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CGO3+ Stock Camera Mod

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Hello my Typhoon H pilot brethren!

The Typhoon H camera has a very good stock micro camera in it. It is using the latest 4K micro Sony sensors that are on par with the latest micro sensors in the Phantom 4, Inspire X3 cam, etc. There is no reason that the camera itself shouldn't shoot as good or maybe even better than the just mentioned UAS cams.

The issue, which at this point is pretty definite, as documented by many optic houses and general hobbyists who dig into their cam and are willing to change the lens have figured out the the problem is the stock lens provided by Yuneec is holding back the CGO3+'s abilities. It's like having a brand new OLED 4K tv and setting up a silk right in front of it. Doesn't matter how good the cam is if it's being disrupted by the optics which it is. Some, more than others, as actual focusing the lens has been an issue with some of the H user base as well.

Focus is an easy fix though. I don't know but am pretty sure that someone has covered how to do this but if you are having just general focus issues with the entire image, I can tell you how to easily focus it by popping open the front of the cam and turning the lens. You want to focus in on a small object at a minimum of 40-50 feet away so that you will have infinite focus. (Just in case you landed here for a focus issue, that is how you fix that). I have seen SOME H's with weird focus issues that won't be fixed by this because it is due to imperfections in the lens optics.

I found a company (Peau Productions) that are specialists in aerial optics and they have developed a couple different lens as a replacement lens for the H. After much research, I have decided this is the company that I am trusting to fix the lens issue with my H. I haven't even snapped a frame yet so who knows, maybe the new one has a better lens the the other one? Either way, I am putting it to the test against the lens from Peau.

*** First, I DO NOT in any capacity work for or with the company (other than getting a discount for offering up my new H as an OTB comparison). I am developing a relationship with them as I might be helping them with some of their other ventures as well. They are developing camera arrays and all kinds of other good stuff that you should definitely check out on their site but we are going to focus on the H and their contribution to the camera. I feel it's okay to post this here because as I said I don't work for them and I believe they are actually a vendor here.

They create lens replacements to remove fish eye lens for example for GoPro, and optics for Phantoms, Inspire, Sony Action Cams and a bevy of other camera accessories including filters for the H and pretty much all micro cameras while having surveying solutions for cameras as small as the Hero. I am not telling you all this to sell the company. What I mean is I guess I am selling the company on their trust worthiness and their history. I have seen some of their optics in action (as you will in a second) and it is quite promising.

These guys are good and it is for this reason that I am going to send them my brand new H cam to their shop and let their people install the lens for me. But before that:

I am going to take a BRAND new Typhoon H which is my second one. I was sent it directly from Yuneec as a test unit but I already have one so instead I am going to use it for the community as a guinea pig unit for one of the lens that they have at Peau Productions. I don't have a ton of experience using my H because aside from the fun of flying it, I don't use it at all for imagery as I have too many options that have good lens in them. So before I send it in, I'm going to spend a couple weeks getting comparative shots that I will emulate with the new lens/camera combo. I will use several different settings, locations, maybe with different filters, some un-color corrected and some onlined.

I believe they have 2 lens (well definitely 2, not sure if their other lens will fit or not) for the H that literally replaces the lens in the CGO3+ unit with a new lens. The process is actually a little harder to do yourself because apparently the sticky part where you separate the lens is harder to remove with the H than it is with the Phantoms so I will be sending it directly to them. If you feel comfortable installing one yourself, then you can buy the lens at a relatively low cost and just install it. It's not difficult and I would probably have my Drone's Plus friend do it for me if I wasn't doing a full fledged review and comparison and I want to make sure it is installed per their specs and on my new unit, plus they will professional focus it for me and again, I want to have the best possible result for final review and comparison.*EDIT: I have found out since I wrote this that indeed the H is a lot harder to install than it looks on the FPV Guy vid and it didn't look easy. I would suggest, for the H anyway, if you want to get this lens mod that you send in your cam or buy one of their ready to go cams. You could always do that and sell yours.

