P4P Pano Mode Review | tl;dr I'm impressed
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I just updated DJI Go 4, and I don't see this option. Is it only available when connected to the AC?
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Lefty, did you update the firmware as well as the app? The functionality was added to the Phantom 4 Pro in the firmware upgrade, so you need that as well as the latest DJI Go 4.
Which version firmware? I just bought a P4P off ebay, and updated the firmware to V 01.05.0600, I think. The remote was updated too. Now reading about this Pano mode, I wanted to give it a try. So I updated my app last night, and nothing.
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Hmm, that firmware should be good, it is Firmware v1.05.0300 added the mode.
Just a couple thoughts offhand, probably obvious but just checking those first
)- Be sure you are in Photo
- You said you got it off ebay, is there any chance someone tried to pull a fast one and you received an Advanced? You can visually see the difference by if there are sensors on the sides. See the P4P here and P4A here. You can also look at what the DJI Go app identifies it as. The P4A did not receive the Panorama mode in v1.05.0300 as far as I can see.
- Sometimes firmware updates can be weird, and not properly update. It's happened to me once and I had to roll back and reapply using the DJI Assistant 2 software on my PC. I'm not sure offhand what the current state of rolling back/updating firmware is in that case, as DJI had removed the links to the old firmware.
Turns out, I just had to be connected to the AC. Once I was connected, then everything was all good as far as the pano mode. Just waiting for the weather to break before flying it.Hmm, that firmware should be good, it is Firmware v1.05.0300 added the mode.
Just a couple thoughts offhand, probably obvious but just checking those first
If those things check out, if you want to take a screenshot on your device of the pre-flight screen (where you select your bird) and the Shooting Mode screen and update them here we can take a look.
- Be sure you are in Photo
- You said you got it off ebay, is there any chance someone tried to pull a fast one and you received an Advanced? You can visually see the difference by if there are sensors on the sides. See the P4P here and P4A here. You can also look at what the DJI Go app identifies it as. The P4A did not receive the Panorama mode in v1.05.0300 as far as I can see.
- Sometimes firmware updates can be weird, and not properly update. It's happened to me once and I had to roll back and reapply using the DJI Assistant 2 software on my PC. I'm not sure offhand what the current state of rolling back/updating firmware is in that case, as DJI had removed the links to the old firmware.
The unit is brand new, never been flown. Had to peel the stickers off the motors, and vision positioning sensors. Did all the calibrations, and updated all the firmware. Checked the flight log, and it was powered up a few times, but never flown.
This isn't my first Phantom. Had two P3P's, and this is my second P4P. Just missed the update for the pano. I lost my P4P in Sept to a fly away, and just recently replaced it. Thanks for the tips.
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Awesome man, share some panos when you make ‘em.
(Apologies it if came across assuming lack of experience, hard to know where someone is experience-wise. Heh, I did the same thing when I got back going with DJI drones last year, I.e. not finding settings until connected to the powered on AC)
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Did a quick pano yesterday to test generating photospheres via DJI Go 4 app. I’ll have to update the first posts/blog post but
TLDR it worked fine
It renders from the jpegs (I think) and in limited max size, and exports as a jpg, severely limiting the options in post. It had a little trouble stitching (see horizon line) but I think that was due to the drone itself sinking in altitude - I had just taken off and there was a strong wind gust, both of which are common triggers for the p4p to adjust altitude even when it thinks it isn’t.
OTOH, the output wasn’t terrible, either. Certainly good enough for a quick field render option. Lower quality but comparatively ~30x faster than a full PTGui or Photoshop rendering. (Note I’m speaking specifically only about full 360 photo spheres as far as total time required)
This is the jpeg rendered from DJI Go 4 plus a quick tweak in post to add back in some contrast, etc. I was shooting in cine with flat settings for video so rendering from jpegs it came out very flat.
In summary, it did a good enough job that it is a nice option to have for a photosphere rendering when speed is more important than highest quality.
![pano10001__little-planet--tonemapped-wip-[72ppi-2000px-dcip3].jpg](https://phantompilots.com/attachments/pano10001__little-planet-tonemapped-wip-72ppi-2000px-dcip3-jpg.96334/ "pano10001__little-planet--tonemapped-wip-[72ppi-2000px-dcip3].jpg")
TLDR it worked fine
It renders from the jpegs (I think) and in limited max size, and exports as a jpg, severely limiting the options in post. It had a little trouble stitching (see horizon line) but I think that was due to the drone itself sinking in altitude - I had just taken off and there was a strong wind gust, both of which are common triggers for the p4p to adjust altitude even when it thinks it isn’t.
