Automated 2 EV bracket per position for 360° HDR panoramas, shutter relative to a base, on a Mavic 2 Pro
Hello,
I need to shoot 12 360° HDR panoramas on one site with a Mavic 2 Pro, at three times of day, and merge them into 32-bit EXR files for lighting 3D scenes. The camera's native AEB (0.7 EV steps, 2.7 EV span with 5 frames) is too narrow, so I want to automate these bracket changes per photo, per pano.
My plan is manual exposure, DNG, fixed white balance, and four frames per position at 2 EV steps. All frames for one position are taken before the drone or gimbal moves. I meter a base shutter before each panorama and the other frames follow from it.
Sunrise (f/4, ISO 100, base for example 1/125)
Offsets −4, −2, 0, +2: 1/2000, 1/500, 1/125, 1/30
Plus two frames aimed at the sun at f/11: 1/8000 and 1/2000
15:00, clear sky (f/8, ISO 100, base for example 1/400)
Offsets −4, −2, 0, +2: 1/6400, 1/1600, 1/400, 1/100
Blue hour, city lights (f/2.8, ISO 400, base for example 1/15)
Offsets −6, −4, −2, 0: 1/1000, 1/250, 1/60, 1/15
At sunrise and blue hour I also repeat the first position's bracket at the end, to measure how much the light drifted during the capture.
My questions:
- Is there a relative shutter speed command (N steps from the current value), or can a function read the camera's current shutter speed when it runs? If not, is a function with the base shutter and the offsets as inputs, writing absolute shutter commands, the right approach?
- Does anyone have a 360 HDR function or plan that runs on a Mavic 2 Pro? The public ones I found were tested on a Mavic Mini, and a Mavic 2 user reported "Gimbal Orientation | Pitch 19° | Param Illegal" on the first gimbal move.
- Which shutter values does the Mavic 2 Pro accept: 1/125 and 1/250, or 1/120 and 1/240?
- For the brightest frames, can the function raise ISO when the shutter would go below a floor such as 1/30 s? Is a wait needed after slow frames before the next gimbal move?
- What is a realistic time for about 108 DNG frames (27 positions, 4 frames each)? My estimate is 7 to 8 minutes.
Thank you.
Comments
5 comments
Hi DRuivo. I have run 360 panoramas before with Dronelink but not often. Maybe someone else can help further but I have a couple of things which should help. I’ll send a public shared 360 Panorama which can be altered to possibly fit your needs. The gimbal pitches can be edited in the plan to the pitch values you need on each one. Also any other value or how many rows, columns etc can be altered to meet your needs as long as you know how to set it up properly. As far as the ISO & Shutter speed you should be using full auto-exposure because when it pitches down the exposure will be very dark and unusable. Using manual exposure settings won’t work for this reason and I’ve tried many times with poor results. You can try with manual exposure but I’m fairly sure some of them won’t be usable. Plus you would need to add a command at each step for ISO, Shutter etc… which would be difficult to know. In regard to your Mavic 2 Pro, look at the DJI specs to see what the firmware allows. The shutter speed, ISO, EV, timed shots, resolution, photo MP as well as all the other functions and settings must be allowed by the DJI firmware. Basically, if it won’t work with the DJI app it won’t work with Dronelink.
The only reason I can think of about the Mavic Mini and Mavic 2 getting a gimbal error at 19° could be due to the upward gimbal movement not being enabled in the DJI app. Otherwise it should work.
The only other I can think of to set it up specifically the way you want is to write your own script but you will need a professional plan and know how to write it. I still believe using the 360° HDR Panorama set to auto exposure would be the easiest way.
I’d first try the Panorama one time which will capture more photos than you want but it is set up for any drone to work. You can either add an auto-exposure command in the departure list in the plan or just set the camera exposure to auto in the DJI or DL app first. Give it a try with auto-exposure and see how it will look with it all the extra steps.
You can copy the Panorama plan to one of your Repos and then once opened you can move the entire plan to your location.
https://app.dronelink.com/wyldwestaz/temp/plan/4JMTjd5aUTb2i3XA5HGi/hHRiFB9hsLCXv7dHqSaK
I sent information but waiting approval.
Much appreciated Mike!
I'll give it a go and see if I can figure this scripting issue, but I am not even sure how or if I can go about it, as my drone-link tier seems to not accept scripting, from what I just saw, with the growth pack?
Is it such a super-feature that gets tied down for everything except for the highest tier?
As for the autoexposure, that is a total "forbidden" for full float HDR imagery, given that you need to produce multiple scripted exposures per angle (imagine 5 or more, with 2 stops up and two stops down, giving you a full 4 stop exposure) to really capture the High Dynamic Radiance of a scene to use for example in 3D renderings
You get over 100 DNGs to do a single Pano 360 HDR file.
This is a bit of a long read, but it gives you an insight of what I would need to do with the MV2P
and why autoexposure just wouldn't do.
Understood. If it won’t work for your workflow then maybe DL or another pilot can help. If you have a Growth plan then you do have direct email support which may help with DL staff assisting you further. Good luck.
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