Propellers are showing up in all of my panoramic shots

[O6-Hammerhead]

For some reason, whenever I shoot Panoramic’s using DJI GO 4, my propellers show up in my shots.

Are there any settings I can adjust to avoid this? Perhaps some additional time between the drone positioning in the shop being taken?

Thank you in advance for your suggestions.

 

[O6-Hammerhead]

For some reason, whenever I shoot Panoramic’s using DJI GO 4, my propellers show up in my shots.

Are there any settings I can adjust to avoid this? Perhaps some additional time between the drone positioning in the shop being taken?

Thank you in advance for your suggestions.

I should’ve added, I’m flying a P4P With the latest firmware installed

 

[Nightwolf]

Happens to me when i get too aggressive with the sticks so i imagine a wait state would fix it for you

 

[bsartist]

Are you facing into a stiff headwind? That would cause it to pitch forward to hold position.

 

[O6-Hammerhead]

I’m using the automated pano feature

 

[O6-Hammerhead]

It seems like there should be a setting to allow the aircraft to settle into position before the photograph is taken.

 

[bsartist]

It seems like there should be a setting to allow the aircraft to settle into position before the photograph is taken.

There is a setting that allows the gimbal to aim up I believe up to 30° above horizontal. Check that. If enabled, try to disable. I think any auto pano feature should already be waiting for the AC to stabilize.

 

[LarBear360]

As stated earlier, you can turn off the feature that enables the gimbal to tilt up. I just leave it alone. If I get prop shots, I crop the image or remove them in Photoshop. If it's nothing but blue sky elsewhere, I can "clone" the sky and paste over the props.

 

[Paul2660]

It doesn’t matter if you turn off the 30 degree feature on the P4 to allow you to gimbal up. The Pano feature will still raise the camera way too high and you are going to get props in every top shot.

I have tried even starting with the gimbal pointed down, and it just centers and goes through the routine.

I have used the Pano feature on the Spark and Mavic, and love it on the Mavic since you can usually get by without a lot of props showing. Plus the Mavic is the only drone that allows rotation of the sensor (not gimbal) to Protrait orientation, which is actually better for a pano since the retrofocus distortion of the lens will not come into play as much. I would love to see this with the P4 and hoped that it would be added to the P4 Vr 2.0, but it wa not.

On the P4, the props are going to show. And usually a lot. I agree you can take the time to remove them with features like Content Aware since they are usually in the sky, however this forces you to take the raw dng to a tiff, and move to photoshop, and thus stitch the pano from photoshop as a tif, I prefer to stitch to a larger DNG and thus stay in raw. Lightroom’s ability to remove the props with it’s tool set is much less acceptable than content aware in CC

Now I usually just manually take the Panos, But it’s not really possible to correctly lineup the 9 shots, but you can get close.

The other issue is the huge amount of retrofocus distortion the P4 lens has which is increasingly made worse as you look down. You will see this with any straight object towards the edge of the lens, which will both bend and shorten and fatten due to the distortion. Such distortion is common in all wide angle lenses, but the P4 is pretty strong. And there is barrel distortion that you can somewhat correct in Lightroom, however the I find that the default lens correction is too strong and prefer the one for the Inspire 1.

Paul Caldwell

 

[bsartist]

It doesn’t matter if you turn off the 30 degree feature on the P4 to allow you to gimbal up. The Pano feature will still raise the camera way too high and you are going to get props in every top shot.

I have tried even starting with the gimbal pointed down, and it just centers and goes through the routine.

I have used the Pano feature on the Spark and Mavic, and love it on the Mavic since you can usually get by without a lot of props showing. Plus the Mavic is the only drone that allows rotation of the sensor (not gimbal) to Protrait orientation, which is actually better for a pano since the retrofocus distortion of the lens will not come into play as much. I would love to see this with the P4 and hoped that it would be added to the P4 Vr 2.0, but it wa not.

On the P4, the props are going to show. And usually a lot. I agree you can take the time to remove them with features like Content Aware since they are usually in the sky, however this forces you to take the raw dng to a tiff, and move to photoshop, and thus stitch the pano from photoshop as a tif, I prefer to stitch to a larger DNG and thus stay in raw. Lightroom’s ability to remove the props with it’s tool set is much less acceptable than content aware in CC

Now I usually just manually take the Panos, But it’s not really possible to correctly lineup the 9 shots, but you can get close.

The other issue is the huge amount of retrofocus distortion the P4 lens has which is increasingly made worse as you look down. You will see this with any straight object towards the edge of the lens, which will both bend and shorten and fatten due to the distortion. Such distortion is common in all wide angle lenses, but the P4 is pretty strong. And there is barrel distortion that you can somewhat correct in Lightroom, however the I find that the default lens correction is too strong and prefer the one for the Inspire 1.

Paul Caldwell

I don’t recall getting props in any of my P4P panos including tiny planet and rectilinear projections. But I may test it later.

Nice that you can rotate the sensor. I often like to shoot portrait shots for my DSLR panos with my 5D3. You get more data to play with too.

 

[bsartist]

It doesn’t matter if you turn off the 30 degree feature on the P4 to allow you to gimbal up. The Pano feature will still raise the camera way too high and you are going to get props in every top shot.

I have tried even starting with the gimbal pointed down, and it just centers and goes through the routine.

I have used the Pano feature on the Spark and Mavic, and love it on the Mavic since you can usually get by without a lot of props showing. Plus the Mavic is the only drone that allows rotation of the sensor (not gimbal) to Protrait orientation, which is actually better for a pano since the retrofocus distortion of the lens will not come into play as much. I would love to see this with the P4 and hoped that it would be added to the P4 Vr 2.0, but it wa not.

