Expert Opinion on Picture Quality

[r62ewa]

Can I get some expert eyes on this photo. It was captured with DJI 15mm at 4:3, 1/50 sec. f/9 at ISO 100 with D-Cinelike and white balance on Cloudy. No editing was done to this picture.

In others opinion, is this photo acceptable with regards to focus, exposure, etc? I know it is dark and I did edit the DNG and lighten things up but I was curious as to what others thought of just the image from the camera.

The image can be downloaded from my Google Drive link here DJI_0364.JPG

I tried to upload it here but kept failing as my internet is too slow and I think it times out.

Any help is appreciated by anyone who downloads the image and offers opinions.

 

[photobeauty]

First of all I would much prefer to see a DNG file to judge quality. Second: there is nothing close enough to really judge if the details are sharp. To me the forest trees do not look sharp, but again they are so far away that details won't show anyway.

 

[r62ewa]

First of all I would much prefer to see a DNG file to judge quality. Second: there is nothing close enough to really judge if the details are sharp. To me the forest trees do not look sharp, but again they are so far away that details won't show anyway.

Thank you very much for the comment. Here is the DNG DJI_0364.DNG Maybe I did choose a bad example.

 

[giumick]

Pictures from the x5 are never brilliant and often good editing is why they look well. You cant beat a full size sensor for photos. My D5000 wipes the floor with our x5r photo wise.

 

[Scoobywrx05]

Looks like something I’d see out of my z3 camera. I would think it should be a bit better than that quality wise for a 4/3. Focus seems a bit off but I guess it depends on where you where focusing to in the photo but nothing in the photo seems to be in focus 100 percent. I’ve noticed with my i1 and z3 that I has days that it doesn’t seem to produce the images it should and it mostly depends on the weather. Sitting at the end of a drag track this last summer with the sun starting to set led to some crappy video. Didn’t happen an hour before that time at the same place same day. Only thing that changed was the temperature dropped 2 degrees and the sun was setting. During the colder months it seems to happen more often with photos and video being a bit on the blurry side. I’m guessing it is how the cold is effecting the camera.

 

[r62ewa]

Thanks for that. I do lots of testing with exposure settings and such and tapping to focus on what I want to capture or setting it with infinity focus, or trying it just in Auto and I am never pleased or impressed with the images I am receiving. I have not calibrated the lenses but to my understanding that is mainly if you are not using the tap to focus feature.

One time, using the 45mm, did I feel I captured nice video and photo but other than that everything seems noisy and not focused correctly.

A bad photographer not using his equipment correctly I guess?

 

[Michael91]

i think itd be fine but its just very dark.

if you have the DNG version i could see what i can do with it in lightroom/PScamera raw, trying to heavily edit jpg's is a loosing battle.

to be honest with you, ive gotten quite nice photos from the x5 and the x5s in quite low light, the trick is to go out at dusk while theres still some light in the sky.
now, these examples im going to link arent going to blow anyones minds (Forgive the oversaturation), but i think its a good example of how much you can pull back out of a raw file. keep in mind this is a mix of x5 and x5s camera stills after editing -

https://goo.gl/FC7RwG
https://goo.gl/3y6tG2
https://goo.gl/KQgfT7

at least 2 of those were taken in very low light and the other one was quite low light.

honestly, if you want to get the photo you have there to look a bit better, up the ISO (its pretty good up to iso 800) and those lens' are sharpest around F5.6 from personal experience, so you could open that up quite a bit. theres not much reason to worry about depth of field coming into play because with that photo your so far away from the subject that most likely the lens will be focused to infinity anyway.

youd give yourself space to breath anyway in the post edit and stop too much noise from appearing.

 

[giumick]

Thanks for that. I do lots of testing with exposure settings and such and tapping to focus on what I want to capture or setting it with infinity focus, or trying it just in Auto and I am never pleased or impressed with the images I am receiving. I have not calibrated the lenses but to my understanding that is mainly if you are not using the tap to focus feature.

One time, using the 45mm, did I feel I captured nice video and photo but other than that everything seems noisy and not focused correctly.

A bad photographer not using his equipment correctly I guess?

I wouldn't beat yourself up too much. The reality is everyone likes to pretend the photos from these cameras are great but they edit them to death to make them look decent. This cameras strength is video and photos need a good edit to shine.

 

[r62ewa]

i think itd be fine but its just very dark.

if you have the DNG version i could see what i can do with it in lightroom/PScamera raw, trying to heavily edit jpg's is a loosing battle.

to be honest with you, ive gotten quite nice photos from the x5 and the x5s in quite low light, the trick is to go out at dusk while theres still some light in the sky.
now, these examples im going to link arent going to blow anyones minds (Forgive the oversaturation), but i think its a good example of how much you can pull back out of a raw file. keep in mind this is a mix of x5 and x5s camera stills after editing -

https://goo.gl/FC7RwG
https://goo.gl/3y6tG2
https://goo.gl/KQgfT7

at least 2 of those were taken in very low light and the other one was quite low light.

honestly, if you want to get the photo you have there to look a bit better, up the ISO (its pretty good up to iso 800) and those lens' are sharpest around F5.6 from personal experience, so you could open that up quite a bit. theres not much reason to worry about depth of field coming into play because with that photo your so far away from the subject that most likely the lens will be focused to infinity anyway.

youd give yourself space to breath anyway in the post edit and stop too much noise from appearing.

Thanks a lot. The link for the DNG is also above, in the 3rd post in this thread I believe.

