Ive been fine in the summer and tropics using the auto camera settings in DD and just hitting fly.
Ive tried it now in Winter and had the flight wasted because it went for too low a shutter speed (1/30th or so).
So from that what is the recommended procedure for this?
Do i need to (i) select “Set Exposure Manually in DJI Go” in the advanced settings on DD, load Go4, set shutter priority exposure , quit Go4 and reload DD ?
Is there a better or more seamless option than flicking between apps etc ?
This is Mavic with Go4 on an android device if it matters.
I would recommend first trying the Low Light option in Advanced Settings. This may not be enough and in that case you would need to resort to manual DJI control.
After seeing you shutter speed you had experienced I didn’t think just changing the ISO would be enough. Problem is that if DroneDeploy/DJI Auto with an ISO of 400 doesn’t do it then you need a wider aperture and that may not be possible.
Its more of a strange choice of exposure.
EXIF showing ISO100 (it hasn’t moved), aperture 3.2 (it hasn’t adjusted) and SS between 1/30th and 1/60th.
Its winter and cloudy but there’s some light. Simply opening the aperture and bumping the ISO by a stop or two would likely work but DD hasn’t done that.
Thats why im wondering about a workflow to allow me to manually set shutter priority and have DD use that rather than its own method.
Drone is a mavic 2. Post processing isnt going to help blurred imagery.
Im basically trying to streamline things as plugging in the USB, loading Go4, taking off, setting camera, quitting go4, unplug/replug the USB (needed for app to see controller) then loading DD is fairly time consuming.
Wow, those are super low SS’s! ISO 100 is the base default for DroneDeploy. If you use the Low Light option it has a static setting of 400 ISO. The M2P’s supposedly can go to F2.8 so I am wondering if this is also set to static by DroneDeploy. ??? @Anjanette_Hill@Jamespipe If that is the case then I think that needs to be part of the Low Light option. Maybe it should be ISO 200 and F2.8? Unfortunately I don’t think that much of an aperture increase is going to really affect much. Maybe only 1/3rd of the exposure value?
Someone would have to play with it. That said pilots need to understand what the limitations of the drones are and what conditions are not good to fly in.
The main thing im wondering is that its using the pre-existing camera mode i used in Go4 (which would be aperture priority, iso 100) and isnt taking over full exposure control and just using that mode. I haven’t tested this yet.
There’s plenty of light to shoot there as i can easily get up to 1/160th which is ok for slow flight by simply bumping the iso and opening the aperture. I can do this manually but somewhat surprised DD app itself didnt do this.
If the toggles for DJI controls are not on then it is using DroneDeploy’s default auto which should be the same as DJI’s Full Auto. If they are on then it will use whatever DJI is set at that moment.
I would say an Exposure Time of 1/160 is scraping by unless you manually slowed the drone to below 15mph. The lowest I have ever seen my ET go to is 1/120 and that just happened to be a flight I did this morning in between rainstorms and I forgot to switch to ISO 400. Luckily I was doing 80% front laps so the drone was crawling at 8mph so the images weren’t too bad… At least for the purpose of the mission. Unfortunately the actual images are too high to share directly.
That makes sense, DJIs full auto has that behaviour. On this drone it allows the shutter to drop way below would a lot would class as adequate before altering other factors (which is why i dont use it for normal flights).
I’ve slowed the drone down to roughly 6mph (and its a small, very sloping area so i need to break what is actually a small survey into lots of different flights at different altitudes anyway).
Auto has worked fine for me up to now but its failing now its in a northern latitude, cloudy day winter on scenes consisting of a lot of dark foliage.
As DD doesnt seem to have customisation options for shutter priority mode im guessing manually in Go4, exiting and loading DD is the only option i have.
Update, i had a play with shutter priority and that seemed to work.
1/200th locked, ISO wandered up to 640 which is ok.
So its a case of:-
(i) connect drone
(ii) Load Go4, set up camera, close Go 4
(iii) Load DD
(iv) remove/replace USB otherwise DD wont connect
(v) fly mission.