Downtown Miami April 21,2020

[Dale D]

I just got my "new" refurbished Mavic 2 Pro back from DJI Grapevine,Texas.You may recall the problems I was having with trembling of the timelapse sunrises. Well, this is only single JPG shot and soon, after I get everything back into order I will re-try the hover and see if it is steady.

This is a shot of downtown Miami, Florida, USA. It's now getting into our summer season- over 90 degrees. (32.2 C) when I took this picture. I opted for a quick turn around re-furbished model because a repair would have taken many weeks due to COVID closures. Amazingly I had the RC paired and most settings done in an hour from the time I unpacked it.

 

[Thomas B]

Glad you’re back in the sky! Look forward to some smooth videos now.

 

[Dale D]

Glad you’re back in the sky! Look forward to some smooth videos now.

Thanks Tom!!! Can you imagine, ....yesterday (April 21) was the day of my intended departure to Arizona and Utah trip? Hopefully, I can reschedule for the fall.

It's great to have my little baby (new-refurbished, I imagine), Mavic 2 Pro. It has all of the little yellow stickies, just like a new one. As you can see, I was able to pair it with my RC and do all of my favorite settings, and get it up in the air the same afternoon I received it. This morning I was up at the crack of dawn practicing a hyperlapse sunrise. I'm going to process it today after tennis. Hopefully, I can publish it to this forum by the end of the day.
Dale
Miami

 

[Pablo]

Look forward to seeing the hyperlapse!

 

[Dale D]

Thanks Tom!!! Can you imagine, ....yesterday (April 21) was the day of my intended departure to Arizona and Utah trip? Hopefully, I can reschedule for the fall.

It's great to have my little baby (new-refurbished, I imagine), Mavic 2 Pro. It has all of the little yellow stickies, just like a new one. As you can see, I was able to pair it with my RC and do all of my favorite settings, and get it up in the air the same afternoon I received it. This morning I was up at the crack of dawn practicing a hyperlapse sunrise. I'm going to process it today after tennis. Hopefully, I can publish it to this forum by the end of the day.
Dale
Miami

For all of you people who have been following my travails, here is the latest attempt. I originally had problems with instability of the Mavic 2 Pro trying to do a timelapse or hyperlapse sunrise or sunset. I tried just about everything, including multiple IMU calibrations, and gimbal calibrations, and adjusted every setting imaginable. I finally determined it might be a problem with the gimbal and sent it away on my DJI Refresh Plan and just got it back yesterday. So this morning I was up with the chirping birds awaiting the sunrise in my driveway.

Here is what I did;

Sunrise-Miami- 8 second clip- morning of 4-21-2020 using refurbished Mavic 2 Pro drone. I shot 241 consecutive images (timed RAW shots at 5 second intervals-e.g.: 12 frames per minute). Processed in LR5-Timelapse at 4K, and Adobe Premiere Pro+Warp Stabilization. Used an 8ND filter. Video was rendered in LRTimelapse, then imported to Adobe Premiere Pro, added a bit of music, and published it 4K. I did some exposure ramping with shutter speed as it became brighter. It is still unstable, and jumpy. I am now officially out of ideas and would appreciate any help to get rid of the jumpy video.

 

[Thomas B]

Dale, was the original hyperlapse shot in the Drone’s hyperlapse mode?
If so , does it show the the same problem when you look at the original file.... i.e, before applying any post processing with other apps?

 

[Mavic Maxwell]

Hi Dale...pleased for you and look forward to future postings.
Enjoy the 'new' bird and your tennis!
Cheers mate!

 

[Pablo]

Hi Dale, sorry to hear it's still jumpy. These hyperlapses take so much time to put together it is frustrating when they don't come out right. I don't think you're too far off getting it right though.

Could you try cropping in on that video slightly? I think if you did it would negate a lot of the jumpiness in the shot as the centre is more stable than the edges.

I'd also suggest you'll get more jumpiness at 5 seconds intervals as there's more chance of movement between pictures. Have you tried it with 2 second intervals?

The success I'd had with hyperlapses came after following these tutorials:

They're in depth and really useful. Some hyperlapses I managed after following that advice:

 

[Dale D]

Dale, was the original hyperlapse shot in the Drone’s hyperlapse mode?
If so , does it show the the same problem when you look at the original file.... i.e, before applying any post processing with other apps?

No Tom, I did not use the drone hyperlapse mode because it compiles the final product natively using the original JPEG files, I believe. For this sunrise, I had to deal with a huge dynamic range, with a nearly black foreground, and an increasingly light subject. So the foreground cannot be fixed unless I shoot the entire sequence in RAW and open the foreground in post, where there is still a lot information to be recovered in the dark areas. Even on this shoot, the histogram showed an almost complete shift to the left. I was able to recover some of the green foreground, even though it was super noisy.

Before sending my old Mavic 2 Pro back to DJI , I actually did do the sunset trials with the native hyperlapse mode and I still got the instability. I just guess that the drone is not fixed in place doing these multiple shot sequences no matter if it is done as a multi-shot and processing in Lightroom/LRTimelapse or done internally. The only way to get a smooth un-wobbly sunrise or sunset is still from a tripod fixed on the ground.

