Imagery Quality is bad all of a sudden

[dlee456]

Hope this is the right location for this issue. My work does aerial mapping and on our LiDAR sensor, we have a Sony A7R2 with a 21mm lens. In the past, on a mostly sunny day to full sunny day, we'd set the f-stop to 5.6, have a floating ISO of 100 to 800 with a shutter speed of 1/3200. As conditions darkened, we'd increase the ISO setting to 100 to 1250 and lower the shutter speed to 1/2000. Using those settings, the office never had an issue. Lately, we've been dealing with the images that it takes being dark and out of focus. At times, we think we are moving in the right direction, but then the next day, the images aren't good. We are flying the unit at around 110 meters or roughly 363 feet, give or take a little. We've replaced the lens, changed f-stop to 8.0, played around with the ISO by hard locking it into a particular number such as 640, yet, the images are still blurry. We then tried replacing the connection port on the aircraft we fly thinking maybe the vibrations were causing it. We still cannot figure out what is causing this. And this issue is present on 2 different units.  

Due to the fact that the image quality has decreased dramatically from what it used to be mixed with the fact that it's on 2 different cameras, I'm wondering if someone more knowledgeable might have some insight on what we can do to fix the quality of the images. I'm just a grunt who works out in the field, so my knowledge on cameras are quite limited.  

[Olaf W.]

You should take some test photos om the ground to rule out a defect of the cameras. Maybe the shutters are not working correctly anymore due to extensive use under these special conditions with a lot of vibration.

[Cameratose]

If the issue is present on two different cameras and no one changed any settings, and both showed the same problem at the same time, then it's clearly not the cameras. Process of elimination suggests that the problem is something external to the cameras, in the system that bot cameras share, like cabling or software. 

[XKAES]

I agree with what's been said.  The one thing I would check -- and this may not pertain to your cameras -- is the STEADY SHOT setting.  IF you cameras have STEADY SHOT or other built-in stabilization (in the camera or the lens or both) check your user manual.  These stabilization features work, but they have to be set correctly.  The manuals for the camera AND the lenses will tell you how to do this.

For example, my cameras have a switch for STEADY SHOT -- ON or OFF.  When using a tripod, the STEADY SHOT should be set to OFF.

Just something to check.

And one thing to try is to figure out if the blurring is due to a slow shutter speed or the lens not focusing correctly.  Either is possible.  One is the cameras messing up (try using the S-exposure mode and setting a fast shutter speed).  The other is the lens not focusing correctly (try using the A-exposure mode and setting the lens wide open).

Edited September 24, 2024 by XKAES