Let us capture. Let us record. Let Us Drone. Chances are, you bought that DJI drone for more than just its incredible in-flight performance. I'd venture to say that a lot of us drone pilots find the onboard cameras to be our favorite part of the flying experience. 

Now that you've learned how to set up the DJI GO 4 app in part one and have gone through the drone settings in part two, you're ready to tackle the drone's camera settings in the third and final part of this DJI GO 4 walkthrough guide. 

Although the cameras on DJI drones are very capable right out of the box, certain camera setting adjustments will have your friends thinking that your drone footage was taken by a professional. Let's take a look at how to get the camera settings in DJI GO 4 just right. 

Parts 1, 2, and 3

Part 1: In part one, we talked about how to get the app initially setup, along with a description of Skypixel, the equipment tab, “Me” tab, and the editor. You can read part 1 here.  

Part 2: Part two takes a looked at all of the drones settings and every icon on the camera view screen. You can read part 2 here. 

Part 3: You are currently reading part three of three in this DJI GO 4 walkthrough series. Part three dives into the camera settings and how to get that perfect picture or video. 

Note: I will be using a Phantom 4 Advanced for this walkthrough. Some DJI drones have settings and options that others do not. Keep that in mind when following along as your GO 4 app may look slightly different here and there. 

General camera settings

When you tap on the camera settings, at the top is the shutter icon, camera icon, and the settings cog. We'll start with the cog, as it's the general camera settings. 

Histogram- The histogram is a graph that helps you get the best exposure for your photos. In short, attempt to keep the peaks in the center of the histogram. Here is an article that describes what histograms are and how to read them. 

Head LED's Auto Turn Off- If you have this enabled when you take a picture, the front LED's will momentarily turn off to keep unwanted light out of the frame. The LED's will remain off for the duration of a video recording. I usually leave this enabled. 

Lock Gimbal When Capture- If you are using the wheel to tilt the gimbal up or down and you snap a picture, the gimbal will stop a split second before the picture is taken to avoid any image blurring. I find this to be very helpful and I leave it enabled at all times. 

Enable AFC Mode- If you choose to enable auto-focus mode, the camera will do it's best to adjust to movement changes and keep the current frame in focus. I generally leave this on. 

Overexposed- When enabled, the parts of the image that are overexposed will be shaded with black and white coloring. I can generally tell when something is overexposed without this shading, and I find it to be a bit annoying to be honest. Here's an example of what it looks like. 

Mechanical Shutter- This applies to taking pictures. When capturing an image of a quick moving object, enabling the mechanical shutter will limit the “rolling shutter” effect that renders pictures blurry and out of focus. 

Video Caption- If you toggle this on and off, you won't see any visual changes in the camera view. Having this on will record your current camera settings while you're shooting a video so you can reference this information at a later time. VLC is a free media player that will display these settings. Although you see this enabled in the picture, I generally leave this off. 

AF Focus Assistant- Having this enabled will zoom into the area of your green focus box. This just allows you to see exactly what you are focusing on. I should note that if you take a picture when you're zoomed in, the camera will capture the entire frame, not just the zoomed in spot you see at the moment. 

MF Focus Assistant- This does the same thing as the above AF focus assistant, but works when you are using manual focus instead of auto-focus. Tap on the green focus box to get a zoomed in view of the area your camera has in focus. 

Grid- You can choose between a few different grid styles that assist you in aligning different objects in the frame. I usually leave this off if I'm just taking the occasional picture or video while out flying. 

Center Points- You can select from a few center point options to let you know where exactly the center of the frame is. I occasionally enable this. 

Anti-Flicker- Ever take a picture of a television and notice all those funny colors? By having the correct frequency settings, you can avoid the flickering colors. Here in the United States, the correct frequency is 60Hz. 

File Index Mode- You can have this set to “reset” or “continuous”. Having it set to reset will start the file numbering from 001 for pics/vids each time data is transferred. Having it set to continuous will simply continue numbering the files in ascending order. The advantage of continuous mode is that there is less of a chance that you'll accidentally delete a file on your computer because it had the same number as another file that you meant to delete. 

Peaking Threshold- Having this on will place red static lines around objects in the current frame that are in focus. You can choose between none, normal, low, and high depending on how sensitive you want this feature to be. Some find it annoying but it definitely comes in handy as it provides a very clear visual guide for what's in focus. Refer to the image below for what it looks like. 