The first one they offer for the H, in addition to their filters, is the 3.97mm lens which is the closest one to the actual stock lens FOV. Their 3.97mm lens has an 82 degree HFOV (learn the difference between Horizontal Field of View and Angle of View which most people incorrectly call FOV). I am not going to make this longer than it will already be by going into a whole lesson on what the differences are but I will post later with some of that info if desired but understanding the relationship between AOV, sensor size, lens size and how they play off the sensors to create your actual FOV is important to understand if you are going to really understand the optics. The f-stop is fixed at 2.8 as is the stock lens for the 3.97. Go to their site for all the specs and the things they claim make their glass such good quality including the type of glass they use which is 8 different elements. The 35mm equivalent on the 3.97 is 22.63mm. The AOV is 65 x 82 x 92 degrees (Horizontal, Vertical, and Diagonal).

They also offer a much largerr 8.25mm lens (which is the one I think I am going to have them install on my new camera) which drastically changes the HFOV from around 82 degrees as compared to their 3.97 to 41 degrees which gives a MUCH narrower field of view but increases the optical zoom (which is of course fixed) by about 2x (That is a pretty significant zoom if you consider that everything you see will be zoomed in twice as much as it otherwise would). The AOV on this lens is 32 x 41x 51 degrees which is (Vertical, Horizontal and Diagonal). The 35mm equivalent with the crop factor on our 1/1.23" sensor changes to 47mm. The fixed f/stop on this lens is 3 as opposed to the 2.8 on most fixed m12 lens. I would be a little concerned of the .2 difference smaller aperture might effect low light situations but judging by the video below, definitely not. Of course using ND filters are our only method for letting in light or not as we can't change the aperture on a fixed iris and also a locked focus means we have to get our preferred focus before closing up the camera.

The footage I am about to show is from their site using the 8.25 which I would have thought that the 41 degree HFOV would be entirely too narrow but I think the footage looks amazing and remember, this footage and these shots were taken with the SAME EXACT camera that is on your H but with the added benefit of a focused quality lens instead of an unfocused crappy one.

Lol, the forum won't allow me to post the rest of this in one page so I will finish it up with the video and the images (along with a summary of this post) below.
 
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A summary for the people that don't like reading a lot of technobabble.
________________________________________________________________________
In summary, the stock lens on the H is simply getting in the way of the quality Sony sensors provided by Yuneec that are every bit as good as all the UASs in its class. There are a couple companies and some individuals who know what they are doing who have created replacement lens that do indeed fix many of the quality issues with image that people have rightfully been jaded with by the H. I am having my brand new H retrofitted with a new lens that will hopefully let the Sony sensors shine.

I will show this by taking stock images and videos before sending the camera unit off to Peau Productions and letting them put on the new lens. I believe I will be getting the 8.25 lens which is characteristicly different than the stock one so my imagery will look different and FOV as well as optical clarity. My zoom and locked f/stop will be different as well as I believe I am opting for the narrower FOV but the larger lens which gives it a 44 degree HFOV and I haven't calculated yet what the exact FOV would be from that but it's narrow.

I will post my videos that I will take for comparative purposes along the way which will end up in a final video and comparison with conclusions.

So there you have it. The thing that has been definitely determined in my eyes is that the lens is indeed the problem and I believe I have found the company to fix it. Let's not forget that the action camera is a relatively new type of camera and the lens developed for them and indeed the micro sensors are amazing in their quality for such small optics (honestly it's the smart phone revolution that pushed this technology so fast but the UAS revolution is pushing it even farther as people that were never photographers all of a sudden are not only enthusiasts but nearing the knowledge of the pros).

Here is a video of the 8.25 that I believe I will be getting, complete shot on a Typhoon H with the 8.25mm camera. Remember that the characteristics of this lens are inherently different than the H's stock, so the completely different zoom factor and FOV are not even near the same but on top of that, look at how much better the picture is here. I have seen some footage of the 3.97 and while carrying the same basic characteristics of the stock camera, it looks many times better than even the best H cam I've seen simply because it's all about optics. Must have a good lens on a good camera or you have a bad camera. The H: Good camera, check, good lens, coming.

A parallax is two objects and how they play off each other moving on different planes of distance. Check out some of the balloon stuff at the end, especially some of the low light fire from the balloons. Looks fabulous to me. I can see at the beginning of this video, there are some low light (look like SoCal June Gloom) that personally I would have color corrected different (assuming they color corrected it which I have no idea) but I would have popped it a little more on pretty much the whole video but it does show what the camera of the H can actually do.

After the video, I will post some pics shot from them with the 8.25. I will post some vids of the 3.97 later. Again, keep a look out for my stock video and photos that I will post as I do them for the end game here.