OTOH, the output wasn’t terrible, either. Certainly good enough for a quick field render option. Lower quality but comparatively ~30x faster than a full PTGui or Photoshop rendering. (Note I’m speaking specifically only about full 360 photo spheres as far as total time required)
This is the jpeg rendered from DJI Go 4 plus a quick tweak in post to add back in some contrast, etc. I was shooting in cine with flat settings for video so rendering from jpegs it came out very flat.
In summary, it did a good enough job that it is a nice option to have for a photosphere rendering when speed is more important than highest quality.
Awesome man, share some panos when you make ‘em.
(Apologies it if came across assuming lack of experience, hard to know where someone is experience-wise. Heh, I did the same thing when I got back going with DJI drones last year, I.e. not finding settings until connected to the powered on AC)
Not sure how to stitch the pics. Never had good luck with the programs others used. It didn’t turn out too awfully bad given how windy it was. This was saved to my camera roll on the iPad.
First attempt -
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Cool! Looks good. Love the storm off in the distance.
Yeah editing a full 360 sphere is a lot harder to process than the other pano types. There are hosting sites (or Facebook) you can upload that file to make it a viewable.
I tried Sharing to Facebook, and I thought posted. After checking my feed, it didn't post. I'll take a look at my sharing settings in the Go app. Thanks.
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I don't know if it will recognize it as a 360 or not if you share directly from the Go app, haven't tried that. There's a snippet of metadata needed in the file (as well as it being a 2:1 aspect ratio) for Facebook to recognize it as a photosphere. Most apps do inject it, though.
Here's the info from Facebook: Editing 360 Photos & Injecting Metadata
You can also upload to DJI's Skypixel (amongst plenty of other ones out there), if FB doesn't play nice.
Thank you very much for your informative post about 360-photos. After reading your original post I've tried 360-photos a couple of times with my P4P and I'm sold on it! I love them. If you export them to FB in for example 15.000x7.500 you can zoom in quite a lot, very impressive.
Yes, you are correct, the low-resolution 360-jpg doesn't have the "ProjectionType=equirectangular", you have to insert that.
I've bought PTGui Pro, what a great program. But I've also noticed that you have to use HDR since you often are shooting into the sun.
A question: When you do 360/HDR-photos, do you load all 3x34 photos from LR to PTGui and just let it work, or do you make 34 HDR-photos in LR first and upload them to PTGui? Can you remove some photos and just upload, say 20/34/17 (from the different exposures) to PTGui? Of course I can test for myself, but since you have so much knowledge about this I would appreciate if you could help me.
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Oh, thanks for confirming that the metadata is missing. I hadn’t checked that yet so good to know for sure.
You’re welcome. I think have tested I think every permutation you mentioned and more. Glad my obsessing is useful to others, too. [emoji854]
I love PTGui. It’s what I do all of my hdr pano work with, and have used it to create lots of hdr 360 panos. Re: your question - I use PTGui’s to recognize HDR brackets so pull all 34 shots per exposure into PTGui. The problem is if you don’t drag a full matching set per exposure PTGui gets mad and doesn’t recognize it as an HDR. usually. So for example with a 34 shot x 3 exposure set, I would:
① Ingest them all into Lightroom¹,
② Do any basic/global edits to all the shots. I have a preset I apply, basic lens profile, DNG color profile, usually will do +40 shadows and -40 highlights and I’ve found that the vast majority of my drone images benefit from +20 to +40 dehaze.
③ export all images from all the exposure into a temp folder (as tiff if I’m going for all our quality, but typically HQ jpg is going to be nigh indistinguishable).
④ Drag them all into PTGui and run the initial auto align. I’m not at my machine right now but you want the setting that sets it up as hdr layers. If it doesn’t ask you may need to toggle it via the advanced settings, forget which tab it is in.
⑤ So one of the problems and tricks with the photosphere HDRs is what you hinted at in your question - the darks for the sun end up nearly black or totally black on the ground and so there are often then images that don’t auto align. Instead of removing them from the project you can just mask them out completely, though, if not needed. E.G.if the straight down black exposures are just in the middle of your sky just mask them out.
⑥ The other challenge with the photospheres becomes seaming. If you export to say a layered EXR then tone map in another app you’re going to have a wicked seam bc the two edges won’t match anymore. For that reason I typically do the basic tone map in PTGui. Uncheck the “auto” for highlights and shadows, though, that overcooks. Uncheck that then use the arrow keys up/down after clicking on the slider & you can fine tune those settings (a good value is almost always <2) then tweak compression and contrast the same way. You can tab between them, too, for faster tweaking.
⑦ if you haven’t noticed, you can also render out multiple file types. In this case I’d save out a layered EXR as a master for archive and then a jpg if you’re done or a PSB if you want to tweak more in photoshop. You can do a TIFF too but the PSB is both smaller (by a LOT) and faster to work with.
