Camera shutter sound

cagoss85 · Mar 4, 2019

For the past severa months, I've been having a problem with my P4A+ and the controller for it. When I go to take a picture or video, I don't hear the sound it normally plays when I take a picture, or the ding when I take a video. The drone also doesn't give me the option to format the SD card, monitor gimbal status, or view content. I tried it with another card and while it worked normally at first, it too developed these problems. Anyone know of any solutions to this?

(I'm guessing it is firmware/ software related but DJI has been an extreme letdown in terms of their P4A updates. It's been 2 years).

Starz · Mar 4, 2019

Do you have the option to try a different controller?

Meta4 · Mar 4, 2019

Casey Gosselin said:
For the past severa months, I've been having a problem with my P4A+ and the controller for it. When I go to take a picture or video, I don't hear the sound it normally plays when I take a picture, or the ding when I take a video. The drone also doesn't give me the option to format the SD card, monitor gimbal status, or view content. I tried it with another card and while it worked normally at first, it too developed these problems. Anyone know of any solutions to this?

Are you certain you have a real problem with these?
It's unlikely that some features of the app would disappear and it doesn't seem to be affecting other fliers.
Is the shutter sound issue something simple like your volume is turned down?

Are you looking in the right place to find the Format option?
You go to the camera settings menu and click the cog icon on the right

But the menu is a long one and you have to drag it upwards to get to the bottom of the list to find the Format option:

The gimbal position indicator is semi-transparent and hard to see against some backgrounds.
I had to aim up towards the sky to show the top of it here:

How about a screen shot to show what you have there?

cagoss85 · Mar 4, 2019

Heres a screenshot of the camera settings I have applied. The problem isn't the volume being turned down, because I can hear noises like the autofocus indicator. The format SD card option within the camera menu does work. However the format SD card option found within the drop-down menu (if you click the bar at the top of the screen) does not work. It doesn't even detect the card.

My next option is to re-install all the firmware, but I don't think I'll have luck with that.

Ansia · Mar 5, 2019

Casey Gosselin said:
View attachment 109176 Heres a screenshot of the camera settings I have applied. The problem isn't the volume being turned down, because I can hear noises like the autofocus indicator. The format SD card option within the camera menu does work. However the format SD card option found within the drop-down menu (if you click the bar at the top of the screen) does not work. It doesn't even detect the card.

My next option is to re-install all the firmware, but I don't think I'll have luck with that.

So you are saying that you are trying to format the SD card with the android function?

Trackerputnam · Mar 5, 2019

I have a similar issue. The shutter sound comes on only sometimes. I am normally shooting 5 shot AEB so there will be several clicks. Now the pictures are being taken but no sound. I can see the indicator spinning so I know the picture was taken but the sound is reassuring. Any ideas?

Ansia · Mar 5, 2019

Trackerputnam said:
I have a similar issue. The shutter sound comes on only sometimes. I am normally shooting 5 shot AEB so there will be several clicks. Now the pictures are being taken but no sound. I can see the indicator spinning so I know the picture was taken but the sound is reassuring. Any ideas?

I don't know if it's the same reason as you, but if you try to take several shots within a second, the camera will not make the shutter sound for all the photos. Also if you use a Class 10 U1 SD card, the card can't keep up with the drone writing on it, so for some strange reason it cuts corners to compensate the recording of the photos.

Trackerputnam · Mar 5, 2019

I was thinking it might be that it is writing to the card. But even when it’s done and icon quits swirling it sometimes don’t click. No big deal because it still records the picture.

cagoss85 · Mar 5, 2019

The card I'm using is a Panasonic class 10 U3 Card that came with the phantom. Last night when I was downloading firmware I found a check for updates page I've never seen before ( considering that there's probably 10 different ways to update software using the Android screen), and it said there was an update needed for the controller. It seems to be working normally, for now...

David_Cambridge · Mar 6, 2019

The sound is generated by the ap on the tablet/phone, not the camera itself. Check your tablet or phone to make sure it isn’t muted, or the volume turned down

Nick Mendocino · Mar 6, 2019

I had a similar problem with my P4A+. Sometimes it would take pictures and other times not. There was no click sound. It would take a video, but later in the flight it would not. It turned out that I was deleting the media files from the card after importing to my computer, but not reformatting the card. After I formatted the card in the aircraft everything was fine. Now I always format in the aircraft and the problem has never occurred again.

cagoss85 · Mar 26, 2019

UPDATE: Went to go fly the other day. First flight it worked fine. After I landed it and switched batteries, I took off and it was doing the problem again. At this point, I'm hopeless that DJI will ever recognize or fix the problem.

Billmh12 · Apr 5, 2019

I too have had similar challenges. I do a lot of inspection of buildings so I am hitting the shutter button constantly. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. When I fly over construction sites, same thing, sometime it works, sometimes it doesn't by pressing the shutter button. So then I just hit the shutter button directly on the pad. Very frustrating as I need my hands on the controller for maximum effectiveness. I always format the cards in the drone. I use sandisk extreme pro 64gb U3 A2 4Kuhd cards.The drone is P4P obsidian. Been happening pretty much from the start. Intermittent. Go figure.

JeffreyS · Apr 5, 2019

I, too, like the shutter sound to assure me that the image has been made before I move on the my next scene. But sometimes it is silent wen in AEB mode. I will simply press the image review arrow to see the recent images captured to confirm.

cagoss85 · May 7, 2019

JeffreyS said:
I, too, like the shutter sound to assure me that the image has been made before I move on the my next scene. But sometimes it is silent wen in AEB mode. I will simply press the image review arrow to see the recent images captured to confirm.

Thats similar to what Ive tried, but most of the time the phantom doesnt even recognize theres an SD card.