Being very excited about the prospect of easily capturing True High Resolution images on the Air 3, I want to make it really clear that DJI knows that it’s user base would appreciate such a feature. If you feel having an automated ability to capture an approx. TRUE 65MP image from a stitch of 70mm images matching a 24mm view is a useful feature please vote accordingly in the voting section of this post.

  
  

DJI – THE CASE FOR AN AUTOMATED HIGH RESOLUTION CAPTURE MODE USING THE 70MM LENS ON THE AIR 3.

  

The Air 3 is the first drone down from the Mavic series that has the ability to employ a Telephoto lens, in this case a 70mm 3x Tele. This now gives the Air an ability never before seen in the mid to lower drones and that is being able to stitch a grid of 70mm tele images to make a much higher resolution STANDARD WIDE ANGLE image. This is just not possible by just using the 24mm wide lens.

  

The resolution is 12MP for a single 24mm shot, this increases to around 65MP! using the 70mm to take images covering the same area as the single 24mm wide angle lens.

  

With the AIR 3 you have an equal or better camera to a DSLR in the air!

  

This ability to now capture 65MP 24mm effective images is groundbreaking for this type of drone because you could never do it before automatically. All you could do is capture extremely wide and often unwieldly images combining a stitch of wide angle images via the Panorama mode.

  

I think it’s important this feature is not achieved by just giving the 70mm Panorama access (though for some use cases that would be cool) but is really about giving the photographer a precise 24mm view they can choose knowing that they can quickly capture a 16 image grid of 70mm images to provide the 24mm view but in stunning resolution.

  
  

You could allow the photographer to just crop the image they want out of a 360 or 180 pano taken with the 70mm but there are issues with that…

  

·        You would need at least 9x more images than compared to doing a panorama in 24mm mode

  

·        This would require A LOT of images and take up a lot of space

  

·        You would be introducing a lot of time in which elements in the scene could move e.g, clouds, vehicles etc however most external stitching software has very effective masking features to reduce issues caused by this. Also when taking drone photographs you are very conscious of time and people around you, you don’t want to prolong your time in the area waiting for your drone to take a lot of unnecessary images.

  

To me the better option is not necessarily include this option as a Pano function but have an icon always on the main screen being a “True High Res” icon whenever you are in Photo Mode.

  

In it’s simplest form you are flying along you find a view you like using the 24mm camera you push the “True High Res” icon and the drone (through just a simple algorithm) based on where the lens is pointing takes a grid of 16x 70mm images to cover the view of the 24mm lens. You could have in settings the ability for the user to then have a stitch done right there and then or just forget that and the user can stitch later in a higher quality using PTGUI or Panorama Studio for example.  We have this ability right now (see below) it just needs automating.

  

Having flown my drone in the weekend and spending a whole day taking stills one thing sticks in my mind. I want to be as quick as I can I don’t want the drone in the air for longer than necessary and I don’t want to attract the attention of any passers-by. By having a dedicated quick “True High Res” mode I can quickly and easily get in get the grid taken exactly where I want it and go.

  
  

So we have done some tests…

  

A user went out and took a single 24mm image. Then using the 70mm lens positioned the camera in the top left corner of the 24mm frame and proceeded to take grid of images going 4 across and 4 down (in this case the user used a few more but covered the area well.)

  

We then stitched the images to form a single high resolution image. Here is a comparison of the stitched 70mm and single 24mm views….

  
  

At this size they look almost the same quality, the 70mm stitch does introduce some compression but I don’t see that as an issue.

  
  

Here is a close up comparison of the two images. Left hand is the a 200% crop of the stitched series of 70mm images and on the Right hand side is 24mm single shot at about 490% to match the scale of the stitched image…

  
  

As you can see the 70mm stitch is far superior as you would expect it to be.

  

If printing the 70mm stitch at 300DPI this print would be 817mm x 585mm and be able to withstand close examination, something pretty much unheard of for a 24mm view from a drone. In it’s 24mm 12MP form you could do the same print quality but at only 341mm x 256mm.