⑧ I have had success with doing some additional post work in photoshop including using filters, the trick is to throw a mask on the edited layers with a grad opacity that goes back to 0% before the left and right edges. This means you do want to be sure the least important part of your pic is at those seams and it does limit how nuts you can go bc the editing fades away at the edges.
NOTE - In theory the new photosphere pano editing mode should actually address this but I haven’t given it a really good work through yet. I’d be curious if your results if you do.
ALL that said - I have had extremely poor results trying to stitch the DJI preset 34 shot photospheres via PTGui. :/ in particular the maximum upwards images are just a couple degrees too far up so there is usually not quite enough horizon to match on. This isn’t as bad if you’re below 30’ or so or surrounded by higher horizon, but otherwise it very often fails in those and even manually setting the points is a royal PITA because I can barely see the horizon if at all.
I created lots of great HDR photospheres with PTGui
though, but the best ones have been shot manually which is typically more like 50 shots I think. I’ve gotten a couple good results from the DJI preset, mostly at low altitude like I said, or with a bit more labor getting stuff aligned.
Def frustrating bc of how much faster it is vs doing by hand. :/
¹ I recommend retaining the original folder structure btw. There’s a lot of great stuff you can do with PTGui for batch processing but it needs some way to differentiate the panos. The processing happens outside of Lightroom so collections won’t suffice.
PS. I typed this out on my phone so forgive the probably plenty of typos
Pps can’t remember if I liked this from the original post, but I fleshed out my first posts on my blog here
DJI Phantom 4 Pro Panorama Mode review - JeremyPollack.net
Oh, thank you so much, Jeremy! I can't understand how you managed to type this long answer on your phone!
Your answers will help me a lot, I will save a lot of time and my panos will be a lot better.
Yes, I agree, the overlap on the maximum upward images and the ones below is very small. If you have some clouds you can fix it manually but if the sky is blue it is impossible.
I export the blended pano in 16 bit TIFF, maximum size, do some tweaking in LR, and then into PS to try to fill in the top of the sky. With the rectangular marquee tool I mark the sky part and then with Edit->Transform->Scale I expand the sky upwards, to about 15%. Then I mark a smaller part of the sky and do the same, but leave about 5% in the top. That part I try to clone with the same part from the sky all the way. It won't look perfect, but ok I think.
I will try your workflow in PTGui on my next pano and maybe come back with some more questions. Once again, thank you very much!
Anders
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Oh, thank you so much, Jeremy! I can't understand how you managed to type this long answer on your phone!
Your answers will help me a lot, I will save a lot of time and my panos will be a lot better.
Yes, I agree, the overlap on the maximum upward images and the ones below is very small. If you have some clouds you can fix it manually but if the sky is blue it is impossible.
I export the blended pano in 16 bit TIFF, maximum size, do some tweaking in LR, and then into PS to try to fill in the top of the sky. With the rectangular marquee tool I mark the sky part and then with Edit->Transform->Scale I expand the sky upwards, to about 15%. Then I mark a smaller part of the sky and do the same, but leave about 5% in the top. That part I try to clone with the same part from the sky all the way. It won't look perfect, but ok I think.
I will try your workflow in PTGui on my next pano and maybe come back with some more questions. Once again, thank you very much!
Anders
Oh good idea on a content aware scale for the top of the sky, never thought to try that. I usually just do content aware fill which is “okay” but with lots of clouds it can be a pain. Thanks for the idea!
Try a .psb for the PTGui export next time, too. They are a ton faster than a tiff I find, when we’re talking about these multi gig files. Especially if you add a layer or two in.
Thanks, I will try .psd for the export the next time. I agree, the tiffs are very slow.
I use Edit->Transform->Scale. When I used Edit->Content Aware Scale I often got a visible seam in the final pano. With Transform->Scale I don't get that, the seam is invisible.
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I upgraded my P4P+ today so I could try out the Pano mode and the Pano mode does not show up in the options
Is there something obvious I am missing?
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Unfortunately it looks like the pano mode was only added to the Pro not the Pro+. I say that from searching for a few mins, can’t find anywhere that says it was definitely released for the Pro+. They are the same bird (unlike the advance) so in theory I would think it should work if you connects a Pro remote with an iOS/Android device. But obviously that’s not a good option. :/
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Thanks for the reply DARana...
When I got home from work this morning I downloaded the firmware from DJI to a card and tried the whole process again. I don't think the bird got updated last time as it took much longer this time. Anyway, I now see "pano" mode in the camera section. so the Pro+ version did get the upgrade. I will be trying it out later this morning.