 

[Michael91]

DJI_0364.jpg

I did a little edit to that file and a crop.

a few things -

the exposure is too low, it needs to be a bit brighter tho its not really very far off.
your composition is probably the bigger thing you need to work on. your a bit far away from anything in that photo. id try and get closer to the town and see what angle I could get to try and get some of the forest and the light in the sky into the photo at the same time. really just fly around and don't ever be afraid to try to take the photo from a different angle - often those photos you didn't set out to get but said you'd try while you were out there end up being the better ones!

also, @giumick, im pretty sure every photo ever from all types of camera that has been published has been edited, film cameras included. cameras rarely/never capture a scene as your eye does when you press the shutter. you always have to go back and do something to them

 

[giumick]

DJI_0364.jpg

I did a little edit to that file and a crop.

a few things -

the exposure is too low, it needs to be a bit brighter tho its not really very far off.
your composition is probably the bigger thing you need to work on. your a bit far away from anything in that photo. id try and get closer to the town and see what angle I could get to try and get some of the forest and the light in the sky into the photo at the same time. really just fly around and don't ever be afraid to try to take the photo from a different angle - often those photos you didn't set out to get but said you'd try while you were out there end up being the better ones!

also, @giumick, im pretty sure every photo ever from all types of camera that has been published has been edited, film cameras included. cameras rarely/never capture a scene as your eye does when you press the shutter. you always have to go back and do something to them

I know everything needs editing of course but these Dji units just do not perform as well as other cameras for stills. Someone new to editing etc may well pull their hair out trying to get something theyll never be able to achieve, i know i did when i first started using photos from the x5.

Its been discussed on here in the past

 

[r62ewa]

DJI_0364.jpg

I did a little edit to that file and a crop.

a few things -

the exposure is too low, it needs to be a bit brighter tho its not really very far off.
your composition is probably the bigger thing you need to work on. your a bit far away from anything in that photo. id try and get closer to the town and see what angle I could get to try and get some of the forest and the light in the sky into the photo at the same time. really just fly around and don't ever be afraid to try to take the photo from a different angle - often those photos you didn't set out to get but said you'd try while you were out there end up being the better ones!

also, @giumick, im pretty sure every photo ever from all types of camera that has been published has been edited, film cameras included. cameras rarely/never capture a scene as your eye does when you press the shutter. you always have to go back and do something to them

Thanks Michael. I do have many images captured from that flight, quite a few closer to the town and some close up of me as well. I really appreciate the help.

 

[Michael91]

I know everything needs editing of course but these Dji units just do not perform as well as other cameras for stills. Someone new to editing etc may well pull their hair out trying to get something they'll never be able to achieve, I know I did when I first started using photos from the x5.

Its been discussed on here in the past

Possibly so. Outside of half of the photos having a magenta tinge on certain tones I've found them to be relatively straightforward to edit. tho that doesn't mean my editing is much good, I've generally been able to push them towards where I want them 9 times out of 10!

 

[giumick]

Possibly so. Outside of half of the photos having a magenta tinge on certain tones I've found them to be relatively straightforward to edit. tho that doesn't mean my editing is much good, I've generally been able to push them towards where I want them 9 times out of 10!

Their certainly usable just not quite where they should be imho. 99% of the time a client certainly wouldn't notice and thats what counts.

 

[rent]

In my opinion the most significant problem here is that you are under exposed by anywhere between 1.5 to 2 stops. This is most likely caused by the dominating white snow / ice / sky in the scene causing the metering system to under expose, which is very common in these situations.

The under exposure in turn causes tremendous amount of noise to show up when I tried to boost the exposure by about +1.8. This can be compensated by employing noise reduction, but that ruins detail.

So, remember, bias your exposure +1.5 stops if you are shooting snow / ice.

 

[r62ewa]

In my opinion the most significant problem here is that you are under exposed by anywhere between 1.5 to 2 stops. This is most likely caused by the dominating white snow / ice / sky in the scene causing the metering system to under expose, which is very common in these situations.

The under exposure in turn causes tremendous amount of noise to show up when I tried to boost the exposure by about +1.8. This can be compensated by employing noise reduction, but that ruins detail.

So, remember, bias your exposure +1.5 stops if you are shooting snow / ice.

Thank you very much for the great tips. It's even sunnier here today so I'm hoping to get out for some test flying later.

 

[Dejan Smaic]

Composition: too much clouds. Use rule of thirds and crop out some of the clouds.
Exposure: underexposed. Always shoot RAW allowing for better editing.
F/stop: for landscape, try f16, if possible without jacking up ISO. F16 is about as sharp as you can get with respect to DOF.
Composition, again: how are your audience? Shoot or edit in 4x6 unless your looking to post on social media or the comp works out better with what your shooting.

 

[PeterFranken]

Your shutterspeed 50 is in my view very low. I would suggest in windy condition not to go lower than than 160. Sweetspot f is 5.6 an try try not to exceed 400 iso

 

[GtoJon]

Like others have said ... under exposed & shutter speed too low. Also, I would never use f9. Sweet spot is f5.6. Your lens looks to be sharp. Always use the histogram when setting exposure & set almost all the way right. Very hard to get a spectacular picture from that far away. Move in closer I processed with PS CC 2018 from the DNG file. Cheers & hope this helps, Jon

 

[Dejan Smaic]

I'll also add: keep in mind, as your ISO goes up, so will your noise. When editing, watch your exposure adjustment as it will bring out more noise in teh shadows (above image). Also, use sharpening, then gently use noise reduction. As others have commented, every lens has a "sweet spot". Some at 5.6 others at 7.1. You'll need to determine that yourself. When using a shallow DOF, such as 5.6, your losing detail in the background and foreground. If you have a killer subject, you can do focus stacking by taking multiple images at various focal points, then blending them for uniform sharpness. However, this all depends on atmospheric conditions for a stable aerial platform.