Is my Inspire 1 pictures as good as they can be?

[John Robinson]

Hi all.

I have recently bought my Inspire 1 (second hand) and it flies like a dream. No technical problems there. It was an upgrade from my Yuneec Q500 4k as for a few projects I needed more speed.

My issue however is that the camera does not seem to be as good as my old drone. Can someone please download the pictures and video and tell me if it is a good as it could be. I tried several settings, tried several sizes and obviously tried the 2 lens covers and this believe it or not is the best out of around 100 pictures. The video is a little better.

I have tried reading several posts in 2 forums again without any significant improvements. Any advice is greatly received.

Thanks in advance.

John

Dropbox link: Dropbox - Inspire 1 footage

 

[DodgeP]

These (photos) look under exposed to me. I'm not sure what your background in photography is but in a situation like this, my opinion is that you're probably shooting this at a time when the sun is doing you no favors. You will be unable to properly expose every element in these scenes so from a video standpoint (with the camera you're using on the I1), you're going to have to sacrifice either your highlights or your shadows. In the photos, you can fix those with any advanced photo editing software package.

 

[Alastair]

Agreed, it looks like the sky is exposed properly, leaving the rest of the image underexposed. DodgeP is right, with some photo editing software you'll be able to increase the levels of the darker areas. Use the raw files for editing, then make jpegs from them.

 

[John Robinson]

Hi and thank you to you both. I know I need to work on the photography side of it much more and something that I obviously will do. Concerning the pictures you believe there is nothing wrong with the camera then which does worry me. As I said other than night flying the Yuneec Q500 4k had better pictures (but worse video). I do not know why but I expected more detail when zooming into the Inspires pictures. Guess I have to learn a lot more about photography to give me the best chance at a decent photo and start saving for the X5.

Thank you again for your responses. Have a great day!

 

[DodgeP]

Hi and thank you to you both. I know I need to work on the photography side of it much more and something that I obviously will do. Concerning the pictures you believe there is nothing wrong with the camera then which does worry me. As I said other than night flying the Yuneec Q500 4k had better pictures (but worse video). I do not know why but I expected more detail when zooming into the Inspires pictures. Guess I have to learn a lot more about photography to give me the best chance at a decent photo and start saving for the X5.

Thank you again for your responses. Have a great day!

I don't own a Yuneec nor have I seen pics from them but what may be happening (unbeknownst to you) is; Yuneec may be applying a filter to your jpgs to make them look better right off the camera. I've been shooting (photography) for over 10 years and from experience, unless you have full control over ISO | Shutter Speed | Aperture and Exposure Compensation all at the same time you're going to have to fix some things in post processing and as long as you preserve both your highlights and shadows (using your histogram).