Best Peau lens for mapping?

[Damien]

Hi solo mapping people,

Straight to the question: has anyone done mapping with both the 10mp 5.4mm lens and the 16mp 3.97mm lens? If so, is the focal length benefit of the 5.4 close to cancelled out by the lower sharpness compared to the 3.97?

I have a ragecams 5.4mm GPH4B and need a backup for redundancy on professional mapping jobs.

I have two stock GPH4B that i'm about to send to Peau Productions to have the lenses changed out. My original plan was to get a second 5.4mm for mapping and one 3.37mm for filming, but now i'm thinking I might just get two 3.97mm (or even two 3.37mm) and start mapping in those formats if I'm not really gaining a significant amount with the 5.4mm @ only 10 mp, because I can't use the 5.4mm lenses for 4K video due to the reduced sharpness and amplified vibrations.

Any suggestions on what to do from people with mapping experience would be greatly appreciated.
Damien

 

[Maxheadspace]

I tried a 10mp lens and I had some distortion around the edges. It may just have been that lens (a cheap one), but after that I only used 16mp lenses. Also, one side effect of going with a longer focal length, like 5.4mm, is that it shows vibrations much more in the video. But Solo is pretty stable, and since you already have a 5.4mm Ragecam lens, you already know how it acts. I found for me right about 3.97 to be the sweet spot. Eliminates fisheye warping, but still wide-angle enough to minimize vibration in the video. With the Hero 4 (and 5), GoPro added the selectable linear feature which eliminates the warping and negates the need for changing lenses, unless you are looking for a more telephoto outcome with a longer focal length. Since you have a GPH4B, maybe linear mode will work well enough for you. Linearity is what you're looking for with mapping. Unless you are looking for one of the filter lenses for NDVI or such, which Peau provides.

 

[quick_dry]

linear mode doesn't look like a non-fisheye lens though, it looks better than normal... but still just a bit weird. I tried linear mode, but switched to a 3.97 and did the profile removal MUCH nicer.

 

[Damien]

I tried a 10mp lens and I had some distortion around the edges. It may just have been that lens (a cheap one), but after that I only used 16mp lenses. Also, one side effect of going with a longer focal length, like 5.4mm, is that it shows vibrations much more in the video. But Solo is pretty stable, and since you already have a 5.4mm Ragecam lens, you already know how it acts. I found for me right about 3.97 to be the sweet spot. Eliminates fisheye warping, but still wide-angle enough to minimize vibration in the video. With the Hero 4 (and 5), GoPro added the selectable linear feature which eliminates the warping and negates the need for changing lenses, unless you are looking for a more telephoto outcome with a longer focal length. Since you have a GPH4B, maybe linear mode will work well enough for you. Linearity is what you're looking for with mapping. Unless you are looking for one of the filter lenses for NDVI or such, which Peau provides.

Yeah you can't use any modes for mapping as far as I'm aware. The stitching programs rely on the raw specifications of the lens without any modifications to the image