Washed out X5S pics compared to Mavic???

[RB30x]

I used a Mavic for months before buying an I2 / X5S and the jpegs it took looked great straight off the camera. Not a lot of work was required in LR to process the images. DNG images however although larger in file size looked bland and washed out, and required heaps of effort (full slider range) to get even close to the rich colours of the standard jpegs. Using ND filters in bright daylight had the same results, the jpegs were always better. I'm a fair novice when it comes to editing photos but I played with white balance and a heap of other settings and I could not get the raws as good as the jpegs.

Now there's probably a couple of layer to this question but I have a similar issue with the X5S. The images looks terrible straight off the camera, jpeg and DNG. They are bland and washed out during daylight shots. Lower lights do appear to capture a bit more depth and colour, which prompted me to try a ND filters again but the images still look washed out and bland and the ND filter appears to block a lot of detail from the image.
Below is a Mavic jpeg with a small amount of processing. Yes, the ambient conditions were a little dark due to the storm coming and I didn't need a filter.


These images are from the X5S with the 15mm, jpegs straight off the camera with following settings.







And some with a fair amount of LR work but still don't look good.


What advice do you have to get these looking better. Taking the photos earlier or later in the day would help but I've seen very sharp colourful shots from midday using this camera before. Do you think its my camera settings, ND filter requirements, or post processing skills that need changing?? Thanks

 

[Casey53]

Might try using an x-rite ColorChecker Passport along with their software to write a profile to correct some of the odd colors off the X5S in Lightroom. About $99.

Fwiw, my X5S has a bad magenta tint to it using manual white balance which seems to be an issue for the past several years with the X5 series of cameras. DJI hasn't made their camera with a tint control for Magenta/Green issues, just the Blue/Yellows, so I have to fly it with a color correction filter (i.e. a CC10Green) and Samy's Camera in Los Angeles sells the Lee filters for cinema on their website. I cut them out with a Fiskar's Circle Cutter and put them behind a ND filter. Really is an annoying matter as most camera makers allow for a tint control on their cameras as do a lot of post editors, but garbage in makes for garbage out too without a lot of post work that might or might not work, more so if doing video.

I also find a Sekonic Color Temperature meter helps to at least get the manual white balance Kelvin close, aside from the matter of the magenta/green tint matter which you might see in the Histogram with a gray card filling the lens view. The RGB colors should overlap mid-screen in the histogram in GO 4, but you'll need a color correction gel to make it so and it may depend on the coloration of whatever lens you use as well. Auto white balance generally will make all three overlap, but manual is a mess with the X5 series of cameras. Auto white balance is all over the place in video though depending on what the camera is looking at so I try and stay in manual WB if possible.

Good luck!

 

[Michael91]

@ OP

I think a lot of your problem there is the actual lighting conditions the 2 different days you were out.
the light is a lot harsher in the inspire 2 pics, it looks like it might have been around midday with strong direct sunlight with extreme contrast shadows cast vertically down as a result

by comparison, the photo from the mavric looks like an overcast day with far softer lighting and shadows due to the clouds diffusing the sunlight?

if what i said there is correct, the only thing that might help you take photos in that lighting would be polarizing filter, they might take some of the glare coming off the scenery and give you better looking colour. the other advise I could give you is shooting in the noon hours with any camera is generally a bad idea unless your in shade, the photos take far too much effort to make them look "ok", never mind "right".

my advise to you, to get the best out of your camera, is shoot when the sun is lower in the sky or its slightly overcast to get the best results (tho you can be artistic with harsh shadows, generally for large landscapes theyre more effort than theyre worth)
also, try and make sure your shooting with the light source (sun) kept anywhere except directly behind or in front of you (except at sunsets/sunrises), that way you can get the nicest shadows in your pic

also, the x5 series cameras have a serious problem with tinting the shadows magenta. its very annoying. it can be fixed in post, but you shouldn't have to.

 

[SWINDY]

Hello RB30x!

Your pics are great - you’ve got a good eye.