Camera Settings- You can create up to four different custom camera settings setups. This comes in handy if you are planning a shoot and you know what the lighting will be like in that area. To save time at the actual shoot you can pull up the custom settings that you set at a previous time. 

Format SD Card- Formatting the SD card will essentially delete all of its contents. Check out the article I wrote here about when and how you should format the drones SD card. 

Reset Camera Settings- If you have gone and totally screwed up the camera settings and you can't figure out how to make pictures and videos look good, you can reset the camera settings here. 

Picture Settings

This section is all about the bass stills. Let's take a look at each of the camera settings we have to adjust to get that perfect shot. 

Photo- You can select between single shot, multiple (burst), AEB and timed shot. In case you're wondering, AEB stands for auto exposure bracketing. You can take multiple photos of the same scene with different exposure values. This is helpful if you aren't sure what EV to use for a shot. Here is an article DJI wrote about the photo modes. 

Image Size- As you can see in the image below, we have the option of choosing between 4:3, 16:9, and 3:2 for the aspect ratio. This is a great article that discusses aspect ratio and why it's important. 

Image Format- We can select from RAW, JPEG, and JPEG+RAW for the image format. JPEG images are compressed which means that we lose some detail, making the pictures often look unnatural in post-production when editing. RAW photos are not compressed which means you don't lose any detail, but they are massively larger than JPEG stills.

For example, a JPEG picture that I just took was 6 MB. The exact same picture in RAW format was 32 MB. If you are taking pictures as a hobbyist, I'd recommend sticking to JPEG's. If you do photography for work or want to get into editing, try experimenting with the occasional RAW image. 

White Balance- The white balance is the color balance of the photo. If it's sunny or cloudy out, you can select the corresponding setting. You can also leave this on auto and let the drone set the white balance as it sees fit, which is what I generally do. Try toggling the different options and see how it affects the image coloring. 

Style- Here you will see three columns. The first is the sharpness (how defined lines are in an image), the second is the contrast (makes the black darker and the white brighter), and the third is the saturation (determines how saturated the colors are in the image). Each value can be adjusted from -3 to +3. 

Whether or not you want to adjust these settings depends on if you intend to edit the image in post-production. If so, then leave this on “standard” and worry about the style when editing. If you want to take pictures that you don't plan to edit later, then I'd suggest adjusting these style settings while out flying. You can choose between the pre-set landscape and soft modes, or you can customize your own. 

Color- If you want to get fancy with the colors, then this is the spot you can do so to experiment. I don't often switch from “normal”, but the occasional black & white photo is fun to take. 

Video Settings

Ah, 4K video, now that's why we spent our hard earned paycheck on a drone! Let's get those video settings adjusted just right for ya. 

Video Size- Here is where we can select the quality of the video. This menu will look different for you if you have something other than a P4 Pro/Advanced, but my options here range from 720p to 4K. 

Now, you may also be wondering what fps is. Well, it stands for “frames per second”, and it determines the frequency at which images display on the screen per second. Basically, the higher the frame rate, the higher quality the video will be. Higher frame rates are good for slo-mo videos. Here's a more in-depth explanation of what fps is. 

Video Format- This is a matter of what kind of software you use to play your videos. I have this set on MOV because I'm an Apple guy and MOV videos are designed to run seamlessly on Apple's Quicktime. MP4 is arguably more versatile as more players support MP4. 

NTSC/PAL- These are types of color encoding systems. Typically, NTSC is used more here in the United States, and PAL is used in places like the UK and Sweden.

White Balance- The white balance settings for photo and video are set in the same manner. Refer to the photo section above for a description of the white balance. 

Style- The style settings are set the same way as they are for photos. Refer to the photos section above for a description of how the style settings work.

Color- As with the white balance and style, you have the same options for video color as you do for the color of photos. Refer to the photo section above for more info on the color settings. 

Camera Video Coding- You have the option to choose between H.264 and H.265 for video coding. The old standard (H.264) is starting to be replaced by the newer and better H.265. You receive better video compression with H.265 which means that you could record a video of the same quality as H.264, but have a lot of a smaller file size. 

So why do I (as well as many other drone users) have mine set on the older H.264? Well, there are a lot of video players that do not recognize H.265 yet. I'd suggest that you conduct a test where you record one video in H.264 and one in H.265 and see how the playback is on your computer. 