Thank you for reading this rather long post. I will look it over later and try to make it more concise as I know that is big around here but sometimes there just is a lot of info. I will cover how, in a very easy to understand way, the AOV, and how it plays off the sensors and the size of the lens effects the FOV later in this thread.

TO BE CLEAR: The video and the images below are taken with the stock H camera but has their replacement 8.25 lens mod and I think the difference speak for themselves when comparing to your own stock lens images? You guys tell me.

The 8.25 (make sure to watch in 4K!)


Now some images from the 8.25

Love this image. Look at the color separation, contrast and focus. Taken with a Typhoon H stock camera!
YUN00624_w_2048x2048.jpg

So are these:

YUN00008-Pano_2048x2048.jpg


YUN00016-Pano_w_2048x2048.jpg

YUN00555_w_2048x2048.jpg
YUN00546-Pano_w_2048x2048.jpg

This one really shows off the clarity and quality of the optics. Also, holy crap on that water!
YUN00559_w_2048x2048.jpg
YUN00045-Pano_w_2048x2048.jpg
YUN00025_w_2048x2048.jpg
YUN00018_w_2048x2048.jpg
YUN00576-Pano_w_2048x2048.jpg
YUN00620_w_2048x2048.jpg
YUN00590_w_2048x2048.jpg
YUN00590-Pano-Edit_w_2048x2048.jpg
YUN00606_w_2048x2048.jpg


All above images taken with a stock camera with a Yuneec Typhoon H. I am excited to create the video that shows the transformation. Pretty simple stuff here. It's photography and lens are not unimportant and Yuneec simply dropped the ball on the lens but luckily not the camera!!!

Much more to come.

And this is the unit that I will be using to document the progress. Fingers crossed. It is the same one that I had in Classifieds but got no bites and then I decided to do this experiment instead.

IMG_3588_zpsnwaew1j9.jpg

IMG_3589_zpsxznxo232.jpg
 
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I am a little confused. Sorry.

So, these pictures are from the stock camera and stock lens?
These are essentially "before" photos?
 
I am a little confused. Sorry.

So, these pictures are from the stock camera and stock lens?
These are essentially "before" photos?
I am sorry. No.

That video and those images are from the STOCK camera that ships with the H but with a replacement lens that improves the optics. Therefore the quality sensors aren't impeded by the crap lens and it looks much better almost objectively. Believe it or not, I didn't want to convolute that post so I left out a lot of the other things like videos of the 3,97 which show direct side by side comparisons of the stock lens vs. their 3.97 lens. FPV Guy did a great video on it. I'll also be using this opportunity to try and explain how field of view is calculated. I always feel like I'm getting the boring stuff out for people but I feel like people will either want to learn and read, or won't and not but I always feel a desire to get info out there. I don't know why but I enjoy it but it leads to a lot of words.

Those are not only not the stock lens, but it is there 8.25 sized lens instead of the 3.97 which is pretty much the same size as the stock lens.

Basically we are changing the lens of a non-interchangabe lens camera. :)

I know there was a lot of stuff written there and I will go through it later and try and tighten it up but I said a lot (as I can do). :)

Sorry for the confusion but the stock photos and videos will be chronicled as I take them in this thread which again will ultimately lead to making a video comparing the shots with the stock lens to the replacement lens. Hope that clears it up. Sorry for any confusion and thanks for the input. I went ahead and added an extra line before the video to try and make it clearer. Other than that, do you get what is happening? I made the second page "summary" for the people that just want the gist.
 
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No problem.
We appreciate what you are doing.
I just sent my camera in for repair due to it being out of focus.

I have already been considering switching out lenses, once my warranty is up.
However, I am not sure which one to go with.
I do agree with you about Peau lenses.
It would be great to see a comparison between the 8.25 and the 3.97.
I would thing that the wider view would be better, but not if the video comes out more crisp with the 8.25.
How much does it cost if I were to send my camera in to them and have them install the new lens?
 
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No problem.
We appreciate what you are doing.
I just sent my camera in for repair due to it being out of focus.

I have already been considering switching out lenses, once my warranty is up.
However, I am not sure which one to go with.
I do agree with you about Peau lenses.
It would be great to see a comparison between the 8.25 and the 3.97.
I would thing that the wider view would be better, but not if the video comes out more crisp with the 8.25.
How much does it cost if I were to send my camera in to them and have them install the new lens?