To specifically answer your question, it does still show the same problem in the original file. I know this because I have processed it both ways (e.g.: natively produced by the drone and processed with Lightroom/LRTimelapse). I might also add that it was much more unstable before Warp Stabilization on either test.

 

[Dale D]

Hi Dale, sorry to hear it's still jumpy. These hyperlapses take so much time to put together it is frustrating when they don't come out right. I don't think you're too far off getting it right though.

Could you try cropping in on that video slightly? I think if you did it would negate a lot of the jumpiness in the shot as the centre is more stable than the edges.

I'd also suggest you'll get more jumpiness at 5 seconds intervals as there's more chance of movement between pictures. Have you tried it with 2 second intervals?

The success I'd had with hyperlapses came after following these tutorials:

They're in depth and really useful. Some hyperlapses I managed after following that advice:

Thank you Pablo. I have actually watched all of these videos before but I will take your suggestion and watch them again today, and if I see anything that I should try or change I will do so. I can begin by using 2 second intervals, and cropping. Please also see my reply to TomB Arizona posted below.

 

[Dale D]

Thank you Pablo. I have actually watched all of these videos before but I will take your suggestion and watch them again today, and if I see anything that I should try or change I will do so. I can begin by using 2 second intervals, and cropping. Please also see my reply to TomB Arizona posted below.

This is directed to Pablo's question....Now that I have watched all four of the hyperlapse videos (see above) , I can say that they ALL involved movement, e.g.: flying. None of them are static, where the drone just hovers during the entire 250-300 shots. During this hovering, the drone is making small movements, usually no more than one foot as I watch the altitude on my screen- I am trying to keep the drone at exactly 100 feet.So I notice that the drone is sometimes at 99 feet, or 101 feet, and I think that is the wobbling movement I am getting and it cannot be fixed in post with Warp Stabilization.

Since I am filming from the end of my driveway (coronavirus quarantine) and I do not want to risk flying and losing the drone .I am trying to keep the drone directly above my head at all times.

 

[Dale D]

This is directed to Pablo's question....Now that I have watched all four of the hyperlapse videos (see above) , I can say that they ALL involved movement, e.g.: flying. None of them are static, where the drone just hovers during the entire 250-300 shots. During this hovering, the drone is making small movements, usually no more than one foot as I watch the altitude on my screen- I am trying to keep the drone at exactly 100 feet.So I notice that the drone is sometimes at 99 feet, or 101 feet, and I think that is the wobbling movement I am getting and it cannot be fixed in post with Warp Stabilization.

Since I am filming from the end of my driveway (coronavirus quarantine) and I do not want to risk flying and losing the drone .I am trying to keep the drone directly above my head at all times.

All hyper lapses were jumpy whether in drone hyperlapse mode or in multiple exposure route

 

[Thomas B]

No Tom, I did not use the drone hyperlapse mode because it compiles the final product natively using the original JPEG files, I believe. For this sunrise, I had to deal with a huge dynamic range, with a nearly black foreground, and an increasingly light subject. So the foreground cannot be fixed unless I shoot the entire sequence in RAW and open the foreground in post, where there is still a lot information to be recovered in the dark areas. Even on this shoot, the histogram showed an almost complete shift to the left. I was able to recover some of the green foreground, even though it was super noisy.

Before sending my old Mavic 2 Pro back to DJI , I actually did do the sunset trials with the native hyperlapse mode and I still got the instability. I just guess that the drone is not fixed in place doing these multiple shot sequences no matter if it is done as a multi-shot and processing in Lightroom/LRTimelapse or done internally. The only way to get a smooth un-wobbly sunrise or sunset is still from a tripod fixed on the ground.

To specifically answer your question, it does still show the same problem in the original file. I know this because I have processed it both ways (e.g.: natively produced by the drone and processed with Lightroom/LRTimelapse). I might also add that it was much more unstable before Warp Stabilization on either test.

FWIW, I shoot my hyperlapse using that mode on the remote and my CS. I do most post in iMovie which has offered me a lot of flexibility in processing, editing, and linking the movies saved by my M2P.

 

[Pablo]

This is directed to Pablo's question....Now that I have watched all four of the hyperlapse videos (see above) , I can say that they ALL involved movement, e.g.: flying. None of them are static, where the drone just hovers during the entire 250-300 shots. During this hovering, the drone is making small movements, usually no more than one foot as I watch the altitude on my screen- I am trying to keep the drone at exactly 100 feet.So I notice that the drone is sometimes at 99 feet, or 101 feet, and I think that is the wobbling movement I am getting and it cannot be fixed in post with Warp Stabilization.

Since I am filming from the end of my driveway (coronavirus quarantine) and I do not want to risk flying and losing the drone .I am trying to keep the drone directly above my head at all times.

I understand. Timelapse vs hyperlapse. Hyperlapse involves movement, timelapse does not. I think using the hyperlapse feature helps hide those small movements which are inevitable if you don't have a tripod like stability.

Wouldn't a hyperlapse with a small movement during the shot make for an equally great video? You could have it move 10m max extremely slowly and I think the result will be much better. That way you call also work with the RAW images too as you can set that in the settings.

