DJI Neo Part 2: Cheap drone with awesome camera quality

DJI Neo is a drone launched in September 2024 by the famous drone manufacturer DJI. DJI Neo is a top-of-the-line affordable, small, and lightweight drone from DJI. This drone is still worth buying as 2025 approaches. The DJI Fly Go 4 team has articles analyzing DJI Neo in detail from many different aspects. You can see the list of articles right here:

DJI Neo Part 1: The lightest drone that you’ve ever seen in your life

DJI Neo Part 2: Cheap drone with awesome camera quality

DJI Neo Part 3: Two-in-one drone with special connection options

In part 2 of this series, we will explore and dig deeper into the camera, image, and video quality of the DJI Neo. Let’s keep going.

DJI Neo Technical Camera Specifications

As I mentioned above, you can’t expect much in terms of image quality from the DJI Neo, a drone that costs only $200. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the DJI Neo will give you blurry footage or 2010s YouTube quality. The DJI Neo still allows you to shoot videos and photos in resolutions ranging from Full-HD to 4K. The information in the following table will help you visualize the image quality of this little drone:

Image Sensor	1/2-inch image sensor
Lens	FOV: 117.6° Format Equivalent: 14 mm Aperture: f/2.8 Focus: 0.6 m to ∞
ISO Range	100-6400 (Auto) 100-6400 (Manual)
Shutter Speed	Video: 1/8000-1/30 s Photo: 1/8000-1/10 s
Max Image Size	12 MP Photo 4000×3000 (4∶3) 4000×2256 (16∶9)
Still Photography Modes	Single/Timed Shot
Photo Format	JPEG
Video Resolution	EIS Off: 4K (4:3): 3840×2880@30fps 1080p (4:3): 1440×1080@60/50/30fps EIS On: 4K (16:9): 3840×2160@30fps 1080p (16:9): 1920×1080@60/50/30fps Vertical Shooting 1080p (9:16) 1080×1920@60/50/30fps
Video Format	MP4
Max Video Bitrate	75Mbps
Supported File System	exFAT
Color Mode	Normal
EIS	Supports RockSteady, HorizonBalancing, and turning stabilization off

Camera Specifications

Sensor on DJI Neo

First is the image sensor. To save costs, DJI used a 1/2-inch image sensor, and according to many studies, it seems that this is the OV48B sensor from Omnivision, a name that is quite unfamiliar to many people. This sensor is in the low-cost segment, was launched many years ago, and is used in many products from China. Some smartphones that have been produced also use this sensor such as Xiaomi Mi 10, Redmi Note 10, Oppo A94, … The feature of these smartphones is to focus on the outstanding photography factor in the low-cost range, quite similar to DJI Neo, right? However, these smartphones were produced nearly a decade ago, which raises a small question about the image quality of DJI Neo.

ISO and shutter speed

I’ll skip over things like ISO and aperture for now, as these are pretty basic for any camera-capable device, and the DJI Neo doesn’t excel or fall short in this regard. Instead, let’s move on to the DJI Neo’s photo size and video resolution. 

Camera resolution in DJI Neo

The resolution of the camera on the DJI Neo is 12 megapixels. This number is almost a standard for DJI’s drone lines under 250g. In fact, even many famous phones like the iPhone 13 series have a camera resolution of only 12 MP. 12 MP is more than enough for many human uses such as posting photos on social networks, or uploading videos to YouTube,…

Next is the video resolution. DJI Neo allows users to shoot videos in quality from Full-HD to 4K with different frame rates, respectively 30, 50, and 60fps. The interesting thing here is that you can only shoot 4K video at a frame rate of 30fps. This can be very good when you shoot relatively still objects and scenes. However, when you want to shoot objects that move a bit faster, many problems will occur because the frame rate is only 30fps. And you know what’s more interesting? That’s the 4K@30fps number. As mentioned above, DJI Neo seems to have used the OV48B sensor from OmniVision. However, this sensor originally allows you to shoot at 4K@60fps, not just at 30fps. Will there be a firmware update soon from DJI that will unlock this feature on DJI Neo? I’m not sure, but let’s hope that happens.

Image and video format

Regarding video format, DJI Neo uses MP4 format, which is a very popular standard that almost everyone uses. Therefore, we will not analyze anything further in this section. This time, we will focus on analyzing more deeply and specifically about its image format.

