So today I upgraded from an Inspire 1 Pro to a P4 Pro. Yes you read that right, the 1" sensor in the P4 Pro blows away the Micro 4/3rds sensor in the I1 Pro's X5.
The good
1) Sensor size - DJI finally upped the sensor size for a Phantom family member to 1" and the improvement is nothing short of incredible. I posted over a year ago that the only thing that would make me buy another Phantom is if they improved the camera; which is why I sat out the P4.
2) Dynamic Range - This is more important to photographers and videographers than just about any other specification; somewhere I read it has between 11 and 11.5 stops of dynamic range, that's close to pro series DSLR capabilities! So of course I had to see it for myself, the attached photos show how incredible the dynamic range is on the P4 Pro.
3) H.265 Encoding - My #1 gripe for everything DJI creates has been their awful H.264 implementation. Most users mistakenly think that their footage does not look that great because DJI limited the bitrate to 60Mbs, the reality is; DJI's H.264 compression implementation is terrible. The bitrate is more than sufficient, but after they get done compressing it, there's so little clean data to work with that it is very hard to get professional results with the compressed footage. So when they introduced the H.265 codec I have high hopes that they also tweaked their H.264 algorithms. My DSLRs use the same codec and bitrate (or lower) and the footage is much cleaner. But more on H.265 in a minute.
4) Mechanical Shutter - This is huge; no more rolling shutter. The P4 Pro may be the only mass produced drone in the world right now with a mechanical shutter. It is mind blowing that they were able to keep the price so low, with a sensor size that large, and still throw in a mechanical shutter.
5) Adjustable Aperture - Finally...the ability to adjust the F stop to control the shutter speed. I know many photographers just use ND filters but I never have; you are risking burning out the camera servos due to the increased weight on the end of the camera (even a few oz could throw off the extremely delicate gimbal balance), and with an ND filter you cannot adjust the filter strength without landing and changing the filter.
6) Minimal Barrel Distortion - This blew me away, I thought sure that I would have to make my own lens profile to fix the barrel distortion until Adobe released one, but in my first few test shots I do not see any. Another incredible feat by DJI. I'm sure pixel peepers will be able to find some, but no end customer will be able to see it.
7) Battery life - The I1 Pro takes great pictures but has terrible battery life. Sometimes to frame that perfect shot or while waiting for that perfect shot I ran out of battery juice with the I1 Pro because it was just too short. Having a camera like this tied to a platform that can stay in the air more than 6 minutes will be a big improvement.
8) Resolution - Of course the increased resolution is nice but I care more about dynamic range than resolution. I would take a 5MP sensor over 20MP any day if the 5MP gave me 20 stops of DR.
The bad (so far after just one flight)
1) What used to be the shutter button is now I think the focus button. Very minor but I'm going to remap that button to being the shutter button.
2) H.265 - I learned the hard way that even though my NLE says it supports H.265 and my video card says it supports it as well; I was unable to edit or even play anything shot using the H.265 codec. Also it appears that YouTube does not support H.265 encoded video files. So tomorrow I will have to shoot my test footage using H.264 compression. I can only hope that DJI improved their H.264 codec while they were at it. I had planned on shooting everything in H.265 then transcoding the final product to H.264.
3) Sensors - This post is mainly focused on the camera and video capabilities but the P4 Pro seemed to have problems thinking something was in front of it and came to a screeching halt on the return trip to land. I'm hoping this will not become a major issue where the sensors "see" things that aren't there and impede flight progress. I'm not sure yet if it's possible since I have not been through the whole DJI App yet, but it would be nice to be able to turn off all of those sensors if desired.
Two Gotchas
* Autofocus - I have seen a lot of users complaining about blurry pictures and a lot of discussion around Autofocus. The reality is the "Pro" in it's name signifies this is not meant for the casual aerial enthusiast. If you want to leave everything on Auto and shoot everything in Infinity focus, then this is not the right model for you. For the I1 Pro I have always manually picked my focus point before pulling the trigger, and for video I always switch to continuous focus before recording. I then switch back to spot focus for photography; its the best way to get tack sharp pictures; even for landscapes.
* Shutter Speed - Remember folks, now that DJI has provided a way to change the Aperature you have to keep an eye on your shutter speed if you want sharp pictures. I tested this by shooting at F11 which resulted in 1/25 shutter speed; sure enough it looked sharp on my tablet and was blurry in post.
Sample Footage
I have attached two pictures showing how incredible the dynamic range is of this sensor. I shot right into the sun using all automatic settings (AWB, Auto Shutter, Auto Aperature, etc) then post processed the footage. The results blow away what I could have gotten with even the I1 Pro and come close to what my full frame DSLRs can do. Of course to get these types of results you will need to shoot RAW and post process. There was so much detail in the lows and even the highs had an impressive amount of recoverable data. I can only imagine what a 3-5 shot HDR bracket would do.
