AT 209 Lab 3: Photography

Introduction

Lab 3 consisted of using manual settings to capture images of various objects. The purpose of the images were to teach us about adjusting the settings in different amounts of lighting. When adjusting the images to make the image high quality, we had to consider the quality and make sure it is not grainy, out of focus or over/underexposed. During the lab, we were instructed to take a picture of a large object, bike rack outside of the Niswonger building, small object in low light and object of choice.

Methods

To capture the images, a DJI Mavic 2 was used. Manual settings were used when adjusting the various camera settings. As stated above, four different images were to be taken. The images were to be of a larger object in the hanger, a bike rack outside of Niswonger, small object in low light and object of choice anywhere in the building.

Once we set up the Mavic 2 to the controller and iPad, we set out to acquire the images. The group had the settings switched to manual, and we were then given the option to "play" around with the settings. When taking each photograph, we adjusted it according to what we thought looked best. Again, the interface of the DJI Go 4 app can be seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1: The figure shows the interface of the iPad for the DJI Go 4 app.

Discussion

For each environment that photographs were taken, the settings had to vary a significant amount since the lighting was different for each one. Figure 2 is showing the photograph taken for a larger object.

Figure 2: The photo above had an ISO of 1600, Aperture of f/5 and Shutter Speed of 1/160.

As it may not be obvious, but my classmate, Alec Appel (Pictured next to the propeller), was captured mid wave. The reason for the high shutter speed was to create less motion blur, which in turn makes the hand completely visible and obvious. Figure 3 below pictures a bike rack right outside of the Niswonger building.

Figure 3: The image has an ISO of 100, Aperture of 4.5 and Shutter Speed of 1/2000.

Going from medium light to a significant amount required lots of adjustments. The ISO was lowered by a large margin and the shutter speed was increased by a large margin as well. Since it was already very bright outside, the ISO was lowered to compensate how bright it was. The shutter speed was then changed to a faster rate to ensure if there were instances of objects coming into the shot, there would not be any motion blur. Figure 4 will now show a smaller object in lower light.

Figure 4: The image has an ISO of 12800, Aperture of f/11 and Shutter Speed of 1/100. 

 A higher ISO was used to increase the amount of light allowed into the camera sensor, to make the image lighter. The slightly higher aperture was used to compensate the high ISO so that the image was not too bright. The shutter speed was reduced to a slower speed since the object was not in motion Figure 5 will now the object that was chosen, which is a model of a Honeywell TPE-331-3 turboprop.

Figure 5: The photograph has an ISO of 6400, Aperture of f/4 and Shutter Speed of 1/500.

The lighting in this setting was honestly similar to the darker image above. The aperture was lowered a little since it was figured out afterwards that the higher value made some of the images "fuzzy." The ISO was halved to make the image look as realistic to what was being perceived by the human eye. 

Conclusion

For Lab 3, we took what we learned from lectures and previously learned from Lab 2 and applied it to this new lab. We were given more freedom on what kind of settings were used, so that for ourselves we could figure out what made the image appear more realistic. Within terms of Civilian UAS, it can be applied to ensure that the correct settings are used for the type of application, or it will creates images that cannot be processed. Lab 3 allowed us to be aware of these applications and how it effects data processing.