Progress Report - Images Out of Focus

Progress Report

Images out of focus

Beginning

DJI Mavic Pro

I utilised the Progress Report functionality for the first time yesterday and having spent an hour or so perfecting the photos’ locations and angle etc., was disappointed to find this morning they’re all everso slightly out of focus, much like the traditional missions I used to do before switching to the manual focus and exposure options you added - at which point my results became perfect.

Despite setting up the settings manually in DJI Go4 as I would normally do (focus usually at infinity), there isn’t an option with the progress report mission to utilise their options through Drone Deploy. It appears DD is ignoring my manual settings and adjusting the images automatically but obviously being a Mavic, it’s failing.

Much like you added them in the traditional missions, please can the same focus/exposure options be added to the Progress Report mission also? I have a week before I need to return to site and it would be nice to be able to continue with the mission I’ve set up and now started. Not having the first clue about developing software, I’m thinking it’s a very easy ask, please? :slight_smile:

Thanks DD.

J.

Image below taken by me in DJI Go4, manual exposure and focus…

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Image below taken through DroneDeploy…

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1 Like

Hi @JamesC,

Hope you are doing well and thanks so much for reaching out. I’m sorry to hear that the images of your Progress Photo report came out slightly out of focus. If you have a moment, would you mind sending us this specific flight information so that we can take a deeper look at it?

In the meantime, I have passed your feedback along to our Product team so that they can consider adding the camera settings options within the Progress Photo capture.

Happy mapping!

Cheers,
Andrea

Hi Andrea.

The UK are in a middle of a heatwave and so with the exception of being hot and bothered and no aircon at home, I’m well thank you. :slight_smile:

The mission is entitled “G. Lane” on my dashboard and was in fact the last I flew on 3rd July.

I flew up in Go4 and made the maunal adjustments (as us Mavic users have to) before switching to DD and starting the mission. Of course not having the manual switches in DD to toggle, DD ignored the manual settings I made in Go4, both exposure and focus.

I’m not expecting DD to fix the automated focusing issue for the Mavic but it would be hugely advantageous to provide the same manual switches in DD to its Prgress Project mission - allowing me to override DD’s attempt. Please let this happen quickly. It seems like a very simple request and I’d almost go so far to suggest an oversight given DD already know it is a necessity for Mavic users.

Thanks again. J.

Hi @JamesC,

Thanks for providing this information. I agree that having the option to set the focus and exposure within the DJI GO app when using our Progress Photo capture would be very useful for other users as well.

As I mentioned to you before, I have informed about this feature suggestion to our Product Manager so we can consider adding this feature.

We appreciate your feedback. Have a great rest of your day!

Cheers,
Andrea

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Thanks @Andrea.

I did consider it might also be a good idea to include the ability to jump ahead to a waypoint of your choice, like a traditional mission, but in all honesty it’s just as easy (if not easier) to simply remove the waypoints from the mission.

Thanks again.
J.

Hi. I dont suppose you have an update for this @Andrea do you? Thanks. J.

Hi @JamesC,

Thanks for following up. At this time I do not have any update here. As I mentioned to you, I have registered this improvement suggestion on our system so that our Product Team can work on prioritizing this.

Once again, we appreciate you sharing this great feedback with us.

Happy mapping!
Andrea

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Hi Andrea. Is there any word from your development team that they might be considering this? I got pulled up on the pictures today and I was embarrassed to not have an answer. Thanks.

Kind of the same problem thanks a lot for this informative thread.

Hi @JamesC,

Thanks again for reaching back out again. I’m sorry to hear that the focus issue has persisted while using the Progress Photo Report capture. Unfortunately, we do not have an ETA on integrating the focus calibration option within the Progress Photo Report capture tool. Our product team is working on prioritizing it so we do not have an ETA for it yet.

We appreciate your patience and we hope you can understand that the development of this and other flight feature take some time. However, we just want you to know that we are aware of this and we are working on addressing it.

Have a great day.

Best,
Andrea

I think that’s good. Is that confirmation that the Product Team will be implementing it and it’s just a matter of time?

If you take a look in the only folder I have on my dashboard, you will see that its purpose is working perfectly for me, other than the appalling quality of the photos.

The reports that you’re producing are exactly what I need. They’re text book. I just the photos in focus to match.

Thank you again. J.

Hi @JamesC,

This is something our team is working on improving but we do not have an ETA for it yet. You are more than welcome to check with us via our Chat Support if you have any further questions.

Have a great day!
Andrea

@Andrea, any news yet? I flew the same mission 3 times this afternoon, each giving me out of focus pictures and each out by a set amount within each mission. It was massively out of focus the first and second attempt and without any intervention from me was a bit better on the third. Seems there’s nothing I can do to influence whether it works or not and takes me back to when there was no ability to focus a standard mission.

I then attempted to bypass the automatically out of focus pictures DD had been taking by interrupting a fourth mission and manually taking the photo in Go4 once the gimbal was set up, only DD wouldn’t allow me to resume the mission thereafter. Spent 20 mins with the thing hanging around in the air but without luck. Had to bring it down in the end with card full of blurry pictures.