  
  

DJI this really seems like an easy solution to provide users of the Air 3 a quick and reliable method to rival DSLR quality images from the air and be able to produce something really special. I really hope you will add this feature to the Air 3 and potentially any other drone in the DJI family that has a telephoto lens.

  
  

Many thanks

  
  

Andrew Busst

  

Thank you for your feedback. We really appreciate the time and effort you have invested in providing this suggestion to us. Your feedback will definitely be cascaded to the concerned team for further review. Your understanding is highly appreciated.

DJI Paladin Posted at 10-9 18:46
Thank you for your feedback. We really appreciate the time and effort you have invested in providing this suggestion to us. Your feedback will definitely be cascaded to the concerned team for further review. Your understanding is highly appreciated.

You are most welcome DJI Paladin great chance to make the Air 3 unique in the market at this level of drone. Fingers crossed your programmers  implement this change.

Cheers

Bussty

yes, please add this feature in, make your Air 3 an even more valuable drone.

Great feature request.  Hopefully, the DJI development team will adopt this idea and we will see it in a future FW update.  

Bussty Posted at 10-9 18:51
You are most welcome DJI Paladin great chance to make the Air 3 unique in the market at this level of drone. Fingers crossed your programmers  implement this change.

Cheers

No worries, Bussty. Thank you for your valued support. Have a nice day ahead!

Sounds like a great idea. Any new features would be welcome. This does sound like a great way to up the quality of images.

Clackers Posted at 10-12 17:24
Sounds like a great idea. Any new features would be welcome. This does sound like a great way to up the quality of images.

It certainly does Clackers and would only take some coding changes and it's done. There are no hardware reasons like "it doesn't have side avoidance" or "it doesn't have a Waypoint chip" it would just be a super nice "gift" from DJI to it's user base that would provide us with something pretty special.

Fingers crossed :-)  

The Enterprise drones - Matrice 30 and 350 can do this hi-res grid function:

High-Resolution Grid Photo - Frame an area of interest in a wide-camera view, and the zoom camera will automatically capture a set of 20 MP images of the area. These images are stored together with an overview image that can be viewed in greater detail.

Does this produce the result you're hoping for in the smaller drones?
And if it is - then I don't see any reason why they couldn't implement it on the Air 3 with a firmware update.

Hoarfrost Posted at 10-13 21:08
The Enterprise drones - Matrice 30 and 350 can do this hi-res grid function:

High-Resolution Grid Photo - Frame an area of interest in a wide-camera view, and the zoom camera will automatically capture a set of 20 MP images of the area. These images are stored together with an overview image that can be viewed in greater detail.

Exactly Hoar Frost!  Air 3 is the first drone down at this level that actually has the hardware (tele lens) so early days for what DJI can do with it but you can't beat the Air 3 for price and portability and maybe now even image quality?   I think the AIr 3 tele can produce way higher resolution than 20MP when stitched and if we could automate that process to fit the view seen through the 24mm makes it a very simple 1 click process and if you you wanted a smaller area than that you could just crop in so different to the Matrice series which have a much higher zoom range and more options technically you could produce a massive resolution image with that system.

They should do this for ALL drones with a tele lens.

Mobilehomer Posted at 10-14 10:21
They should do this for ALL drones with a tele lens.

Totally agree transforms any drone with a tele lens to a viable high resolution stills platform.

Bussty Posted at 10-14 03:29
Exactly Hoar Frost!  Air 3 is the first drone down at this level that actually has the hardware (tele lens) so early days for what DJI can do with it but you can't beat the Air 3 for price and portability and maybe now even image quality?   I think the AIr 3 tele can produce way higher resolution than 20MP when stitched and if we could automate that process to fit the view seen through the 24mm makes it a very simple 1 click process and if you you wanted a smaller area than that you could just crop in so different to the Matrice series which have a much higher zoom range and more options technically you could produce a massive resolution image with that system.

Each photo in the series is 20 Mpx adding up to 180 Mpx in the stitched final.

Hoarfrost Posted at 10-14 17:42
Each photo in the series is 20 Mpx adding up to 180 Mpx in the stitched final.

