Video quality

icehat · Mar 1, 2017

Hi everyone.

I'm new around here and in fact this is my first post. Great forum BTW. Lots to read and learn.

I recently bought a Phantom 3 standard and I am a little unimpressed with the video quality. Am I expecting too much for the basic Phantom or is this a quality control issue. I'll post a link to a short video straight from the card unprocessed so you can judge for yourself.

Shot at 100 IOS. Just looks grainy and not totally sharp across the frame, especially the background at infinity. I've seen other videos on line that look much better.

What do you all think. Be sure to watch in HD at full screen.

Mr. Salty · Mar 1, 2017

Doesn't look too bad to me. You're shooting into the sun, which doesn't help. I'm curious about the vignetting at the top of the frame.

But yeah, the Phantom 3 Standard does have the lowest quality camera of the current Phantom lineup. It's good, not great.

icehat · Mar 1, 2017

Yes the lack of contrast is from sun flare but the forest in the background is not sharp. RAW stills are worst. Lots of CA and unsharp areas. Maybe I'm just to use to shooting with my full frame camera.

Phantom NSX · Mar 1, 2017

Maybe try some polarized filters on days like that... Best Buy just had a great sale on some...

icehat · Mar 1, 2017

Phantom NSX said:
Maybe try some polarized filters on days like that... Best Buy just had a great sale on some...

I have some ND filters on the way. Not much you can do for glare besides a hood of some sort. Even then directly at the sun causes problems. Just the nature of optics. Best to film with the sun at your back unless you're going for that certain effect. This video was just shot to test optics. I will be shooting more footage there this summer.

EscoBlades · Mar 3, 2017

Looks good given that the P3S has the weakest camera of the Phantom range, as stated above. I have the same drone.

If you shoot in a flat profile (LOG), you have more room to play with in post prod.

icehat · Mar 3, 2017

I guess I was expecting more. Looks great scaled down but at full resolution on my iMac it's just not quite sharp. I'll have to upgrade sometime in the future.

EscoBlades · Mar 3, 2017

icehat said:
I guess I was expecting more. Looks great scaled down but at full resolution on my iMac it's just not quite sharp. I'll have to upgrade sometime in the future.

It ain't 4K but for the price, i guess it does the job.

Maybe upping sharpen in your editing a tad might help? Some colors pop better than others i guess.
This was my best one so far. I too felt it wasn't *quite* there, given other footage i've watched, but then those are folks with Phantom 3 Pro and Advanced drones. YMMV.

icehat · Mar 3, 2017

Great video. Looks about the same quality as mine so I guess that's the norm for the phantom 3 standard.

I'm out in Magog, not far from Montreal. Do you need special permission to fly in the city? Lots of opportunities for great footage in and around Montreal.

EscoBlades · Mar 3, 2017

Thanks, much appreciated.

As a hobbyist, no special permission required. They just expect us to use common sense really.

If the drone is over 1Kg and/or being used for commercial purposes, then they have a license you can apply for.

I plan to take mine up to Mont Royal when the weather gets a bit better. The city is beautiful from above.

icehat · Mar 3, 2017

EscoBlades said:
Thanks, much appreciated.

As a hobbyist, no special permission required. They just expect us to use common sense really.

If the drone is over 1Kg and/or being used for commercial purposes, then they have a license you can apply for.

I plan to take mine up to Mont Royal when the weather gets a bit better. The city is beautiful from above.

I'd love to get some footage of the city scape from the fleuve. Mont Royal would be a great lift off point with less obstructions to block the signal from the transmitter.