Photos taken from DJI Neo will be saved in JPEG format and JPEG only. Normally, you will see image formats on the internet such as JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, or SVG. These formats are images that have gone through different image processing and compression techniques. While in professional photography, JPEG format will rarely be used. Instead, we will use RAW format. As the name suggests, RAW format keeps the photos you take in the rawest state, which is equal to what your image sensor records. Although the file size is heavier than all the formats mentioned above, RAW files will preserve many things that a JPEG or PNG file is difficult, or even impossible to do:

Feature	JPEG	RAW
File Size	Smaller, compressed	Larger, uncompressed
Image Quality	Lower due to compression	Higher, full data from the sensor
Editing Flexibility	Limited, prone to quality loss	Extensive, retains full detail
Dynamic Range	Lower, limited shadows & highlights	Higher, captures more details
Color Depth	8-bit (256 shades per color)	12-bit or 14-bit (thousands of shades)
Processing	Camera-processed	Requires post-processing
File Format	Universally compatible	Proprietary to camera brands
Storage Requirements	Less storage needed	More storage needed
Use Case	Everyday photography, quick sharing	Professional photography, advanced editing
Compression	Lossy (data is discarded)	Lossless (all data retained)

Comparison between JPEG and RAW files

In summary, the very long table above shows a few things as follows:

• JPEG files are compressed files, do not need post-processing, have lower capacity, and have lower image quality than RAW files but are enough to serve ordinary users
• RAW files are original files, have many times higher capacity than JPEG files, and have very high image quality because they take the original data from the camera sensor, require post-processing, and are often used by professional users

Each format has its own pros and cons. I am quite a photo editor myself so I need to edit my photos a lot. That is why I prefer RAW format over JPEG. However, back to the point, this is a $200 drone aimed at drone beginners, I think JPEG is enough for them. You do not need to worry about post-processing a photo, instead, you can just focus on taking photos on your drone. DJI Neo has kept its promise of being compact, compact in design, and weight, and now, even in the process of taking photos and editing photos.

Storage

In addition to the above reason, I think there is another reason why DJI chose JPEG as the image storage format of DJI Neo. That is to minimize storage capacity. Many people may not know but DJI Neo does not allow you to store images using an external SD card and there is also no SD card slot. The internal memory is only 22 GB.

This is a bit of a pain when using a drone. However, remember that the DJI Neo only flies for under 18 minutes and uses a variety of compressed file formats to minimize storage space. There’s also another huge factor: the DJI Neo supports QuickTransfer. This means that when the storage is running low, you can download the content you’ve just captured to the phone you’re using or choose to store it on your Remote Controller if it supports a memory card. You can customize this setting by adjusting the storage location at Profile> Settings> Storage.

In short, DJI Neo does not support external SD memory cards. Fortunately, thanks to the development of DJI, we have many other options to replace and overcome the problem of 22Gb memory cards on DJI Neo. So in practice, what will the photos taken from DJI Neo be like? Are you curious? Come with me to the next part.

Normal camera mode in real-life

After testing the DJI Neo in Normal mode, we found that this drone has quite an interesting color image. With a sensor that is almost 10 years old, I honestly didn’t expect much from the DJI Neo’s image quality. And DJI proved me wrong. Here are a few photos taken from it.

<Ảnh chụp từ DJI Neo>

In terms of image quality, I think the DJI Neo does quite well. I mean, for the price of $200, this impressive drone does a great job of producing images with quality that far surpasses high-end smartphones like the iPhone 15,…

From a personal experience perspective, I also have a few points to contribute to the DJI Neo. First of all, in the normal color profile, the image is definitely oversaturated, I often have to manually reduce the saturation to make the image appear better. In addition, when taking photos in areas with many trees, I noticed that the images are automatically adjusted to a rather cold color. When shooting videos of the sky, the DJI Neo tends to overexpose and make the sky difficult to see.

Of course, the above is just my personal experience. What is more important is that you can overcome the limitations I mentioned above by adjusting a few small parameters on the DJI Neo yourself. Overall, I think the DJI Neo is a relatively limited drone in terms of images, but the good news is that these limitations are completely easy to overcome. We will come to a rather important factor behind a beautiful photo from a drone, which is the gimbal.

DJI Neo’s Gimbal

Stabilization	Single-axis mechanical gimbal (tilt)
Mechanical Range	Tilt: -120° to 120°
Controllable Range	Tilt: -90° to 60°
Max Control Speed (tilt)	100°/s
Angular Vibration Range	±0.01°
Image Roll Correction	Supports correction of footage recorded on Neo Live view correction is unavailable only when used with additional accessories.

Gimbal specifications on DJI Neo

If you have read this far, I think you are very focused, so I will summarize the problem. First, DJI Neo only uses a 1-axis up-and-down gimbal. For many drone users, this is almost not a problem. In fact, most drone users at the basic level will rarely adjust the gimbal axis. However, when you reach a higher level, when you start to understand more about composition and different shooting angles, you will definitely start using the gimbal more often.

I think this is just a small drawback of DJI Neo. While flying, you will not have many options for shooting angles at a location, you will have to constantly move your drone to align the shooting angle yourself. Sometimes, the opportunity to have a beautiful film or photo will happen in a flash and you do not always have the time or opportunity to move the drone to a better shooting angle yourself.

Sum up

Overall, I think the DJI Neo is a great drone and worth buying. Of course, it also has a lot of limitations in many different aspects. However, what I want to say is that these limitations can mostly be overcome by using drones more. In the coming year 2025, I think it will be very difficult to see another cheap and good quality super product like the DJI Neo. What do you think? Please comment in the comment section below.