Ed Catlett Photographic Arts

Challenges, Mavic 3 Telephoto Camera

Mavic 3, 7x telephoto bucolic sunset

Overcoming challenges with technique

I messed this shot up. I wasn’t paying attention to the ISO for some reason so my shots were at 800 ISO. VERY noise as you can see in this before and after snip.

before and after

The good news was that one of my regular practices for shots with the Mavic 3, when using the 7x telephoto, is to take a 7 shot burst. Now you may be asking yourself why would that matter.

There are cameras with a feature called pixel shift technology that allows them to take multiple shots with the framing very slightly shifted. The short, non technical story of this is that it allows them to stack those photos to produce a final shot with larger pixel dimensions. This stacking technique is often used without the pixel shift in astrophotography to reduce noise.

Since the Mavic 3 telephoto lens is only 12mp and I like to print large I have made it my regular practice to take bursts when possible so I can produce larger images. Less noise is a great extra benefit. Note that if subject movement can essentially render this technique useless good with still objects, not so with animals, etc.) This is not the perfect example because there was some movement in the branches, leaves and fog but it will give you an idea that it is awesome with things like structures.

The technique using Photoshop (I am pretty sure this will work in any pixel editor that supports layers). The editing technique is detailed and you need to perform all of the steps. Any skipped steps and it won’t work.

Capture:

  • Frame your shot in 7x and VERY IMPORTANTLY, SHOOT IN RAW WITH 7 SHOT BURST MODE!!!
  • Set your settings to optimal, i.e. lowest ISO you can get away with that won’t cause motion blur, raw capture, etc.
  • Take one or more bursts without changing pitch, yaw or position (the drone, while steady typically is not perfectly steady)

 

Transfer to computer:

  • Transfer the files to your computer however you normally do that.
  • Open the folder in Photoshop.
  • Select the stack. (In my experience having more than 7 to stack doesn’t make enough difference to really matter and 6 is likely fine)
  • Open all of them in Camera Raw
  • Make the raw adjustments that suit you and the image set
  • Make sure all images have exactly the same raw adjustments. I advise that you do not apply any sharpening, noise reduction or clarity at this point. Save those for after everything is stacked.
  • Click Done !!! Do not click open. It is easier to open and stack automatically from Bridge.

 

From Bridge:

  • Keep those same images selected.
  • Select Tools from the menu.
  • Select Photoshop
    Select Load files in Photoshop layers…
  • Wait patiently for Photoshop to stack them.

 

From the Photoshop Menu:

  • Image, Image Size.
  • Select “Resample”
  • Select “Nearest Neighbor (hard edges)
  • Set Width to 200 percent
  • Set Height to 200 percent
  • Click OK
  • Edit, Auto-align Layers
  • Select Auto as the method
  • Click OK
  • Open the Layers pallette (there will be 7 layers visible if you got this far correctly)
  • Select the layer 2nd from the bottom and set the opacity to 50%
  • Select the layer 3rd from the bottom and set the opacity to 33%
  • Select the layer 4th from the bottom and set the opacity to 25%
  • Select the layer 5th from the bottom and set the opacity to 20%
  • Select the layer 6th from the bottom and set the opacity to 17%
  • Select the top layer and set the opacity to 14%

 

At this point you should see a vastly improved image with far less noise and far better detail. There are a lot of options from here. I like to save this version of the file but it is quite large with all the layers. Whatever course you take for further editing you need to make sure that you either flatten the document so you are working on the layer that is combined at 100% opacity or you could copy merged and paste in the combined layer, using it at 100% opacity.

I pretty much always apply more noise reduction at this point if it needs it and at some point apply sharpening but in all cases you can edit the combined layer however you would normally edit.

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