Autel Evo 2 Gimbal Pan & Improve Zoom

[Ckeil]

Why hasn't Autel released an update to Pan the Camera? We know it can be done, because it does at startup.

Why can't they improve the zoom qaulity? These are the things that make me miss my DJI drone.

I love my E2P, it has an awesome image qaulity, but sometimes I just want to look around while flying, or checking out the stability by looking at either motor.

 

[herein2021]

Why hasn't Autel released an update to Pan the Camera? We know it can be done, because it does at startup.

Why can't they improve the zoom qaulity? These are the things that make me miss my DJI drone.

I love my E2P, it has an awesome image qaulity, but sometimes I just want to look around while flying, or checking out the stability by looking at either motor.

The only mainstream prosumer drone that can pan is the Inspire series of drones and panning is a really bad idea unless the drone has a dedicated POV camera. The Inspire series is designed to have two operators which is why they support panning; one to fly the drone and one to operate the camera; if they provided a means to pan the camera on the EVO II you would have no way of seeing where the actual drone is going and it would get confusing fast leading to more crashes.

If you want to look around while flying simply turn the drone in whatever direction you want to look; that's one of the great things about drones, you can point them in nearly any direction while flying in any direction.

According to the Autel documentation, the EVO II 6K has up to 4x lossless zoom anything beyond that is going to degrade fast. Personally I think none of the zoom levels are actually lossless and I have yet to see any drone without optical zoom that is truly lossless. I have never used the zoom feature due to this and simply fly closer when I want to "zoom in".

 

[Ckeil]

Mavic Air 2 you can pan the camera left or right, & down. The zoom qaulity is much better. That's the only problem I have with the E2P.

 

[Saladshooter]

Mavic Air 2 you can pan the camera left or right, & down. The zoom qaulity is much better. That's the only problem I have with the E2P.

Yes you can pan the camera on the Air 2 by holding your finger on the screen and moving it around. Its difficult to use this in a way that enhances your video because of the lack of precision in using the touchscreen but it can be done and adds some possibilities to your shooting. I have noticed that my Air 2S actually flies partially forward while panning the camera when doing an automated circle using the Quickshot feature. I presume the software does this to make use of forward optical avoidance because of the lack of side sensors.

EVO 2 on the other hand has superior obstacle detection because of all the extra sensors so it can fly sideways with less danger. With practice you can fly sideways while keeping the subject centered. This allows a nice arc and an interesting view. Additionally the radar feature of the EVO 2 is great, showing distance to objects even when the obstacle avoidance is off. This is a feature I wish DJI would add.

You are right about the zoom, EVO 2 seems to use a very basic digital crop, while the zoomed images on the Air/Air 2S are actually enhanced and much clearer than just cropping from the full frame.

What I do like about EVO 2 is that it can take photos using zoom which allows you to frame a subject better. Using the JPEG + RAW mode, both the cropped image (JPEG) and the full frame image (RAW) are preserved. In post you can use the full frame RAW shot to crop down to a photo similar to the initial JPEG but with more time and freedom to make an even better image.

There are strengths and weaknesses to in both the DJI and Autel systems. In a perfect world the best features of both would be available. I am encouraged with Autel's recent additions to their software and hope they keep listening to our feature requests plus keep working the bugs out.

 

[herein2021]

Mavic Air 2 you can pan the camera left or right, & down. The zoom qaulity is much better. That's the only problem I have with the E2P.

The Mavic Air 2 is not a prosumer grade drone, it is squarely in the consumer grade category and features like panning are meant to appeal to that category of customer.

As @Saladshooter said, features like those are not going to produce the best video footage and the EVO II 6K has a single primary focus which is to provide a platform and camera that together produces the best footage possible at that price point.

According to the spec sheet, the Mavic Air 2 has a 48MP sensor compared to the 6K which is 20MP so zooming would be better with the Mavic Air 2. You did not mention which EVO camera you have, if you have the 8K then the resolution is the same and maybe there is indeed something DJI is doing to improve the zooming quality. I don't own the Mavic Air so I can't compare but I have never been impressed with the zoom quality of the EVO II 6K.

 

[Cicero24]

Panning is another tool in the toolbox and the more expensive EVO II is missing the feature. If you utilize panning with practice, you can get better/smoother shots than utilizing the automated methods.

 

[Ckeil]

Would be nice to have these features in a future update, but I still love my E2P. On a different note, after our last update has anyone notice the EXP sensitivity the percentage numbers you just entered disappear after you reopen it? So you will never see the current EXP percentages.