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Am I mad? Help me please.

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I'm a hobbiest photographer and bought a Parrot Anafi (from ebay) for pictures and not video. I have not flown it yet.

I unpacked it and after 4 hours faffing, trying to fix gimbal issues, connection issues to the controller, camera would not show a picture and then USB C connection issues to the Macbook Pro. I managed to reset everything to get it working to take some photos. I was not impressed.
The second time I tried to start it up, the gimbal issues was still there (which is difficult to show a video of as the phone is connected to the controller to start taking a video of) but after a reset it started long enough to let me take some more photos.

The first batch of photos had artefacts in the auto image. I put it down to being shot inside when it was evening, then I took it outside the next day in daylight and shot some images and there is a fair amount of grain from a DNG even at 100iso. There was significant image compression in the DNG images and random artefacts in the highlight light areas. Is this normal?

I've posted some shots just before I took it outside, the room was quite bright, we have no curtains on the windows and I set the camera starting at 100iso and worked my way up to 3200iso. The drone is sat still on a table so the only movement from it will be the gimbal stabilisation rotation.
By the time it gets to 400iso, the colour noise and grain are significant.
800iso is unusable.

Basically (for me) this makes Blue or Golden hour photography unusable with this drone.

Very disappointed with the multiple issues I contacted the eBay seller for advice. Their response. Update the firmware (did that), I don't know what I am doing (I hope I have some clue), I have broken the drone (not even been flown and took pictures of the unboxing to show the serial/warranty label has been re-stuck down out of position), I have seriously offended them by asking them why the serial label appears to have moved and been restuck down. After repeated attempts to ask them what happened to the label I was told that it came off during a normal landing and apparently this is very normal behaviour and it's all over the internet and it's completely normal for the serial label to just fall off. Oh, and apparently I have offended them.
The label has dog hair stuck underneath it FFS!

I also contacted Parrot almost a week ago, I got a reference code to say they would get back to me. I have heard nothing back. Not impressed with them either.

So at present I have repackaged the drone for return (which the ebayer is refusing to accept - of course)

Now wallowing in self doubt and am aware that it is a tiny high megapixel sensor and that the pixel density would make it not ideal for low light so I am self checking that if I am expecting too much and that the images from the Anafi I have are normal or not?

Can you help me please?

100iso-Reference Shot.jpg

100iso-Cropped.jpg

200iso-Cropped.jpg

400iso-Cropped.jpg

800iso-Cropped.jpg

1600iso-Cropped.jpg

3200iso-Cropped.jpg
 
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If the SN label was removed, the drone obviously was opened and repaired (?).
Anyway you will not have warranty.
If the drone flies and all functions are ok, then keep it if you cannot give it back.
The low light picture quality is another question often discussed here.
 
What was the return policy from the seller? Did it say no returns? If not start a claim with Ebay. They have very strict rules for sellers so you do not get ripped off. Did you pay through Paypal? if so they will also help to try and get your money back. Some charge cards allow you to cancel payments. Check all those options out.
If you bought it from a unauthorized seller don't expect Parrot to do anything. Sound to me like you bought a used Anafi that the seller just wanted to get rid of. Your intuition is your best weapon against getting conned in a sale. caveat emptor
 
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eBay is very good at protecting buyers. I would get a claim started immediately, if the seller is not giving you a viable product. Even if eBay is unable to get the seller to do the right thing, they will still reimburse you.
 
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Return started on eBay. The seller is not accepting returns so will let eBay decide this case.

I am not going to fly it just in case it crashes or worse it flies away, not in the habit of throwing away £££s of for nothing especially do not want to get blamed for some extra damage this drone has already sustained in the hands of the previous owner.

So going back to the pictures I have supplied, is this typical for a Parrot Anafi quality?
Baring in mind there is enough light in the room for my 12mp mobile phone to not have that much noise and artefacts in raw image at 100iso.
 
Looking over your photos and the amount of light in the room I would say this is not normal. I guessing there is something wrong with the sensor and perhaps this is why the seller wanted to get rid of it but he was trying to sell it as a new working unit which it is not. Hope you get some satisfaction from your case.
 
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I have my Anafi for more than a year, mainly for photography.

I flew yesterday and had the same kind of troubles (the Anafi seems to say nononono with the gimbal, no video feedback after restart, ... and lots of noise in the images made in a clear blue sky day at ISO 100 no filter and a speed of 1/340 sec minimum...

I’ll do some more tests next weekend but I was wondering if I was too ‘picky’ on the image quality, or if the software/firmware upgrades did something to the picture quality, or if my Anafi starts to grow old.

To make it start correctly with at least the video feed, I had to reboot the Anafi, switch off and restart everything. After 2 or 3 attempts I could re-gain control on the live feed but I was not confortable (flew nicely though).

I was flying half of the time with Pix4DCapture / half FF6 (was wondering if it could be related)...
 
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A few thoughts.
If the "sticker" for the ser# was obviously removed and re-applied (a hair under it) it might have had a new frame or at least had the tag removed to access the screws that hold the body together. Now, that may mean that it had a broken arm replaced or that the ribbon cable for the bottom sensor was loose and re-attached ( common after even a slight drop).
If you "pixel-peep" the images from the Anafi, you will be disappointed... and low-light...forget it.
 
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A few thoughts.
If the "sticker" for the ser# was obviously removed and re-applied (a hair under it) it might have had a new frame or at least had the tag removed to access the screws that hold the body together. Now, that may mean that it had a broken arm replaced or that the ribbon cable for the bottom sensor was loose and re-attached ( common after even a slight drop).
If you "pixel-peep" the images from the Anafi, you will be disappointed... and low-light...forget it.
So the images I have posted are normal then?
 
