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4k Cinema and other issues

mockbirduav

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Hi all,
Sorry if this has been posted before, a cursory search didn't turn anything up so perhaps not.

Some issues I'm having and some of it might be ignorance so bear with me:

  • When recording in 4K Cinema mode, it just records in 4k standard .mp4.
  • In order to record in P-Log on standard, I have to select Cinema, select P-Log then switch back to standard.
  • 50% of the time I cannot select a subject in Cameraman or Follow Me without switching modes repeatedly until it works. Also follow me cannot track a subject to save its life, If I don't select a subject it will follow me but will keep me at the edge of the display.
  • Footage flickers a lot and is jittery ( high frame rate issue? ), but also sometimes is choppy enough that it looks like a video that is lagging. My computer is more than capable of viewing and editing 4k footage.
  • In any light other than direct sunlight the footage and photos are incredibly fuzzy, its not just noise its a horrible swirly fractal looking pattern in the shadows or just less than direct sunlight.
  • The plog footage does not seem to be a proper log as in editing I find there is not a bunch of color information retained at all, no matter how it is manually graded or has LUTs applied it has a dreadful flat caste, any small amount of increasing contrast immediately results in massively over exposed whites and underexposed shadows
On the whole I am blown away by the Anafi and love it to bits but these issues are preventing me from relying on this drone in my commercial operation
Cheers for any input, especially on the 4k Cinema issue and the selecting PLog issue.
Rhys
 
Hi all,
Sorry if this has been posted before, a cursory search didn't turn anything up so perhaps not.

Some issues I'm having and some of it might be ignorance so bear with me:

  • When recording in 4K Cinema mode, it just records in 4k standard .mp4.
  • In order to record in P-Log on standard, I have to select Cinema, select P-Log then switch back to standard.
  • 50% of the time I cannot select a subject in Cameraman or Follow Me without switching modes repeatedly until it works. Also follow me cannot track a subject to save its life, If I don't select a subject it will follow me but will keep me at the edge of the display.
  • Footage flickers a lot and is jittery ( high frame rate issue? ), but also sometimes is choppy enough that it looks like a video that is lagging. My computer is more than capable of viewing and editing 4k footage.
  • In any light other than direct sunlight the footage and photos are incredibly fuzzy, its not just noise its a horrible swirly fractal looking pattern in the shadows or just less than direct sunlight.
  • The plog footage does not seem to be a proper log as in editing I find there is not a bunch of color information retained at all, no matter how it is manually graded or has LUTs applied it has a dreadful flat caste, any small amount of increasing contrast immediately results in massively over exposed whites and underexposed shadows
On the whole I am blown away by the Anafi and love it to bits but these issues are preventing me from relying on this drone in my commercial operation
Cheers for any input, especially on the 4k Cinema issue and the selecting PLog issue.
Rhys

All the video quality issues are common with the Anafi. I've had two and fuzzy video and the swirling blurring of details is standard. I have no idea how to fix it and my guess is that the smearing of details has to do with the digital image stabilization because the shutter speed should easily be fast enough to freeze details. The really bad part is that sometimes the video is ok while sometimes it's not. You can't seem to control it from an operator's perspective.

My conclusion has also been that it's simply not good enough for commercial operation. I'm going through tons of 4k footage from a recent roadtrip and some (most) video clips are frankly embarrassing in their lack of detail and their inability to bring out more from the p-log file.
 
I would expect a lot is fixable in software with the right developers on board. Some of the magic being done in cellphone cameras alone is proof of that. Perhaps an option to turn down the digital stabilization some in order to allow better quality stabilizing post-processing. The camera itself clearly has the capability of beautiful quality, it's just being hurt by this very clear fuzziness that I have seen on $30 drones.
 
I would expect a lot is fixable in software with the right developers on board. Some of the magic being done in cellphone cameras alone is proof of that. Perhaps an option to turn down the digital stabilization some in order to allow better quality stabilizing post-processing. The camera itself clearly has the capability of beautiful quality, it's just being hurt by this very clear fuzziness that I have seen on $30 drones.

That's the hope. But right now as it stands the Anafi's clearly not usable for anything serious since it's unable to produce clear footage when using the 180 degree shutter rule. And who knows if the Anafi has the processing power onboard for the computational accuracy to produce clean real-time digitally stabilized footage.
 
It's also kind of hilarious that Anafi offers their P-Log profile but no LUT file to go along with it. You know, something that all the other camera makers do - Sony with their S-Log LUTs, DJI with their D-Log LUTs, etc.
 
I've had some success with one of DJI's D-Log to Rec709 but it takes a lo of tweaking clip to clip thats for sure. Rendering a test of the follow me mode as I speak, once uploaded I'll post a link tomorrow
 
I've done some experimenting with photo and video and come to the conclusion that these horrible wavy swirls must be the product an absolutely atrociously tuned noise reduction algorithm. Most obvious in images as it does not persist so strongly in the DNG files (though there are still unexplainable blurry areas). In video, shooting at what should be the ideal shutter speed for smooth video, anything short of horizon lines is completely and utterly unusable due to this.
This could be something fixable with a firmware update, though I am starting to wonder if Parrot realised far too late in the production process that their camera set-up resulted in ridiculously high levels of noise (perhaps from electrical interference?) and try to cover it up with this almosted stylized fractal noise algorithm.
 
Motorola Moto X Style uses the Sony IMX230 camera sensor; when will we see it in an Xperia device? | Xperia Blog

So here are sample images from a cell-phone using the same imx230 sensor as used in the anafi

And video from the same sensor on a device:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIKMdEmguBw

It seems like some of the issues must be in part to the sensors in built Chroma Noise reduction and RAW noise reduction technology (whatever they mean by the latter), however at least in the video I don't see some of the artifacts I see in my footage, perhaps due to different lighting or perhaps due to something extra being done to anafi footage.

Dont be confused, I love my drone. I just want to encourage Anafi to look into ways of improving the sensor output as best they can
 

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