The good
1) Sensor size - DJI finally upped the sensor size for a Phantom family member to 1" and the improvement is nothing short of incredible. I posted over a year ago that the only thing that would make me buy another Phantom is if they improved the camera; which is why I sat out the P4.
2) Dynamic Range - This is more important to photographers and videographers than just about any other specification; somewhere I read it has between 11 and 11.5 stops of dynamic range, that's close to pro series DSLR capabilities! So of course I had to see it for myself, the attached photos show how incredible the dynamic range is on the P4 Pro.
3) H.265 Encoding - My #1 gripe for everything DJI creates has been their awful H.264 implementation. Most users mistakenly think that their footage does not look that great because DJI limited the bitrate to 60Mbs, the reality is; DJI's H.264 compression implementation is terrible. The bitrate is more than sufficient, but after they get done compressing it, there's so little clean data to work with that it is very hard to get professional results with the compressed footage. So when they introduced the H.265 codec I have high hopes that they also tweaked their H.264 algorithms. My DSLRs use the same codec and bitrate (or lower) and the footage is much cleaner. But more on H.265 in a minute.
4) Mechanical Shutter - This is huge; no more rolling shutter. The P4 Pro may be the only mass produced drone in the world right now with a mechanical shutter. It is mind blowing that they were able to keep the price so low, with a sensor size that large, and still throw in a mechanical shutter.
5) Adjustable Aperture - Finally...the ability to adjust the F stop to control the shutter speed. I know many photographers just use ND filters but I never have; you are risking burning out the camera servos due to the increased weight on the end of the camera (even a few oz could throw off the extremely delicate gimbal balance), and with an ND filter you cannot adjust the filter strength without landing and changing the filter.
6) Minimal Barrel Distortion - This blew me away, I thought sure that I would have to make my own lens profile to fix the barrel distortion until Adobe released one, but in my first few test shots I do not see any. Another incredible feat by DJI. I'm sure pixel peepers will be able to find some, but no end customer will be able to see it.
7) Battery life - The I1 Pro takes great pictures but has terrible battery life. Sometimes to frame that perfect shot or while waiting for that perfect shot I ran out of battery juice with the I1 Pro because it was just too short. Having a camera like this tied to a platform that can stay in the air more than 6 minutes will be a big improvement.
8) Resolution - Of course the increased resolution is nice but I care more about dynamic range than resolution. I would take a 5MP sensor over 20MP any day if the 5MP gave me 20 stops of DR.
The bad (so far after just one flight)
1) What used to be the shutter button is now I think the focus button. Very minor but I'm going to remap that button to being the shutter button.
2) H.265 - I learned the hard way that even though my NLE says it supports H.265 and my video card says it supports it as well; I was unable to edit or even play anything shot using the H.265 codec. Also it appears that YouTube does not support H.265 encoded video files. So tomorrow I will have to shoot my test footage using H.264 compression. I can only hope that DJI improved their H.264 codec while they were at it. I had planned on shooting everything in H.265 then transcoding the final product to H.264.
3) Sensors - This post is mainly focused on the camera and video capabilities but the P4 Pro seemed to have problems thinking something was in front of it and came to a screeching halt on the return trip to land. I'm hoping this will not become a major issue where the sensors "see" things that aren't there and impede flight progress. I'm not sure yet if it's possible since I have not been through the whole DJI App yet, but it would be nice to be able to turn off all of those sensors if desired.
Two Gotchas
* Autofocus - I have seen a lot of users complaining about blurry pictures and a lot of discussion around Autofocus. The reality is the "Pro" in it's name signifies this is not meant for the casual aerial enthusiast. If you want to leave everything on Auto and shoot everything in Infinity focus, then this is not the right model for you. For the I1 Pro I have always manually picked my focus point before pulling the trigger, and for video I always switch to continuous focus before recording. I then switch back to spot focus for photography; its the best way to get tack sharp pictures; even for landscapes.
* Shutter Speed - Remember folks, now that DJI has provided a way to change the Aperature you have to keep an eye on your shutter speed if you want sharp pictures. I tested this by shooting at F11 which resulted in 1/25 shutter speed; sure enough it looked sharp on my tablet and was blurry in post.
Sample Footage
I have attached two pictures showing how incredible the dynamic range is of this sensor. I shot right into the sun using all automatic settings (AWB, Auto Shutter, Auto Aperature, etc) then post processed the footage. The results blow away what I could have gotten with even the I1 Pro and come close to what my full frame DSLRs can do. Of course to get these types of results you will need to shoot RAW and post process. There was so much detail in the lows and even the highs had an impressive amount of recoverable data. I can only imagine what a 3-5 shot HDR bracket would do.
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