I have seen SOME lens from Yuneec that are actually better than others. I think that whoever is manufacturing their glass just is doing a inconsistent job. I am also not a optics pro so I can't really tell you what goes into every thing about it. I know their are elements that work like filters and their are layers of glass all which do different things but the lens is not an unimportant part of a camera so Yuneec sending out awesome sony micro sensors with a crappy lens is mind boggling and they have paid a price for it. If they just would have got the lens right, they would have had a much better roll out which had more steam than I have ever seen in a roll out with them winning CES and all but frankly, they dropped the ball on the lens and it has cost them but thankfully for DIY people, this is an easy fix.

If I wasn't busy with a child, work and other things, I would do it myself but I love that these guys know what they are doing and I can see from various research and with speaking with them directly that they are on top of it. I see big things for this company.

The wider view is not better or worse, it just is. It only becomes worse when you get into wide enough that you start to bend and get fish eye. The human eye sees at around 95 degree FOV but it feels much more than that because the brain fills things in as we move our heads around.

A narrower FOV gives you a closer visual and a deeper focus (meaning a longer DOF). Again, wait for the chart that I hopefully can use to explain things better. I will make the chart, but someone showed it to me a long time ago and it made perfect sense.

As for which lens you want, the 3.97mm or the 8.25mm, it depends what you want. The answer to the question of whether the 3.97 or the 8.25 having different clarity, that's not the thing. The difference, as far as I know, with them is just the characteristics of the lens. I will show you what I mean. I've been putting off putting together a little chart in Photoshop that will show you guys what the different variances in the lens affect the AOV and HFOV effect the overall FOV. I know that is confusing and until someone showed me visually what it is I'm saying, I had no idea either and I am a VFX artist professionally and work with DPs, DITs and am a semi-pro DP myself and sometimes have to step back and think about that stuff.

As for pricing, go to their website and have a look. I don't know if they stock in for the H right now or not but they will send you a lens, install it for you, or you can buy a camera ready to slip on fully installed. I know that from just looking around their site. Yuneec Typhoon H Cameras – Peau Productions *** EDIT: I just looked and they said they won't have stock until October for the H which explains why they told me it will be a couple weeks before they get to mine as the H units are on backorder.

It gets even more confusing when you are talking about micro stuff because you have to use effective/equivelent numbers instead of the real numbers to figure stuff out. All will be more understandable when I post the chart that I will make in a minute and I will use the characteristics of these two lenses to show what it is I mean,

Here is a video that compares the stock lens to the Peau lens.

FPV Guy have done a couple great videos with Peau Productions. One where they put the lens together which was actually fun to watch and they did this comparison of the 3.97 which most closely emulates the exact functionality of the Typhoon H stock lens but with less suck.

Make sure to switch to 4k. Now I'm going to go make that chart and I will post it tonight,


For comparative purposes, here again is the 8.25

 
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Sensor and lens are only part of the equation, Processor, compression algorithm and color science are also a major part of the equation and Yuneec dropped the ball big time on all of them
 
Let's discuss what the FOV for these two lens are and then you can use this info for any camera in the entire world.

First, let's say what FOV is. It is measure essentially by taking the two angles (your ANGLE OF VIEW) which is how you measure your FOV. So AOV is used to measure FOV. I know it makes your head spin but literally get a pen and a piece of paper and draw along with me. I will create this chart as I write this post so we can follow along. I'll do it digitally, whoever grab a pen or pencil and a blank sheet of paper.

Let's first just understand what we are talking about. Let's talk about the human eye which is about 95 degree FOV. If you are using the left and right side of your nose and pretend that your nose is the center point of your eyes and the left side of your nose is the far left side of the sensor and the right side of your nose is the right side of the sensor, imagine an infinite line that is angled at the same angle your nose is (assuming your not the Elephant Man) :) and where it crosses is your FOV. When you bring your finger to your nose that little area where that fake line crosses is your areas that won't be in great focus but the triangle it created after they cross should be in good focus (assuming good vision) for a long distance. We have deep depth of field in our eyes and a wide FOV. Now I know that all might sound confusing but we are gonna bust out the pencils now to make it less so.

Follow along.