Oh Ok that is massive amazing quality!

Hello,
today I was able to take my first flight with my new Air 3. I did some 3x3 Pano test this morning and the result is just amazing. Final image was about 17000x17000px. I downsized and sharpned it to 12000x12000px in Photoshop. I deeply hope DJI is going to include such a high resolution pano mode for the 70mm lens in future firmware updates.

Enjoy: 100% view
[url=https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TrV9qeyKz_bymwUJqw0ft30QBdFJ-sBJ/view?usp=drive_link, https://drive.google.com/file/d/ ... view?usp=drive_link]Panorama[/url]

here the overview https://drive.google.com/file/d/ ... view?usp=drive_link

struller Posted at 10-17 11:09
here the overview https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TrV9qeyKz_bymwUJqw0ft30QBdFJ-sBJ/view?usp=drive_link

Hello Struller this sounds encouraging I tried to access those links but drive said I didn't have access so asked me to send you a request which I did. Hope that works to gain access and looking forward to seeing your results  :-)   Cheers Bussty

now it should work

struller Posted at 10-17 13:10
now it should work

Great scene Struller I bet the original resolution stitched image is amazing.

A compelling argument

Blériot53 Posted at 10-19 09:04
A compelling argument

Thank you Mr B, long time no talk, been a lot going on in my world here but getting back into the drone side of things. Very excited by this latest offering from DJI really hope they see the potential too!  Hope all good with and you are getting out with that drone a lot.

Bussty Posted at 10-19 10:52
Thank you Mr B, long time no talk, been a lot going on in my world here but getting back into the drone side of things. Very excited by this latest offering from DJI really hope they see the potential too!  Hope all good with and you are getting out with that drone a lot.

Nice to see you on the forum again too
Getting out with both drones whenever I can, thanks.
Some depressingnews from the BBC though, which might spell the end for our hobby in years to come
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67132527

Blériot53 Posted at 10-19 11:09
Nice to see you on the forum again too
Getting out with both drones whenever I can, thanks.
Some depressingnews from the BBC though, which might spell the end for our hobby in years to come

Very good to hear!

Yes I saw that article on our news last night either those drones will have to have superior obstacle avoidance or big business is going to claim the airspace between 0 and 120m especially in cities.

The article I saw last night said they were limited to 3km?  Funny how VLOS seems to go out the window for big business. They are so big are we really going to want those zooming around our skies? What happens around airports I wonder?

I guess we aren't going to see them zooming across empty seascapes and landscapes the places you really love to  fly your drone but I feel they definitely won't be wanting to compete with recreational drones so feels like a lot more to play out here....  This is probably worthy of a whole separate post?

Bussty Posted at 10-19 11:39
Very good to hear!

Yes I saw that article on our news last night either those drones will have to have superior obstacle avoidance or big business is going to claim the airspace between 0 and 120m especially in cities.

That would probably cause a viral discussion
A correspondent in the US tells me that where the trials have been going on over there, the neighbourhoods have been contantly disturbed by dogs barking as the drones fly over.
So noise pollution looks like being an issue too.

Blériot53 Posted at 10-19 11:49
That would probably cause a viral discussion
A correspondent in the US tells me that where the trials have been going on over there, the neighbourhoods have been contantly disturbed by dogs barking as the drones fly over.
So noise pollution looks like being an issue too.

I wonder how long until these drones start getting targeted? No mindfulness of impact on people with these drones whereas most recreational pilots try to avoid people altogether.

Bussty Posted at 10-19 11:56
I wonder how long until these drones start getting targeted? No mindfulness of impact on people with these drones whereas most recreational pilots try to avoid people altogether.

A paradox, isn't it. I'd bet that, even now, the criminal underworld are devising ways of disrupting those flights

Blériot53 Posted at 10-19 12:04
A paradox, isn't it. I'd bet that, even now, the criminal underworld are devising ways of disrupting those flights

Yes in the same way I would be nervous leaving an automated lawnmower to cut my front lawn without supervision I would be nervous sending these out into the wild!  Just way too tempting for human nature someone will have a crack at bringing them down.

