I’ve been testing the X3 camera with drone deploy but I found the only way to get 1cm/px resolution was to fly really low around 30m.
I’m about to buy a X5 camera to try improve that and hopefully fly higher and still get 1cm/px. I read that the sensor is 8 times larger than the x3 which I think increases detail? I also just realised the X5 has interchangeable lens which has confused me a bit since I honestly have no idea which one to get.
Please help recommend to an anxious amateur like me on the perfect Inspire 1 X5 lens setup? I’ll buy whatever you guys recommend haha
I’m incredibly nervous with drones and drone spending and just want to get it right the first time.
Hi Will,
I’m kind of with Meta4 in suggesting the P4 as i fly the Inspire 1 myself and am aware of the short flight time. Luckily my maps where i have to use the Inspire are fairly small so this worked alright so far. Though for some areas/flights i can use my Mavic 2 and it’s great not having to worry about the time too much or having to restart after changing batteries in our environment with little options to land - a lot of metal confuses the compass hence cannot use mavic due to lack of ATTI.
To your actual camera question, I fly at 30m and get usually around 1.2-1.3cm/px with x3. The most critical thing I learnt is to not use automatic camera setting on the X3, as too often I got blurry photos (in saying this I have not tried the new feature setting for ‘low light’ - this might help if it’s supported to Inspire). When increasing flight height to 50m, also the new Mavic 2 Zoom is losing the quality and it goes up to around 1.6-1.9cm/px (at 30m Mavic2Zoom gets on same flight 1cm/px).
I’m guessing, and someone with a P4 could chime in here, but with a higher pixel camera on P4 (20 vs 12mega pixel in mavics and inspire with X3) you should also see better resolution in the map. So by upgrading to the x5 you might still not get the results in higher altitudes - if this is indeed related to the camera pixels and quality or also the sensor size???
Also, DD seems to have changed the suggested height for new maps from 75m and now suggests for me to not fly higher than 35m. Though speaking of flight time again, if the area is not to huge, maybe 30-35m height might not be too bad of an idea especially if you require the quality you are after?
I fly with P4P’s and a Yuneec H520. The P4P normally at 80-90m and it provides 0.7-0.9cm/px. This is derived from the MP of the camera and the altitude so more MP and lower altitude is the formula. One major advantage the P4P is its wider FOV at 84 degrees. To achieve to same overlaps with the H520 (and most other cameras) I have to fly about 10% higher thus losing resolution.
From what I gather the x5s is probably your best bet, but it too suffers from a narrower FOV at 72 degrees. The X3 has a wider FOV, but suffers from just 12mp resolution.