Please please please can this be sorted soon? Lots and lots of new updates but would be handy if you could fix the broken things first. Either a Mavic Pro is supported as advertised or it’s not and right now it doesn’t work. Please?

Hi @JamesC,

If possible, would you mind sending us the Flight IDs or the names of the Progress Photo Report in question? We have analyzed the data/images that were provided originally in this Forum thread, but it is hard to compare the sharpness and focus quality of two images that were captured at a different altitude and with different light conditions.

As we have been unable to reproduce this case on our end, we will appreciate if you can provide us with more information like the name of the reports in questions and perhaps by sending us two images at the same altitude taken manually with DJI GO app and with the Progress Report feature.

Thanks in advance,
Andrea

Hi @Andrea.

Thanks for your help.

There are now 4 missions inside the only folder on my Dashboard entitled ‘Green Lane’, each containing 10 pictures.

For my first mission, I flew up in Go4 and set the focus manually (as I do with normal missions), switched to DD, started the mission and let it run. Only after I finished the mission did I notice the pictures out of focus - I haven’t suffered out of focus pictures since you gave us the manual toggles in the standard missions. I did take some manual pictures also which were perfectly in focus but they obviously don’t have the benefit of having the same waypoint.

For the second mission, I repeated what I did the first time but ran it twice. The first lot were diastrously out of focus so ran it again and bettered the results slightly. Not great but better but changed nothing the second time around.

The third mission I had to run three times before I received better pictures. I think the third time I put it into auto focus in Go4, thinking that might make a difference. The results were better but I think it was a fluke.

The fourth mission also had 3 attempts. Thinking at the time the auto focus in the third mission might have helped, I ran it again in auto but focussed in Go4 at something further away hoping it might help but the results were again terrible. I ran it again but again they were rubbish. I ran it a third time and doing nothing different to the previous two times the results were better. No idea why. I have come to the realisation that I am unable to influence the focussing with out the manual toggles.

Not to be beaten and having the time, I decided to run a 4th attempt on the fourth mission. This time I wondered if I could interrupt the mission by switching to Sport mode temporarily and swap into Go4, focus and take the picture before returning and continuing with DD, only DD just froze when I tried to resume the mission. I tried about 5 or 6 times before I gave up. I did managed to get that first picture though and not surprisingly was in focus.

You won’t see it within the folders as the really rubbish stuff was binned, but when I fly up to the flight’s height, I look down or at the subject and take a picture and the shot is in focus. When I switch to DD and without moving, I’ll start the mission and I receive the exact same picture on the card but it’s then out of focus. That blurred setting is then used throughout the mission and across the 10 pictures. Is it supposed to focus with each picture or does it just rely on the first picture DD takes when I start the mission?

Anyway, what you have in the missions are all of the out of focus pictures. Four missions of ten pictures.

To compare the quality of the pictures, the first below was taken manually by me and is perfect. The second is DD’s attempt. I’m out of the office for a few days and can’t lay my hands on better examples but you get the idea.

What I am sufferering now is exactly the same as I was suffering a year ago before you added the ability to toggle the focus /exposure control in a standard DD mission. I don’t expect you to be able to fix the Mavic Pro SDK focus issue or even need you to. All that is needed is for those two settings provided in a standard mission to be added to the Progress report flights and I can work around the problem.

The Mavic, iOS and DD are all on the latest software.

Thank you again. Please sort this for me. I don’t ask for much.

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I’m trying to get hold of two photos for you which are identical in position and subject matter. A picture taken by DD at the first waypoint taken on the third attempt of the fourth mission (best of the 3 attempts) and the picture I managed to take when I interrupted the fourth attempt of the fourth mission, also at the first waypoint. The difference is staggering.

Bare with me but in the meantime, please do look through my folder online.

@Andrea.

Okay, so time to play Spot the Difference. Shouldn’t take you long. :slight_smile:

The first picture below was taken by DroneDeploy at the first waypoint of the third attempt of my fourth mission in the Dashboard.

The second picture was taken by me in Go4 by interrupting DroneDeploy right before it took the picture at the first waypoint on its fourth attempt. Switched to Sport Mode and took the picture manually.

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Below are blown up extracts of the same two images. The difference should be obvious and as I said before, the results of the DroneDeploy attempt are identical to its attempts before you introduced the manual toggles in the standard missions last year. Include the toggles in the Progress Report set up and I am confident my troubles will be over. Thank you.

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Hi @JamesC,

Thanks so much for providing this information. I have passed the Progress Photo reports that are available on your ‘Green Lane’ folder to our engineers for their further information.

Have a great day!
Andrea

Thank you. I suspect it’s the same SDK problem you have with DJI that’s causing it and so I’m thinking the only current workaround is to allow us to manually carry out the camera setup.

Here’s hoping they provide the toggles.

I think I would have spent the $1500 by now… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: