Matrice 4E - camera settings in mission for photogrammetry

[cukiii1312]

Hi,

We bought a new drone, the Matrice 4 Enterprise, and we noticed that regardless of the focus settings I set before the mission, if I take off and manually adjust the focus, the drone, once it starts the mission, switches the focus to MF (manual focus) and infinity. Previously, we flew with the Phantom 4 Pro, on which we manually adjusted the focus each time before starting the mission. Can someone explain the logic behind setting the focus to infinity? Why did DJI design the mission settings this way, considering some missions are flown at 30m, and others at 70m? Is there a way to set the desired focus for the photos, and is there a need for it?

I'm also curious, which shooting mode do you use when flying in missions for photogrammetry - A, S, or AUTO? Do you turn dewarping on or off?

 

[jaja6009]

There are techincal aspects to wht you focus to infinity that I have read and understand mostly. It is pretty mcuh what people use when drone mapping.
Right before the drone starts to take mapping images, it will autofocus and then switch to manual infinity. It works well, at different altitdues.
You do not want the drone to autofocus for every image, as the focal length will slightly change.

For the Phantom 4 RTK I used the following:
ISO locked to 100 or 200 (200 if a very dark cloudy day)
Shuter Priority and set the shutter speed according to conditions, 2000 if real sunny, down to 800 if real dark and cloudy
I will play with the shutter speed and maybe even the EV to get the images to have the aperture at 4000 to 5000.


For the Matrice I have been just using the Auto with good results. But may go back to Shutter Priority as listed above. Auto will sometimes have the shutter speed kind of low and ISO kind of high when comparing to the shutter priority workflow and I want the quickest shutter speed if flying fast.

Most photogrammetry software likes dewarping to be off.

Are you having any image issues? Using Auto or Shutter Priority, I have gotten nothing by crisp, sharp, well focussed images.