ISO, aperture, and shutter settings

If you are completely new to photography, then the words “ISO, aperture, and shutter” probably sound like a foreign language to you. That's ok, they aren't initially intuitive and they take some experimenting to get used to…just try to not get overwhelmed!

I'll do my best to make the following settings and terminology as easy to understand as possible. This is a basic overview and description of each value along with my recommendation on what settings you should shoot for. 

As seen below, we have the option to choose “Auto”, “A”, “S”, and “M”.

Auto- The ISO, aperture, and shutter values are set for you. 

A- This stands for aperture priority. The shutter speed will be set for you and you can manually adjust the aperture values. 

S- Stands for shutter priority. The shutter is now adjustable and the aperture will be set for you. 

M- Manual mode. You set the ISO, aperture, and shutter. 

When you first get your drone, you'll likely opt for leaving these settings in auto mode as you're learning the basics of flying. When you get more serious about the photography/videography part of flying, I'd recommend manually setting the ISO, aperture, and shutter values as the resulting quality will be substantially higher. 

Let's look at how to manually set the ISO, aperture, and shutter, and what these values mean. First, you'll need to select “M” on the far right. 

As we go through these settings, we're going to try to keep the exposure value (EV) as close to zero as possible. Having the histogram on while adjusting these settings will help you see if the image is overexposed or underexposed. 

ISO- International Standards Organisation. Increasing the ISO increases the sensitivity of the camera sensor to light. In other words, in a dimly lit environment the higher the ISO will need to be.

With that being said, the best possible situation would be to have an ISO value of 100, although that's not always possible. You will notice more noise (that grainy look) with a higher ISO value, so try not to go any higher than 400. 

Aperture- This is a hole in the lens through which light passes through to the camera. The larger the hole, the more light that can pass through the lens. When setting the aperture, remember that you should aim to keep the exposure value (EV) as close to 0 as possible. I should note that some DJI drones do not give you the option of adjusting the aperture.

Shutter- The numbers for the shutter speed indicate how much time the shutter is open for per second. So 1000 means that the shutter is open for 1/1000 of a second. The lower the light the more time the shutter will need to be open. 

To set the shutter speed correctly for still picture, I'd recommend seeing what the drone sets it to while in auto mode, then adjusting it up and down from there when back in manual mode. 

While recording video, it is advised by a lot of people that as a general rule of thumb you should double the fps rate that you are recording at and set that number as your shutter speed. For example, if I'm shooting 4K video at 60fps, I would set the shutter speed to 120. 

Keep in mind that moving objects will have more blur to them with a lower shutter speed value because the shutter is open for a longer period of time. This is often actually a good thing because the video will look more cinematic. Most of what you watch on television and in movies have some blur to whether you realize it or not. Ever wonder why soap operas look different? They are shot in 60fps, whereas movies are often shot in 24fps.

As you can see in the image above, your current ISO, shutter, and aperture values along with the video resolution and fps are displayed on the main camera view screen. 

It's a sunny day so I'm able to set the ISO to 100, the shutter is at 1/120 (double the fps), and I have the aperture set so the EV is as close to 0 as possible. 

Don't be too hard on yourself if you can't quite get the settings perfect. I'd suggest that you practice adjusting these settings while the drone is on the ground. It takes some time to get everything dialed in when you're learning and doing so while in the air will take quite a bit of your battery. 

Lastly, I want to talk about neutral density (ND) filters. These filters are kind of like sunglasses, as their job is to limit the light that penetrates the lens. On bright days it may be impossible to not get an overexposed picture, regardless of how much tinkering you do with the camera settings. ND filters are an affordable accessory that I strongly recommend having. Check out the ones I use here. 

Trevor's Take

You've made it! If you started this journey with me from the beginning, you learned how to set up the GO 4 app in part one, learned about the drone settings in part two, and now about the camera settings here in part three. DJI GO 4 has a lot of features and it takes some time to get used to, so hopefully, this guide will assist you in getting acquainted with the app. Thank you for reading and being a part of this Let Us Drone community, it truly means a lot to me! Comment with any of your own GO 4 tips or recommendations below. 

Click here for Part 1 of the DJI GO 4 Guide. 

Click here for Part 2 of the DJI GO 4 Guide.