Interesting. My shots are neither and straight from the dng.
They are not screen grabs and are stills not video.
Wait, Those initial images you posted at different ISO's are not cropped?
That was what I was referring to when I mentioned that they don't hold up if cropped/zoomed....And yes, if they are the DNG then they can't be HDR....
I mention that because the HDR photos captured using the in app settings on the Anafi have a real nasty noise problem.
 
Interesting. My shots are neither and straight from the dng.
They are not screen grabs and are stills not video.
OK, since my curiosity was peaked and you initially wanted to know if your Anafi's images were "normal" I did a few tests myself.
This is inside, well lit, and a window shade open to a sunny day.
I did ISO 100-200-400-800 and a bonus of a shot with the built-in HDR. These are straight converted from the DNG files but re-sized to upload here.
I tried to keep the exposure the same when switching the ISO by changing the shutter to keep them all just 1 step below the point that the "overexposure" stripes came in
 

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Interesting. My shots are neither and straight from the dng.
They are not screen grabs and are stills not video.
And just for comparison...I tried to duplicate them using the Mavic 2
I tried to keep the same conditions and re-size parameters and kept the aperture at 2.8 to try to get close to the Anafi's fixed (2.4)
 

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And just for comparison...I tried to duplicate them using the Mavic 2
I tried to keep the same conditions and re-size parameters and kept the aperture at 2.8 to try to get close to the Anafi's fixed (2.4)
Oh Wow. That's the level of quality I was expecting with the
And just for comparison...I tried to duplicate them using the Mavic 2
I tried to keep the same conditions and re-size parameters and kept the aperture at 2.8 to try to get close to the Anafi's fixed (2.4)
Firstly. Thank you so much for your time and those shots, that was super helpful.
The Mavic certainly has the advantage in iSO grain noise and quality.
That said your Anafi images were much better than mine.

I thought I'd do stupid pixel peeping comparison at 700%.

I took my 16 bit, 200iso dng, found a blank wall similar to yours and placed it beside your 8bit, cropped 200iso file in Photoshop. Yours is on the right.
My DNG has a ton of crosse hatching artefacts and more colour noise out of the gate.
Yours is better with an even noise pattern with the matrix style line noise which I would expect from a small sensor.
200iso-DNG-Comparison-JMBvsPPN.jpg

Then I downsized my file to match your resolution and bit depth. The conversion was bicubic reduction.
Most of the artefacts were removed in the process. Though my image file has a lot of colour noise still, which could be removed in post.


200iso-JPGCropped-Comparison-JMBvsPPN.jpg

From the image data, you used Photoshop CC2019 for windows.
I have tried Lightroom CS6 and Classic, Photoshop CC2019, Photoshop CS6 and CS4, Raw Powers - Gentlemans Decoder all Mac based and they all show the DNG file as having these artefacts until the file is converted to jpg and downsized. This is not ideal when one would expect the dng to be the pure raw information with no extra Artefacts at all. Especially if you wanted the full size file for full res shots.
Something is not right with my DNG files.

I think based on this I am content that my Anafi and/or files have an issue that yours does not and am feeling better about setting up a return for it. I will just have to see what eBay are going to do about it.

Cheers again.



Out of curiosity
 
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Oh Wow. That's the level of quality I was expecting with the

Firstly. Thank you so much for your time and those shots, that was super helpful.
The Mavic certainly has the advantage in iSO grain noise and quality.
That said your Anafi images were much better than mine.

I thought I'd do stupid pixel peeping comparison at 700%.

I took my 16 bit, 200iso dng, found a blank wall similar to yours and placed it beside your 8bit, cropped 200iso file in Photoshop. Yours is on the right.
My DNG has a ton of crosse hatching artefacts and more colour noise out of the gate.
Yours is better with an even noise pattern with the matrix style line noise which I would expect from a small sensor.
View attachment 2904

Then I downsized my file to match your resolution and bit depth. The conversion was bicubic reduction.
Most of the artefacts were removed in the process. Though my image file has a lot of colour noise still, which could be removed in post.


View attachment 2905

From the image data, you used Photoshop CC2019 for windows.
I have tried Lightroom CS6 and Classic, Photoshop CC2019, Photoshop CS6 and CS4, Raw Powers - Gentlemans Decoder all Mac based and they all show the DNG file as having these artefacts until the file is converted to jpg and downsized. This is not ideal when one would expect the dng to be the pure raw information with no extra Artefacts at all. Especially if you wanted the full size file for full res shots.
Something is not right with my DNG files.

I think based on this I am content that my Anafi and/or files have an issue that yours does not and am feeling better about setting up a return for it. I will just have to see what eBay are going to do about it.

Cheers again.



Out of curiosity

You are welcome,
With all that, I agree that your bird is definitely not normal.
There were some issues I saw posted on this forum as well as other "Anafi" pages with definite artifacts and black "dots/blotches" in their images ( mostly outside against the sky). They ended up either returning them or exchanging.

When I first bought the Anafi (Best Buy) the gimble was messing up and pointing all over. I took it back the next day and the exchange unit (both were sealed/new) has been fine.

So, I hope you have luck with your return and also the replacement.
These are good birds but the image sensor size is the limit if you push them
 
Have you tried shooting and comparing jpg vs raw? I find raw dng's from the Anafi to have much more noise than it's saved .jpg. Haven't compared in awhile, but I think like most digital cameras, the Anafi applies smoothing and other correction when processing and saving for jpg which you are not getting with the raw files.
 
Have you tried shooting and comparing jpg vs raw? I find raw dng's from the Anafi to have much more noise than it's saved .jpg. Haven't compared in awhile, but I think like most digital cameras, the Anafi applies smoothing and other correction when processing and saving for jpg which you are not getting with the raw files.
Yes and they are worse.
 

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