Draw a thin line across the paper like this and at the bottom draw your sensor (the sensor you draw represents the Sony sensors in the cam and you can draw it at the actual size but I can't remember the size off hand but it's a micro. Before the advent of the action cam, most cams were 35mm on average and we would base everything off of that and figure out different views from 35mm being the barometer. With the micros we get an "equivalent 35mm" so its based on the size in ratio to 35 and the effective equivalent. So for each lens, there is a 35mm equivalent that we will use. So here is our Sony sensor and a straight line that represents the direction the camera is facing. Draw it:

First_Line_zpssmdi1jt7.jpg



So this represents your camera's sensors on the bottom and the line is just a reference point and will make more sense in a minute. That line should be dead center but it's late. :) Disregard the "don't recall the size" line. The sensor on H is 1/2.3" and using the 3.97mm lens from Peau it has a 35mm equivalent of 22.63mm (per their specs). The 8.25mm has a 35mm equivalent of 47mm. So lets mark those two spots. For reference, I'll add an actual 35mm mark but we won't draw out from there. Just make these marks on your line. (Bare in mind these spacial differences aren't exact. I am not breaking out the rulers. I know I am in Photoshop and that wouldn't be too hard to do but I am just trying to show you guys what is at play to figure out your FOV. To avoid extra confusion at this juncture, I won't get into the AOV and how it affects the FOV with the V*H*D (that made MY head spin) but know you should learn it if you want to get super rich on the knowledge. But for now, let's mark on our field of view the 35mm and the two lens that we are talking about with a 35mm equivalent at 22.63mm and 47mm.

The_Lens_Marks_zpsumrkr92x.jpg

To really visualize, I hope the 2 or 3 people that have an interest in this, lol, are following along. Trust me it helps to draw it out.

Now, you are probably starting to understand where this is going and therefore understanding how your effective FOV is created and it is simply by how the lens and sensors play off each other. The idea is to get the lens to hug both sides of the sensors as much as possible in order to take advantage of every mm of the sensors. I can tell from the videos I've seen that the two lens I have discussed in this thread are tighter on the sensors then the stock lens (at least compared to much of the video I've seen and my other H. For all I know the one I haven't flown yet has a totally different lens and it will look great. Who knows? Besides the point, let's get back to the FOV. Let's draw out the 35mm FOV and then we will finish up with the other two so you have an idea of what the differences are.

So here is what our FOV would be with an exact 35mm equivalent. Remember, the reason I keep saying equivalent is because we are using MICRO sensors and without getting into it, they are just that equivalents, not reality. If we weren't using equivalents, that 1/2.3" sensor would be 35mm (which is over an inch rather than a fraction of an inch).

35_FOV_zpsjppbdefp.jpg

As you can see, the shorter the focal length of the camera in mm, the WIDER the FOV. I will draw it out, please draw it with me, but you can look ahead and already imagine that that 22mm (3.97mm lens) lens will give a much wider FOV then the 44 (8.25mm). You have to know what the 35 equivalent is to figure it out. I would never have known if it didn't list the specs quite wonderfully on the site. Figuring that kind of stuff out requires geometry and trigonometry that I haven't even thought of in ages. Even typing those words makes me shiver.

Now, you have the idea, so I will just draw the other lines out:

Here is the FOV for an exact 35mm equivalent, and the 35mm equivalents of the 3.97mm lens and the 8.25mm lens with effective lengths of 22mm and 44mm respectively.

All_Lines_zpsirtydjcd.jpg


So now we can definitely see as I said that a shorter focal length (not to be confused with focal distance which is often done even though they are VERY different things, focal distance in laymen is basically the distance from the camera to the thing that you want camera focus on). When dealing with aerial photography, we almost never discuss focal distance. The focal length tells us the angle of view—how much of the scene will be captured—and the magnification—how large individual elements will be. The longer the focal length, the narrower the angle of view and the higher the magnification. This is why the 8.25mm lens has a 2x optical zoom factor over the 3.97mm. The shorter the focal length, the wider the angle of view and the lower the magnification as shown above.