On the P4, the props are going to show. And usually a lot. I agree you can take the time to remove them with features like Content Aware since they are usually in the sky, however this forces you to take the raw dng to a tiff, and move to photoshop, and thus stitch the pano from photoshop as a tif, I prefer to stitch to a larger DNG and thus stay in raw. Lightroom’s ability to remove the props with it’s tool set is much less acceptable than content aware in CC

Now I usually just manually take the Panos, But it’s not really possible to correctly lineup the 9 shots, but you can get close.

The other issue is the huge amount of retrofocus distortion the P4 lens has which is increasingly made worse as you look down. You will see this with any straight object towards the edge of the lens, which will both bend and shorten and fatten due to the distortion. Such distortion is common in all wide angle lenses, but the P4 is pretty strong. And there is barrel distortion that you can somewhat correct in Lightroom, however the I find that the default lens correction is too strong and prefer the one for the Inspire 1.

Paul Caldwell

P.S. if anyone has a P4P lens profile that works on ACR v6 I’d love a copy.

 

[Paul2660]

Interesting, both the P4 Pro's I have used, pull up way too much and thus show the props, "most" of the time. There are times I guess where my direction and wind allowed no props to show. But I have issues just flying the P4 and not seeing props. I find I have to fly with the gimbal slightly pointed down to reduce the effect of the props. Flying slow enough not to see props, with gimbal in standard level position is too slow for me. This is not in Sport mode, just P-GPS.

I realize you can fly backwards but, just don't want to mess with that, as the video will have to be reversed and just adds more work.

Love the camera, on the P4, and the resolution, but the effect of the props has been a bit of a disappointment. Just something you have to fly and be aware of.

BTW, I usually can't raise the gimbal past 15 degrees of level up without props showing. Full 30 and the props are there pretty much all the time. I will say the white props are easier to remove than black. White blend into a blue sky better.

Paul Caldwell

 

[Paul2660]

P.S. if anyone has a P4P lens profile that works on ACR v6 I’d love a copy.

Try the one for the Inspire 1. ACR LR load the files with no profile, and say the profile is embedded. However on the drop down box you can select several Adobe lens profiles for various DJI drones. The best one I have found is the Inspire 1, as the one for the P4 corrects too much for barrel distortion.

I also only shoot in 4:3 instead of 3:2 as this helps to limit the effect of the wide angle distortion, mainly retro focus distortion. Does cut down on over all MP, but still get enough.

As the sensor is a 1", I still can't see how a 3:2 ratio is going to get a full resolution of 20MP, since that ration should be a crop?

Paul Caldwell

 

[bsartist]

Interesting, both the P4 Pro's I have used, pull up way too much and thus show the props, "most" of the time. There are times I guess where my direction and wind allowed no props to show. But I have issues just flying the P4 and not seeing props. I find I have to fly with the gimbal slightly pointed down to reduce the effect of the props. Flying slow enough not to see props, with gimbal in standard level position is too slow for me. This is not in Sport mode, just P-GPS.

I realize you can fly backwards but, just don't want to mess with that, as the video will have to be reversed and just adds more work.

Love the camera, on the P4, and the resolution, but the effect of the props has been a bit of a disappointment. Just something you have to fly and be aware of.

BTW, I usually can't raise the gimbal past 15 degrees of level up without props showing. Full 30 and the props are there pretty much all the time. I will say the white props are easier to remove than black. White blend into a blue sky better.

Paul Caldwell

Did you try with 30° up turned off? Mine is always off. I rarely get props in my video shots. Usually only with aggressive forward acceleration or quick stops in reverse. Occasionally if moving at a good clip into a headwind.

I presume you are not using prop guards right?

Edit: I suppose it’s possible that I’m already flying with the gimbal aimed a little down most of the time. Don’t think so though. I’ll test later when I test the panos.

 

[Paul2660]

yes, I turned it off. However in Pano mode on my P4, the Pano mode defeats the 30% gimbal being turned off and raises the gimbal the full amount.

I will double check that later today as I shot 3 yesterday all with the gimbal up turned off, and on the last series started with the gimbal aimed down, just to see what happens.

Gimbal re-centers and starts the process and goes all the way to the max height on each shot, thus pulling in the props.

Not using the prop guards.

Paul C

 

[Paul2660]

Just went and checked again, and on my P4's the Pano feature over-rides the gimbal up turned off setting. It' also reverts to jpg +raw, even when I am setup only for raw.

Tried the 9 shot horizontal and 3 shot vertical, and on both the gimbal goes to the max 30 % height on the top frame and thus pulls in full props. If you can only go up 15% instead of 30 that would be better.

Tried this from both 7.5 CS and iPad Pro, so different versions of djigo4, and both handle it the same.

Paul Caldwell

 

[bsartist]

Just went and checked again, and on my P4's the Pano feature over-rides the gimbal up turned off setting. It' also reverts to jpg +raw, even when I am setup only for raw.

Tried the 9 shot horizontal and 3 shot vertical, and on both the gimbal goes to the max 30 % height on the top frame and thus pulls in full props. If you can only go up 15% instead of 30 that would be better.

Tried this from both 7.5 CS and iPad Pro, so different versions of djigo4, and both handle it the same.

Paul Caldwell

I was going to say that it could have to do with the number of rows. I usually only use two. But I do Tiny planet too and don’t recall an issue.

I use Litchi for panos on my P4P and it only uses jpeg on tiny planet. Uses raw on other panos.

 

[Paul2660]

That explains it. Litchi may be the way to go I will look into that.

Paul C