I might try one later although flying from in my back/front garden is pushing the 50m rule to be honest and it's getting harder and harder to justify flying at all during this lockdown in England.

 

[Dale D]

I understand. Timelapse vs hyperlapse. Hyperlapse involves movement, timelapse does not. I think using the hyperlapse feature helps hide those small movements which are inevitable if you don't have a tripod like stability.

Wouldn't a hyperlapse with a small movement during the shot make for an equally great video? You could have it move 10m max extremely slowly and I think the result will be much better. That way you call also work with the RAW images too as you can set that in the settings.

I might try one later although flying from in my back/front garden is pushing the 50m rule to be honest and it's getting harder and harder to justify flying at all during this lockdown in England.

This is yet another attempt at sunset hyperlapse. This sequence was made with a Mavic 2 Pro drone, 2 second intervals, 2 segments of 125 frames each, then developed in LR Timelapse 5 Holy Grail Method. The dark foreground was brightened with a graduated filter in the Lightroom portion of LRTimelapse. It was edited in Adobe Premiere Pro and stabilized with Warp Stabilization. This is a brand new (e.g.: refurbished by DJI) drone and IMU and Gimbal were calibrated the day of the shoot. Despite all of this, there is still wobbling and instability. I will repeat flight again, next time, eliminating most of the foreground which seems to give me the wobble. Hopefully, without the foreground, I will get less instability or wobble. Watch this and see for yourself.

 

[Thomas B]

This is yet another attempt at sunset hyperlapse. This sequence was made with a Mavic 2 Pro drone, 2 second intervals, 2 segments of 125 frames each, then developed in LR Timelapse 5 Holy Grail Method. The dark foreground was brightened with a graduated filter in the Lightroom portion of LRTimelapse. It was edited in Adobe Premiere Pro and stabilized with Warp Stabilization. This is a brand new (e.g.: refurbished by DJI) drone and IMU and Gimbal were calibrated the day of the shoot. Despite all of this, there is still wobbling and instability. I will repeat flight again, next time, eliminating most of the foreground which seems to give me the wobble. Hopefully, without the foreground, I will get less instability or wobble. Watch this and see for yourself.

Is the wobble noticeable before you do any post processing?

 

[Dale D]

Is the wobble noticeable before you do any post processing?

Yes Tom- I did it every which way I could. I've been on it today for 3 hours.

(1) I processed it through the native drone processing (very wobbly, and an almost black foreground with no details at all).
(2). I processed it just through Lightroom, opening up the shadows in the Develop module, but still wobbly
((3) I processed it through LRTimelapse Holy Grail method to account for shutter changes and flicker- still the same wobble.

The only relief I got from the wobble was after Warp Staibilization in Adobe Premiere Pro, and I even tried warp stabilization in After Effects with no discernible differences in the wobble. One of the replies I got (Blue Mantle - a very sharp guy!) was to fly higher because DJI does not recommend doing hyperlapse at low altitudes so I flew these two 125 frame segments at 150 feet instead of 100 feet.

If not for the plague, I would be in Arizona and Utah right now!

Dale

 

[Thomas B]

Yes Tom- I did it every which way I could. I've been on it today for 3 hours.

(1) I processed it through the native drone processing (very wobbly, and an almost black foreground with no details at all).
(2). I processed it just through Lightroom, opening up the shadows in the Develop module, but still wobbly
((3) I processed it through LRTimelapse Holy Grail method to account for shutter changes and flicker- still the same wobble.

The only relief I got from the wobble was after Warp Staibilization in Adobe Premiere Pro, and I even tried warp stabilization in After Effects with no discernible differences in the wobble. One of the replies I got (Blue Mantle - a very sharp guy!) was to fly higher because DJI does not recommend doing hyperlapse at low altitudes so I flew these two 125 frame segments at 150 feet instead of 100 feet.

If not for the plague, I would be in Arizona and Utah right now!

Dale

I also tend to focus at a great distance.
stay safe on the covid thing.
Still scratching my head on your problem. What were the drone settings used to capture the images?

 

[Dale D]

I also tend to focus at a great distance.
stay safe on the covid thing.
Still scratching my head on your problem. What were the drone settings used to capture the images?

ISO 100,4K, RAW, 2 second intervals, 125 frames, 8ND filter (sun was bright to begin with), started at around 1/4 second for motion blur, f/4.0 and kept opening the aperture (f/3.5-f/2.8) as the light darkened. I just try to eyeball the exposure on the iPad screen to keep from blowing out the sky and I was watching the histogram. It was greatly shifted to the left. I swear there was no wind where I was standing. The palm fronds were still as death.

 

[Thomas B]

ISO 100,4K, RAW, 2 second intervals, 125 frames, 8ND filter (sun was bright to begin with), started at around 1/4 second for motion blur, f/4.0 and kept opening the aperture (f/3.5-f/2.8) as the light darkened. I just try to eyeball the exposure on the iPad screen to keep from blowing out the sky and I was watching the histogram. It was greatly shifted to the left. I swear there was no wind where I was standing. The palm fronds were still as death.

I’ll think about this.
One last question what was the EV?