Camera Blur Spot - Replacing Lens/Sensor Board

[Shaggyhawkings]

Hello,

First of all I'm a new poster to this site, and relatively new to drones, so hello everyone and thank you in advance for your help and advice!

I own a P3A, that's I bought second hand last year.
Only took it out a few time last year, and started again now that the weather is getting a little warmer.
Unfortaunatly iv noticed that a have a nasty blur spot bang in the centre of the footage that I take. Attached are some photos to show what I mean.
Checked the obvious like protective films left on, or dirt smudges on the lens and filter, but that's not it. Also tried different filters in case that's the problem, but again no luck.
Had a look at the lens to see if there is any condenstation trapped, or any visual defects, but there's nothing that I can see.

Read that the outside temperature can can have an affect on blurriness, however this seems to happen in cooler (5-7 C) and milder (15 - 17 C) weather.

Done a bit of searching and it seems like the cameras on these drones are a little hit and miss, and it's kind of the luck of the draw as to if you get a good or bad one.
In my case it seems like I have a bad one

Contacted DJI, as ultimately this seems to be a defective camera, however I'm not holding my breath that much will happen due to the drone being out of any warranties.

So in the highly likely event that nothing comes from DJI, I'm looking into ways I can fix this myself.
First thought is to look at replacing the lens or/and the sensor, in the hope that it will fix my issue, but just thought I would check first to see if anyone else has experianced this same issue, and successfully solved it.

Could buy a new Gimble and Camera unit for just over £200, but seems false economy based on how much the drone is probably worth now ,so looking to see if there is a cheaper fix by salvaging a damaged unit were the lens and sensor is still intact.

Does anyone happen to know if I was to replace the sensor board, would this need to come from a 2.7k, P3A unit, or would a 4K board be compatable?

Thank you all for your help!
Ross

 

[Michel Rivet]

I had the same problem i removed the uv filter that came with the p3p and clean it on both side all is fine now

 

[wolf~928]

Welcome to the forum,I'm sure someone here can help, that is very odd,,could be a bad optic, I guess,

 

[Shaggyhawkings]

Thank you guys for your responses

So just a quick(ish) update,

Heard back from DJI, who requested that I send the unit in for them to have a look at. As I'm out of warranty however any fix would be at my cost, and the guys who I was speaking too couldn't give me any initial estimate of how much this could be until an engineer had taken a look.

Been searching for possible fixes and came across how fine adjustments in the sensor possition and lens placement can correct blur issues. Seemed like this was more for if one side of the image is blurrier than the other, or if the whole image is slightly out of focus, but I thought it was worth a try!
Downloaded a test card image to display on my TV use as a focus guide, and turned on my drone to do an initial test to see how bad the blur is currently.

Removed the lens filter, just to make sure that wasn't the issue, and low and behold when I checked the footage the blur had gone!
Put the lens filter back on, expecting the blur to return, and still no sign!

Great news!
But now I'm left even more confused than before!

Only thing I can think of now is that perhaps this is a condensation problem, caused by the warmer temperate of air trapped in between the filter and lens, and the cooler external temperate!

Next test when flying is to leave the filter removed from the camera body when outside, and leave both to climatise before refitting the filter.
My logic being that the air trapped between the lens and filter will be the same temperature as the external air and therefore prevent condensation from forming on the inside surface of the filter!

Fingers Crossed!