What's going on with these photos?

General Drone Discussion
21

I’ve been reading this with my photographers hat on and I have to admit the conversation has got me a little confused.

I agree the first picture has more exposure than the 2nd and this is clear in the EXIF data.
Pic 1 : 1/30s - f/3.1 - ISO160
Pic 2 : 1/30s - f/3.8 - ISO120
So most of the difference you see is in exposure, which has been chosen by the camera as it’s set to auto.
There IS also a white balance difference, again set to auto, the camera has chosen daylight for Pic 1 and cloudy for Pic 2. This explains the warmer look of Pic 2.

Changing the EV categorically would have helped, the whole of Pic 1 would have gained a little saturation and detail. I don’t know the M2Z camera (or any drone camera) but if it were a Nikon DSLR I’d recommend -0.7EV for Pic 1. This would have reduced the overexposure in a couple of the faces and made the grass a little greener. Yes it would “darken” the whole photo, but there isn’t a magical setting that will increase a cameras dynamic range

Setting manual WB to cloudy is an old photography trick that I can’t see doing any harm. It keeps photos looking nice and warm in cloudy or sunny weather here in the uk. I almost always shoot my DSLR cameras in cloudy outdoors and it’s rarely too warm. If your pics do end up too warm then you can knock it back to sunny. If your photo’s look too cold when it is cloudy, then set WB to shade which is often way too sickly if the sun is out.

I’m a little surprised to see the M2Z default to centre weighted metering, I guess it keeps the centre part of the frame correctly exposed, which is what’s happened here, I guess DJI are expecting consumers to pot their subject in the centre of the frame, but I think matrix would be more successful more often.

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22

Thanks for this very useful and happy new year!

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23

So thanks to @timmyp and the others that helped me to solve the overexposed photo problem its worked. However, I now have the same issue with video but could this be because I’m using an intelligent flight mode (drone)?

24

How did you solve the overexposed photo issue?

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25

By setting the white balance

26

And how do you know the white balance you set is correct?
I’m not trying to be pedantic, just leading you to solve your video issue in the same way you have corrected your photos.

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27

Well, I was told to set it to cloudy which it was at the time, and just leave it at that.

However, when you use a dronie function does it revert to default camera settings, or what?

28

18% grey card And custom setting, but awkward with a constantly moving camera and subject though.

I’d say cloudy always unless it’s a massive blue sky.

RAW gives you more flex in post, but video is a different beast. Auto WB will constantly change so I’d stay away from that.

Play with EV adjustments in shot but again your going to get changes which don’t look pretty. Keep your clips to 10 seconds or so with nice transitions and it’s not as noticeable

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29

18% grey card what do you mean?

30

Old tog trick, you youngsters have it so easy ;o)

Loads of reading avaialble, but this 2 minute video is a good quick introduction

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31

I’m not sure if it sets to default, have a play with it, adjust some settings and have a look to see if they’ve changed. If it does go to a default, then you’ll have to redo your settings each time unless someone with more experience on Mavics can tell you otherwise.

I know you’ve been given info on keeping WB set to cloudy, which should be ok in the majority of situations, but you should get in the habit of checking your exposure using the histogram, then you can adjust if required to enable you to have a chance of touching the video/photo up in post.

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32

NOOOOOOO

thats in response to just leaving your photos on HDR

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