RC. Thank you for the reply and for these additional information that you have given. If you have any other concerns or any inquiries with DJI. Please feel free to post it here at DJI Forum. We are all here to help and assist you. Thank you.

I agree with DJI-ytao, that just adding a sharpness setting will not help with image quality. Especially if, like other low-end cameras, the change of sharpness is implemented by running a low-pass or a high-pass filter. The camera should deliver the maximum amount of detail without resorting to sharpening or smoothening.

I am a skeptical towards the statement that cinematographers smoothen video _in camera_ to improve quality. Professionals want all image detail they can get (and therefore shoot raw, which you can't with action 2). The smoothness/sharpness tradeoff is usually a result of the lens/camera combination, not due to processing the video during the recording.

My impression from the Action 2 (had the camera since launch) is that there is no aliasing in 2.7k vs 4k (there is almost no difference between the two resolutions). I'd say that the video is on the smooth side rather than being too sharp (maybe because I use d-cinelike?). Especially when filming underwater in suboptimal lighting, but that probably doesn't concern a lot of users.

fish sticks Posted at 4-8 21:21
I agree with DJI-ytao, that just adding a sharpness setting will not help with image quality. Especially if, like other low-end cameras, the change of sharpness is implemented by running a low-pass or a high-pass filter. The camera should deliver the maximum amount of detail without resorting to sharpening or smoothening.

I am a skeptical towards the statement that cinematographers smoothen video _in camera_ to improve quality. Professionals want all image detail they can get (and therefore shoot raw, which you can't with action 2). The smoothness/sharpness tradeoff is usually a result of the lens/camera combination, not due to processing the video during the recording.

1. Did you see my point about sharpening being a necessary process of RAW demosaicing to avoid edge pixel artefacts?

2. Besides the point, DJI already included sharpness control in their old models: link

3. I saw since the launch people trying to make "cinematic" videos of Action 2 and in all of them fine detail has noise compression artefacts in 4K resolutions! Something that you can simply avoid by lowering sharpness in-camera, did you see my point where pixel noise is one of the tradeoffs of over-sharpening?

Also if you shoot underwater, the actual water acts as a massive optical diffusion filter (diffusion filters are used to smooth image) and the camera may be using high ISO in shady conditions, in Action 2 high ISO makes detail smoother but at the unwanted cost of strong noise artifacts.

Anyone that has used a video camera with sharpening control knows the advantages in preventing pixels artifacts ruin your footage, today even in action cams the level of quality is so high that hardly you can pass unwanted image artefacts without being noticed as bad quality content.

DJI please we really need to make better quality of Action 2.

Alright, so you want to control "sharpness" before the video compression step? And you say that this will help avoid compression/noise artifacts. I still think that you are using "sharpness/smoothness" to describe phenomena that happen in different stages of the image acquisition process. For example trading off noise, compression artifacts, and image detail is not "simply" avoided by adjusting sharpness.

To point 2: are you sure that the sharpness setting isn't just a filter that is applied on top of the image after it is taken? I have the Action 2 and the Osmo Action and both don't have a "sharpness" setting.

My take on this is that I'd rather have DJI developers spend time on improving the image quality, but I don't want to have a setting I have to tweak myself. ...and hope that I got it right, because good luck checking what is going on with the size of the display.

There's possibly so many techniques and methods to treat detail/artefacts suppression/noise that makes little sense discussing them without the actual engineers/color scientists behind Action 2 image math and programming.
From my feedback as consumer with experience of having to deal with quality issues all I say is:
- one the "sharpness" adjustment is missing ( I've got cameras even with 5 distinct "detail/sharpness/noise" settings each one with many input values etc)
- and two this "fixed sharpness" of the image it's making a subtile quality damage but the kind of damage that there isn't a tool in video editors to be able to fix it, further more it's really awkward the situation where there's a stunning image quality but because there's over-sharpened and/or noisy edges ends being unusable for example when trying to mix together the Action 2 with other cameras in the same video or just quality wise.

So DJI please help us the consumers make good quality, professional and cinematic videography with the more than capable Action 2 action camera.

Thanks