Dear DJI, any update on this feature request?

I hope they will add this!

Montfrooij Posted at 11-28 23:47
I hope they will add this!

Yes fingers crossed hoping its not reserved for the Air 4 as can easily do this now is just programming.

Bussty Posted at 11-30 12:37
Yes fingers crossed hoping its not reserved for the Air 4 as can easily do this now is just programming.

Yeah, although the reality is that they don't usually add stuff longer after the release.
At least, not that I remember
But who knows! Maybe it's 'young' enough!

Montfrooij Posted at 11-30 12:45
Yeah, although the reality is that they don't usually add stuff longer after the release.
At least, not that I remember
But who knows! Maybe it's 'young' enough!

If that happens and you have the perseverance you can still just do manually but frustrating and not as accurate or fast :-(

Bussty Posted at 11-30 12:50
If that happens and you have the perseverance you can still just do manually but frustrating and not as accurate or fast :-(

Yeah, plus I feel it can lead to unwanted artifacts because of the time between the shots.

Montfrooij Posted at 11-30 12:54
Yeah, plus I feel it can lead to unwanted artifacts because of the time between the shots.

Yes true especially if you have clouds etc moving in the scene. Is the reason also I believe 360 panos or even 180 are problematic with the tele lens as would take so long to complete as so many more images required but a tight 16 shot burst to capture what you see in the wide angle view should present few issues. I truly hope DJI dont just offer a 180 option as a solution as knowing what you see in the wide angle view is exactly what you are going to get but in very high resolution once you stitch is such a useful solution to my way of thinking...

Bussty Posted at 11-30 13:53
Yes true especially if you have clouds etc moving in the scene. Is the reason also I believe 360 panos or even 180 are problematic with the tele lens as would take so long to complete as so many more images required but a tight 16 shot burst to capture what you see in the wide angle view should present view issues. I truly hope DJI dont just offer a 180 option as a solution as knowing what you see in the wide angle view is exactly what you are going to get but in very high resolution once you stitch is such a useful solution to my way of thinking...

Exactly.
Although the anti-ghosting algorithms  do a great job these days with spheres.

Hi Forum members I see we are up to 69 votes for this very useful feature. If anybody is in support of having the Air 3 automatically take a grid of images with the tele lens covering whatever is being viewed in the wide angle lens, please vote here. (top of this post) If we can get to 100 votes in support it will be something to bring to DJI's attention to how valuable a feature this would be.

We are talking about being able to stitch those images together to create overall image resolution covering the wide angle lens field of view that would be equal or better to many DSLR images!

I feel we will get there eventually but just need to keep on letting DJI know...   Many thanks

Bussty Posted at 1-15 16:44
Hi Forum members I see we are up to 69 votes for this very useful feature. If anybody is in support of having the Air 3 automatically take a grid of images with the tele lens covering whatever is being viewed in the wide angle lens, please vote here. (top of this post) If we can get to 100 votes in support it will be something to bring to DJI's attention to how valuable a feature this would be.

We are talking about being able to stitch those images together to create overall image resolution covering the wide angle lens field of view that would be equal or better to many DSLR images!

I feel we will get there eventually but just need to keep on letting DJI know.
Just like the folks who thought that letting DJI know they wanted an SDK for their Mavic 3s would get results?
How did that work out?

Labroides Posted at 1-23 04:43
I feel we will get there eventually but just need to keep on letting DJI know.
Just like the folks who thought that letting DJI know they wanted an SDK for their Mavic 3s would get results?
How did that work out?

Just like the folks who wanted waypoints on Mini or Air drone, Telephoto Panos, Vision Assist, almost complete 360 panos... How did it work out for them?  Awesomely!

These things have all been requested by users and implemented by DJI so I'm hopeful. The change I campaign for is modest but will have a big impact on the usefulness of the Air 3 or bigger drones with tele lenses.

I guess we will just have to wait and see...  

I still wait for rest of modes at AIR3 70mm....as 360 was implemented, Is EASY for DJI to implement the Wide, Panorama....

Yes, please make this feature available on the Air 3.