About the processing, the DNG files are considered to be your “digital negative” which means you get the opportunity to play with tons of color information to push the image anyway you want. Slip slide away! The file is big because it keeps all this information about color depth. The sliders move a bunch to give you the chance to manipulate image as you please. For me - dialing the contrast,shadow detail, and saturation is fun and protects the image. But - Time is always a thing.

JPEG’s are compressed and a “look” is applied to the image when coming off of camera imaging chip (like color,saturation,contrast, sharpness). There is a look “baked in”- lots of information is thrown away to make smaller. It’s good for “snap a pic and share” and many times it can be enough or better especially when first learning color correction.

There are standard presets/favorites that you can make in your editing software (find/buy) and save a standard “look” as a preset that you can drop on future images as a starting point and the post process can be faster. Maybe have preset for “midday tropics” (or whatevs) and apply. Same goes for if you feel you are getting a magenta cast in shadows.

ND’s filters are used to affect aperture/shutter relationship. Neutral Density filters (ND’s) should be neutral. Try polarizers if you are not - adds some pop to the skies. Poor Sharpness could be cheap glass/dirty or the principle of smaller apertures having great depth of field (more will be in focus/apparent sharpness).

Anyway - All the best. Keep flying and sliding!

 

[davidjmurray]

As many others have reported/complained, DJI's DNGs are super flat when viewed in LR and PS (especially compared to Mavic JPGs!). There's some useful info on this issue here:

Flat RAW / DNG files from X5S (still photography)

The fault lies in the profile that DJI embeds in their DNG files (this is the Profile setting you see in LR's Develop module, under Camera Calibration). The Adobe Camera RAW engine uses that profile to control how it renders the DNG file before applying any of the adjustments controlled by the develop sliders near the top of the develop module in LR and in the corresponding controls accessible via PS and ACR. DJI could improve that profile, and Adobe could build in some better ones (compare the options you find in the Profile popup when processing a Nikon D810 NEF file, for example, with the single option you get when processing a DJI DNG.

As mentioned in the post at the link above, you can build your own custom profiles and install them for use in LR, to improve this situation. But it's not a great solution, because you need lots of different profiles. You can also use LUTS in Photoshop, which can help. LUTS are primarily used in color grading video footage. But they can be applied to still photos in PS (using Color Lookup Adjustment Layers..). You can find instructions and LUT packages via google. Again not ideal.

Another approach is to use 3rd party filters, such as Topaz Clarity and Neutralhazer from Kolor. Both are pretty good at bringing some punch back into DJI DNG files. The Dehaze option under Effects in LR can help too, especially if you don't use Neutralhazer.

Another thing you can try to get more pleasing JPGs from the X5S is to adjust the camera's Color settings in the Go app to be more saturated, contrasty, and/or sharpened (under Custom). But those in camera adjustments get baked into the JPG and reduce flexibility in post. When they get it wrong this can be a problem (see the light areas of the sky in the first image in the OP...while the rest of the image is very pretty, those parts of the sky seem pretty awful to me). So I recommend sticking to DNG to retain maximum flexibility if you need it.

For background, I shoot commercially for magazines, ad agencies, architects, high end real estate agents, etc., and manage to eek out nice quality from my X5's DNGs, but acknowledge that it is more of a struggle than it should be. (ClearEyePhoto.com).

Also, since some posts above mention ND filters as a possible solution to the flatness issue, I just have to say that this is voodoo. Non-graduated (uniform) ND filters do not "enhance" or "improve" the light arriving at the camera sensor in any way that would make a properly exposed capture less flat/dull. They just uniformly reduce the brightness of that light. They do this so that you can use a slower shutter speed than you'd need without the ND filter in place, all other settings being equal. We use them on drones to shoot video, when we want to shoot at shutter speeds like 1/50 and 1/60. You can Google "180 degree shutter angle" for info on why. It's cool. But for still photography with a drone you usually don't want to use a slow shutter speed, because this increases the risk of motion blur. You want to use a fast enough shutter speed to eliminate blur. Trying to shoot sharp/detailed stills? Take off the ND filter unless you are working in blindingly bright light and need it to avoid over exposing your shot.