Choose the drone camera default Settings to shoot or manually set the camera to shoot? Drone Beginners is always trying new things. Here, we'll illustrate 7 camera setup mistakes that most beginners make.
1. Exposure mode
Underexposure or overexposure can make a photo lose good color. We can choose between automatic and manual modes. In the absence of automatic shooting, it is easy to get overexposed or underexposed images. In this case, we recommend that you first select automatic mode to check the image and then switch to manual mode to adjust the Settings.
2. EV compensation
Is the correct exposure mode still not enough to change the brightness of the photo? Solve this by adjusting the EV (Exposure Value) until the image on the screen is exposed correctly. At its simplest, EV+ changes will make the image brighter, and EV- changes will make the image darker. An ideal EV setting for one scene can be totally wrong for another photo. So, always adjust EV setting according to the specific lighting.
3. ISO
Too much noise in the picture? High ISO allows you to shoot at fast shutter speeds or in low-light environments, but it also leads to increased noise. During the daytime, a high ISO typically results in an overly-bright and noisy image. For this reason, make sure to check if you’ve set the ISO too high if an image has too much noise.
If you’re not sure about how to set the ISO, try using Auto ISO so that your camera will automatically select proper ISO value.
4. White balance
The colors in your images don’t look right? When your pictures appear with an unappealing color cast, you should readjust the White Balance. Different light sources have different color temperatures. As the camera can’t adjust automatically for it, you need to modify the color tone of the image manually.
To keep it as simple as possible: the camera needs to add warm tones in cool light condition and cool tones in warm light condition to get close to what you observe with your naked eye. We recommend you to use Auto White Balance as it works well in most situations.
5. Focus
Getting blurred images? When you tried tapping the screen to focus, it didn’t work? This can happen when you select MF(Manual Focus) mode. Switch to AF (Auto-Focus), so you can tap to focus. However, when it’s dark, and autofocus doesn’t work, you can switch to MF and activate focus peaking. This will assist you to get accurate focus.
6. Format
Have you noticed that sometimes the quality of your photos has been reduced after post-processing? In this situation, you may want to check the image format. Autel offers three photo format options: JPEG, RAW, and JPEG+RAW. We recommend that you use RAW if you‘re going to edit the photo later. This is because RAW maintains much more information and detail than JPEG. So you can edit RAW without lowering the image’s standard.
7. Camera Mode
Getting multiple images when you only intended to take a single shot? Autel drones support various photo modes-Single, Multiple, AEB, HDR, Timed Shot, etc. Go to the photo mode menu and make sure that you have selected Single Shot.
Getting to know the various buttons in the camera menu can be daunting, but it's worth the effort. Drone novices should constantly experiment with how to adjust camera Settings to get high-quality aerial photos, and learn from these mistakes to perfect their photography and flying skills to the next level.