A lot of people claim to know the relationships between all these things but discussing it is very complex but just laying it out like this gives you a visual with which at the very least to understand why a shorter focal length gives you a wider FOV and vice versa. Telling someone this vs. showing this is night and day IMO. If you already know this stuff then these pics might seem pointless but for the people that have been wanting to know what and why makes variances in FOV, I think this description is much cleaner to understand. In fact, even the words I'm using to describe the images is probably more confusing than just looking at the images and hopefully you drew them out with me. So there you have it. I hope it helps at least one person because as usual, something that I thought would take me 10 minutes took forever and I am completely off topic in my own thread but I felt the need to explain this and it also helps me if I'm being honest. One thing that I loved about being a professor of film was that I learned more there than I ever did in the field or in school.

Hope this helps someone with something.

Safe flying!
 
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Sensor and lens are only part of the equation, Processor, compression algorithm and color science are also a major part of the equation and Yuneec dropped the ball big time on all of them
EDIT: I just noticed a minor mistake. I wrote 44mm here but it is correct above that the equivalent 35mm for the 8.25 is 47mm not 44mm. Muh bad.

You are talking about image quality. Processor, compression algorithms and the other technobabble you are talking about has nothing to do with FOV. Also, "color science"? Really? Lol.

That said, I don't think that Yuneec dropped the ball on anything but the lens and that is evidenced by the fact that the images and videos with people that have replaced the crap lens with a good one are getting great imagery from a camera with a tiny Sony micro sensor (and this is good news). We are so spoiled now. Only 10 years ago, you would be stoked to get imagery like we get out of our tiny action cams in a full frame 35mm mirror cam. Take a look at the videos above with a different lens and explain how Yunnec dropped the ball big time on the other factors you mentioned because they are exactly the same but with a different lens. I don't care either way. I am not trying to win a war for Yuneec. I have several other UAS's and in fact was also not in love with my imagery from the H but I have seen the light so to speak that it's an optical issue and that's it. Have a look!

More stuff to follow.
 
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You are talking about image quality. Processor, compression algorithms and the other technobabble you are talking about has nothing to do with FOV.

That said, I don't think that Yuneec dropped the ball on anything but the lens and that is evidenced by the fact that the images and videos with people that have replaced the crap lens with a good one are getting great imagery from a camera with a tiny Sony micro sensor (and this is good news). We are so spoiled now. Only 10 years ago, you would be stoked to get imagery like we get out of our tiny action cams in a full frame 35mm mirror cam. Take a look at the videos above with a different lens and explain how Yunnec dropped the ball big time on the other factors you mentioned because they are exactly the same but with a different lens. I don't care either way. I am not trying to win a war for Yuneec. I have several other UAS's and in fact was also not in love with my imagery from the H but I have seen the light so to speak that it's an optical issue and that's it. Have a look!

More stuff to follow.


Looking at a worked still is totally differ t than looking at a video signal and yes hate to break it to you but yes they dropped the ball.
 
Looking at a worked still is totally differ t than looking at a video signal and yes hate to break it to you but yes they dropped the ball.
Huh? Sometimes it's best to just read.

Again, you don't need to hate to break it to me as I have no horse in the race. I don't care AT ALL if the H was a total bust or not (except for the fact that I currently own two of them) but I honestly and truly don't care.

But here, as I already posted is a video of the H with the stock camera with a new lens and it looks pretty friggen good to me for a $1000 camera that flies.


There is another video up there with FPV Guy doing a direct comparison with the 3.97 lens replacement and you can see that the focus is way better, and the image is crisper and the colors more vibrant with the new lens. You keep saying a general statement but if you want to rebut this, back it up. I am not in a pissing contest with you. I am all ears if you want to try and convince me that you are correct but do it with some actual facts rather than just a nothing statement. If you don't feel like doing that, that's fine too but I don't think it's fair to make comments because you are upset that you are not getting the imagery you want from your camera. Don't get me wrong, I think it's crappy that I/we have to look somewhere else to replace the lens but it's all that needs done.

If you think otherwise, explain why and if you say "because my images look bad", I refer you to the above thread.
 
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Again, you don't need to hate to break it to me as I have no horse in the race. I don't care AT ALL if the H was a total bust or not (except for the fact that I currently own two of them) but I honestly and truly don't care.

But here, as I already posted is a video of the H with the stock camera with a new lens and it looks pretty friggen good to me for a $1000 camera that flies.


