how to keep Mavic 3 Thermal (M3t) focusing on mapping mission - it fails when Continous AF is set.

June 26, 2023 08:23
2 comments

dear community,

we wanted to share some lessons learned and ask for some support.

We created a simple mapping mission for inspection purposes of a photovoltaic power plant, flying a Mavic 3 Thermal (M3t).

We were first stopped by an error prompt stating which was related to the "Continous AF" we had set.

Now we set the Mapping component Focus to N/A instead - and it works.

Question now is:

How would you ensure the focus is still on point throughout the flight?

Like this: https://support.dronelink.com/hc/en-us/articles/10094146578707-Flight-Dashboard-Camera-Settings-Menu-Storage-Focus-Spot-Meter-AE-Lock-Histogram#heading-1 so just tapping the screen?

That's a little cumbersome when flying large plants for hours. I know the distance shouldn't change too much (especially when flying with a good DSM), but still I'd rather know the drone is focussing every other second rather than me tapping...

any other solution?

Thanks!

Comments

2 comments

Mike (Arizona Wyldwest) Dronelink Expert
- Edited June 26, 2023 14:57
Just my guess but may try setting to auto, not continuous. Not even sure what continuous focus is but basically the drone can only perform a function which works in the DJI App and I don’t believe it has a continuous focus mode. So either Manual or auto focus if I’m correct. As I said though, just guessing since I don’t have any drone with focus ability but most should work the same. Usually when it gives an error message it’s due to a unusable command. Might try changing it to auto and see.

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Jacob Rachniowski Dronelink Staff
- August 16, 2023 21:27
The continuous AF command that is being set using the Focus Mode settings in maps is causing an error because the DJI SDK does not allow that setting to be used with the Wide Lens on the M3T/E. It seems to only work with the zoom lenses, which is strange, as it seems that AFC can be used with the Wide lens in Pilot 2 app.

For now, you would need to tap the screen to refocus the camera.

Hopefully we can enable this at some point with a DJI SDK update, if they enable this command for the lens we would expect to have it; however more testing would be required as each refocus may slow down how fast the camera can run and could have some adverse impacts.

This documentation we created sheds some additional light on potential issues that could be faced with drone cameras that have multiple lenses.

https://support.dronelink.com/hc/en-us/articles/19624430960403

This DJI SDK documentation explains the AFC limitation.

https://developer.dji.com/api-reference-v5/android-api/Components/IKeyManager/Key_Camera_CameraKey.html?search=focus&i=0&#key_camera_camerafocusmode_inline

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