Vastly different number of images per drone?

Flight - Discussion and Q&A
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Hey all! Haven’t been here in a while, but have been flying DD construction progress missions at least a couple of times a month.

I’m thinking of replacing my aging Mavic Pro with a Mavic 2 Pro, so for grins I created a fictitious construction progress mission and choose the 2 Pro instead of the Pro (Advanced settings - planning camera) to see if there’s much difference.

Wow. There is!

Mavic Pro:
28:21 Minutes, 19 Acres, 505 Images, 2 Batteries

Mavic 2 Pro:
29:45 Minutes, 19 Acres, 560 Images, 2 Batteries

With the bigger and better camera of the 2 pro, I thought it would take less images, not more? Why would it take longer time and more images to do the same flight?

So then I tried some different cameras and got more of a shock:

Phantom 3 Standard Camera:
33:30 Minutes 19 Acres 315 Images 3 Batteries
Phantom 4 Camera:
18:05 Minutes 19 Acres 316 Images 2 Batteries
Mavic 3 Enterprise Camera:
10:44 Minutes 19 Acres 390 Images 1 Battery

Anybody know why there’s this huge discrepancy?

I was really hoping that a 2 Pro would reduce my time-on-station and the image count, but yield better orthos…but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

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What’s up Dok?! Good to see you are still at it!

These differences are normal and are due to the FOV of the respective drones. The older Mavic Pro is at 78 degrees and the M2P is 77d so you see the count difference in just 1d. Now the Phantom 4 Pro is 84d! I’m assuming you planned these all at the same AGL?

Technically a lesser FOV is because the camera has a longer default focal length so in theory you should be able to fly a percentage higher with the Mavic 2 Pro and maintain the same GSD. In theory… but you also have electronic vs mechanical shutters which makes a direct comparison flawed.

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Hi @MichaelL ; yep, still pluggin’ away, gaining experience and trying to figure out how to translate that into $$. :smiley:

FOV; that would explain it.

Thanks!

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