There is another video up there with FPV Guy doing a direct comparison with the 3.97 lens replacement and you can see that the focus is way better, and the image is crisper and the colors more vibrant with the new lens. You keep saying a general statement but if you want to rebut this, back it up. I am not in a pissing contest with you. I am all ears if you want to try and convince me that you are correct but do it with some actual facts rather than just a nothing statement. If you don't feel like doing that, that's fine too but I don't think it's fair to make comments because you are upset that you are not getting the imagery you want from your camera. Don't get me wrong, I think it's crappy that I/we have to look somewhere else to replace the lens but it's all that needs done.

If you think otherwise, explain why and if you say "because my images look bad", I refer you to the above thread.


I already have explained how they dropped the ball

Just because they used a Sony imager doesn't automatically mean that camera is going to produce good imagery. The GoPro hero 4 uses a Sony imager and producers much better images with more options at the time of shooting including a MUCH superior raw mode that uses metadata to increase the dynamic range of the camera
 
I already have explained how they dropped the ball

Just because they used a Sony imager doesn't automatically mean that camera is going to produce good imagery. The GoPro hero 4 uses a Sony imager and producers much better images with more options at the time of shooting including a MUCH superior raw mode that uses metadata to increase the dynamic range of the camera
You didn't explain it. You stated a theory and then I referred you to the fact that it is apparently the lens because all of the videos and images that I have seen coming out in the last couple weeks with lens mods have seem to magically have fixed all of your issues.

I guess its actually up to me to show you. You can't prove a negative but I can prove (or not, we shall see) that when I upgrade my lens to a good one, my half decent video and stills from the H will no longer look half decent and be on par with other cameras in its class. I haven't changed the lens yet so I can't say with anecdotal authority that it's true but based on everything I've seen, it's just the lens.

You have not said a word to the contrary although you keep saying you are. Again, peace brother, I am really not trying to argue with you. I want to be right for you, not because of you. I would love it if a lens replacement is all this H has ever needed. I had almost gave up on it until discovering this supposed fact.

We shall see. That is why I am donating my new H that I could easily sell for $1100 or $1000 to see if it can be turned into a better looking unit by changing the lens. And again, I have yet to even snap a picture with the new one, maybe Yuneec has already caught wind and fixed the issue.

If they haven't, I guarantee that once they see that other people are making their product from mediocre to great, they will take notice.
 
The lens on a camera is very important, hence in the dslr market you will normally buy into a system and spend more on the lens than the camera body and believe me there is a startling difference between a standard lens and a pro spec one.

I also think the lens on the H is sub par effecting the sharpness, contrast and colour rendition. However I also think that Yuneec have a very poor software knowledge of cameras, seen in the AWB, Metering, and video bit rate implementation. This should in theory be able to be fixed, but I would not hold your breath on that unless they have a closer tie up with a camera specialist company.
 
The lens on a camera is very important, hence in the dslr market you will normally buy into a system and spend more on the lens than the camera body and believe me there is a startling difference between a standard lens and a pro spec one.

I also think the lens on the H is sub par effecting the sharpness, contrast and colour rendition. However I also think that Yuneec have a very poor software knowledge of cameras, seen in the AWB, Metering, and video bit rate implementation. This should in theory be able to be fixed, but I would not hold your breath on that unless they have a closer tie up with a camera specialist company.
I agree in all.
 
On a side note it would be lovely to have the Sony 1" sensor (rx100) in a prosumer drone camera.
 
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On a side note it would be lovely to have the Sony 1" sensor (rx100) in a prosumer drone camera.
Well why stop there. If you went .4 inches more you would have a full frame 35mm Sony sensor in there.

Go google how much full frame cameras are on the ground but I am with you and it won't be long.

If we are staying in the world of Yuneec, you can get the Tornado which has a modified micro GH4 which is like 3/4 or something below full frame.

If you want full frame right now, you need to get a pro UAS equipped with something like a Ronin and put your camera on there but **** yeah, I agree with you, I would love a 1" sensor or bigger but things are trending down in size and the technology is keeping up with the trend. Pretty soon, especially with all the R&D happening in the world of avionics and aerial photography. Everyone is a photographer now so it's hard to not get judged but there are some pretty tight images around that people scoff at nowadays.

I mean even in this thread, 5 years ago, if I told you that those images were taken in a flying machine, everyone here would blow their lids yet nobody even seems that excited that their H is capable of taking those images. They are great by any standard.

But yeah, it would be great to get a larger sensor in there! The Sony Cyber Shots have always been great little cameras. The rx100 is a nice little cam.
 
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