Lumix CM1 camera, a step up in quality for surveys?

This camera may be able to improve the quality of shots taken from drones for those jobs where you need the ultimate in precision and texture quality ( I think? ). This is, according to the manufacturer, a camera with smartphone capabilities. It has a Leica Lens, 1" sensor and takes 20MP photos and will go for $1,000 in the US. It weighs 206g, so slightly more than a Canon. I think the benefit is that it doesn't have a zoom lens anymore, so it should be easier to keep the focus.

What remains is to figure out how well the battery lasts and how quickly it can snap pictures and maintain the correct exposure when you fly over land with different reflectivity. This thing having android, I see great opportunities to make it simpler to snap pics, using even for example the 3G connection so you can control it from the ground station. Of course, GPS should be included already.

If you're at CES, give us some feedback on your experiences with the phone when it comes to snapping speeds and exposure compensation :)

The gopro has extreme distortion so isn't the best choice, because you run a higher risk of the reconstruction not being able to correlate the photos together, so your pipeline could fail. There are people who used them and got very decent results. They used gimbals like the tarot2d to also take photos at 45 deg, which gives you much better defined walls of buildings. So it depends what you want to survey/reconstruct.

A cheaper option may be to buy a 2nd hand older Canon cam like the sx230hs or an s100 from ebay/amazon for $50 or so. These give reasonable results for larger area surveys.

Indeed, I just slapped the cam under the battery of my hexa and this works ok. You can upgrade to some gimbal system later, but those type of gimbals are more rare. I think you'd only really need pitch then, as roll is usually quite constrained. You may have a 10-15 deg forward angle though to be able to move the hexa through the air and that pitch gimbal would compensate for that angle so you get perfect 90deg nadir shots.

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Bill Bonney January 6, 2015 at 8:35pm

Sarcasm aside you get a better picture from a Lumia 1020, lighter and cheaper http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Lumia_1020 it also has a Carl Zeiss lens!
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Bill Bonney January 6, 2015 at 8:32pm

At $999 I'm sure it makes Lamb Shank on mash taste much better http://www.cnet.com/products/panasonic-lumix-cm1/
Gerard Toonstra January 6, 2015 at 5:13pm

The gopro has extreme distortion so isn't the best choice, because you run a higher risk of the reconstruction not being able to correlate the photos together, so your pipeline could fail. There are people who used them and got very decent results. They used gimbals like the tarot2d to also take photos at 45 deg, which gives you much better defined walls of buildings. So it depends what you want to survey/reconstruct.

A cheaper option may be to buy a 2nd hand older Canon cam like the sx230hs or an s100 from ebay/amazon for $50 or so. These give reasonable results for larger area surveys.

Indeed, I just slapped the cam under the battery of my hexa and this works ok. You can upgrade to some gimbal system later, but those type of gimbals are more rare. I think you'd only really need pitch then, as roll is usually quite constrained. You may have a 10-15 deg forward angle though to be able to move the hexa through the air and that pitch gimbal would compensate for that angle so you get perfect 90deg nadir shots.
eduardo January 6, 2015 at 5:00pm

you are right Andrew ...

i even forgot that this forum have hobbyist and amateur people too.
DG January 6, 2015 at 4:58pm

I'm to the point of taping my old smart phone on the bottom of the copter because I don't know where to start looking for a gimbal or camera without taking out a second mortgage (tic). The GoPro just seems not that great IMO for the money.

So what gimbal should one get? Tarot? Beholder? Zenmuse is $$$, and IIRC doesn't work with Pixhawk?

This is one area I have no idea where to start.
Andrew Rabbitt January 6, 2015 at 4:25pm

Good for you eduardo. Where were we talking about "professional grade works" here?

The NEX's et al, lovely pieces of camera though they be, are twice the weight before you even add a lens and more than twice the price in the end. That's fine if you're not planning on crashing any time soon...

BTW, the "No offence..." together with your "toy camera" comment comes across like you're a pompous and pretensious arse.
Gerard Toonstra January 6, 2015 at 3:47pm

Here's an reportedly unedited photo of the CM1: http://cnet4.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2015/01/05/f0e5e3d2-0219-47ad-a...

It doesn't look too bad. On such pictures you'd expect chromatic aberrations around the branches if the glass wasn't good. Distortion is always hard to measure, but I also look at definition of the photos in the corners, because usually focus really degrades there. The aperture of the lens (2.8-11) seems to impact the focus around the photo by quite a lot, so you get regions with good focus depending on the distance to the lens. Comparing that to Canon P&S pics however, I say the definition of the picture looks a bit better.

This could've been a drone shot: http://cnet1.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2015/01/05/da1d3040-252b-453c-9...

Site where I linked the pics from:

http://www.cnet.com/products/panasonic-lumix-cm1/
eduardo January 6, 2015 at 3:46pm

QX100 is a toy camera. I never use any camera like this to professional grade works.

No offence ...
eduardo January 6, 2015 at 3:45pm

my purpose is reduce width to use this cameras with gimbal on my fluwings.

Another mod is to use external battery.

i will order one sony a600o to test.

i can send some pictures but i not send the picture of finished cameras because tons of people from Brasil are copying my ideas.
Walter Volkmann January 6, 2015 at 3:28pm

Hi eduardo, My favorite survey cameras also are the Samsung NX1000 and the Sony a6000. I am curious about the body modifications you make to your NX and NEX bodies. What is the purpose of the mods?

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