I've been testing my Phantom 4 for the last 2 weeks, and all I can conclude is I must have a 'lemon' or bad copy of the camera. I hope.
For context, yes I have been using DJI Phantoms since model one on up to the Phantom 3 Pro, so I am very well versed on the settings, flight, and expected quality.
The footage I am getting looks very soft, pastel-like, with little detail. The colors are best described as 'smudgy'.
I have tested footage on the full gamut of sharpness settings and color modes, including my default DLOG mode and post-processing, however the problem remains...
Footage on my previous Phantom 3 Pro was outstanding. I do not still have it currently to film side by side comparisons, but my Phantom 4 video quality seems like a big step backwards.
I haven't read about a widespread issue or complaints, has anyone else has issues like this? Look at the screen captures, especially in foliage or grass, it looks like crap.
Your style settings. Have you played with them at all? In order to not get really bad aliasing and moire with the P3X cameras, you had to tweak the style settings to make it less sharp or you would get a TON of aliasing on roof tops and what not. Also don't forget that the P3 and P4 shoot naturally warm so you need to adjust for that.
Anyway, I would bet that you used your old settings from the P3 but they changed the default settings and it does not need to be tweaked as much (I can't tell you exactly how to set yours because I don't know what you are going for but whatever you don't like, go the opposite direction). People don't pay enough attention to the style settings on the P3 or P4. A lot of people set it once and think that's the right setting. Change these around a little and keep playing with it until you get your desired look. Your images DEFINITELY need some work both pre and post but from a quick glance, I don't think it's a broken camera.
Here are the settings I'm suggesting you play around with.
Now this is the old P3 app, but it's in the same place, the menu above the camera settings.
The triangle is COLOR, the circle is CONTRAST and the gradient rectangle is SATURATION. Color of course is just what your would think. Contrast is a bit hard to define but what it means in video usually is how far your blacks and whites can get away from each other. The higher the contrast, the whiter your whites can get, and the darker your darks can get without crusing them. The rectangular gradient is SATURATION. Saturation I used to have trouble explaining to people and one day it clicked. I was a lab instructor at USC for a couple years a while ago and the kids never knew what Saturation is and I always found it hard to explain until one day I said its "The Volume of Color". It's a perfect description. Now they made changes on the P3 and made the necessary adjustments from a few months ago, standard and now you have to search for your right settings again. It's almost annoying because they are quite different and like most cameras it has it's own personality and they changed it. You might be going for too much of a blur look if you are looking for crisp. It's all in the "Style Settings". The ISO, Shutter, and things like that are a piece of piss compared to figuring out your proper style settings. Don't watch the youtube videos telling you how to set it because thee is no HOW to set it. Play with it until you get what you want.
I found this awesome video that if nothing else will show you how everything plays off of each other.
Now, I am going to talk about Tom again because people like him because he has a fancy video and says stuff like he knows what he's talking about but this guy here has ZERO subscibers and an absolutely BEAUTIFUL and artful and truthful video on proper setting for both pre and post setting and CC.
If you want to see if you can get these looks using the custom setting he's laid out, you should be able to bring it into a color corrector like Resolve, Light Room if you're lazy (like me), PhotoShop, or even After Effects or Premiere. You MUST have access to an HSL or 3 wheel color corrector for post.
Everyone should watch this video. It's got nearly every custom style setting you need for your P4 in this video.
EDIT: After watching his video a couple more times, you cam see he pulled the sharpness back -2 which still leaves him pretty sharp. If he left it at zero he would have massive moire an aliasing on that fence and those moving leaves and he over compensated the color correction a little bit I think on the saturation which is a common trick to cover up artifacts. It's not as perfect as it looked the first time but the guy says it's his first aerial videos which if so, he knows a lot about photography in general. Also, the video does a great job of showing why we want to use D-Log so that you'll have a flat color gambit with which to choose from in post which he did a more than decent post on. I am wholly impressed if that's his first drone.