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Shutter Priority Mode on the Matrice 300/350 RTK Drone

The Matrice 300 and 350 RTK drones do an excellent job producing high-quality images, and we’ll share with you our best practices for capturing photogrammetry data. This drone has a mechanical shutter, which acts like a light-blocking curtain in front of the camera sensor. We can control the speed at which this shutter opens and closes by setting the exposure mode to Shutter Priority. 

Setting up Shutter Priority

  1. Turn on the remote controller (RC) and aircraft.
  2. Plan an automated mission by drawing your flight boundary. 
  3. Press the camera settings button along the right side of the screen.
  4. Tap the letter “S” at the top to enable Shutter Priority. 
  5. Adjust the shutter speed at the bottom to change the time to capture an individual image. We recommend you choose a shutter speed of 1/1000 (of a second) when flying in sunny conditions and then slow down the shutter speed to 1/800 (of a second) when it’s cloudy during data collection.

Example Images

Note: All images are captured at a flight speed of 10 meters per second.

1/100 Shutter Speed

Shutter Priority 1:100.png

1/500 Shutter Speed

Shutter Priority 1:500.png

1/1000 Shutter Speed

Shutter Priority 1:1000.png

More Information

Taking an image as fast as possible is not always the best solution. When we use shutter priority mode, we are locking one of the three options available to control the image's exposure. The other two key components of image exposure are aperture and ISO. When using shutter priority, we manually define the shutter speed and then let the drone decide the best aperture and ISO.

If you choose the wrong shutter speed based on the day's lighting conditions, then you’ll notice the ISO value will increase considerably, which means more distortion in an image. Although Propeller can still process higher ISO images if necessary, we find the best results with images taken under ISO 400, preferably at the native ISO 100. 

During winter or when flying in a cloudy environment, you must reduce your flight and shutter speeds to maintain crisp images.

I still can't do it!

We wrote these articles to equip you with everything you need to get the job done on your own, but we understand that sometimes this isn't sufficient.

If you're stuck, the Propeller hardware support team may be able to help. You can contact them by emailing hardwaresupport@propelleraero.com.au.

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