Drone not taking pix when far away

Hi Zane -

I created a flight plan - about 100 acres.  When the drone (DJI PH3 which has worked fine previously) was at the starting point (1500 feet away, but with trees and houses in the way) the remote controller only showed 4% signal strength.  And the mission proceeded - meaning the drone flew the flight path - but it did NOT take any pix.  Very strange.  I let it fly for the first battery - which brought it a lot closer to the home point where the RC was - and it took no add'l pix.   I changed batteries and it continued on the flight path from the abondonment poin.  But now it started taking pix.

I cleared everything, recreated the flight plan, and did it again.  Same result.  No pix taken at start.  

Only thing I can think of is that when the RC signal strenght is super low, maybe it doesn't know to start taking pix?  Does that make any sense?

If that does make sense, can I use the same flight plan, but around with the RC, so that the RC is closer to the drone with better signal strength.....so the drone gets the message to take pix?

Other thoughts?

Thx

Mike