Filming Waterskiing

[scottief]

I've had my Mavic for about a month. I haven't had much time to use it yet, But once the summer hits, I would like to film us water skiing. Just wondering how to do this?

1.Should I be in the boat or on land while filming?
2. Should I be in sport mode or use the follow me mode?
3. Shooting over water I hear your to turn on vps? Would that go for filming water skiing?

Any other tips would me great. Thanks

 

[TBuck1985]

I've had my Mavic for about a month. I haven't had much time to use it yet, But once the summer hits, I would like to film us water skiing. Just wondering how to do this?

1.Should I be in the boat or on land while filming?
2. Should I be in sport mode or use the follow me mode?
3. Shooting over water I hear your to turn on vps? Would that go for filming water skiing?

Any other tips would me great. Thanks

Scottief-

I have the same questions?
- Also what type of setting for video footage?
- With Sunlight bouncing off water is there any specific shutter speed that would be best suited for this?

 

[DodgeP]

1) Depends on your experience. You can take off from the boat and set your home point to "Operator"
2) Depends on your experience. You can use sport mode but I probably wouldn't. I would try follow me but you might be going to fast for follow me to keep track. I would probably setup a couple of waypoint missions (in Litchi if you have it), that are simply straight lines or s-curves along the path you'll be doing the water sports and instead of setting a POI or camera angle, change it to manual so you can yaw while along the waypoint path. I don't think you can do that with the DJI Waypoints.
3) I think you want to turn VPS off when flying over water.

Note: Following the 180 degree shutter rule. ShutterSpeed should be 2x the frame rate. You'll need ND/CP filters for sure, maybe even an ND64 depending on how vicious the sun is that day. CP filter to reduce the glare off the water.

 

[scottief]

Scottief-

I have the same questions?
- Also what type of setting for video footage?
- With Sunlight bouncing off water is there any specific shutter speed that would be best suited for this?

I tried it yesterday. Here's the video I got.

 

[DodgeP]

I tried it yesterday. Here's the video I got.

How do you feel about this video?

 

[scottief]

How do you feel about this video?

could be better. Need to figure out what I need to do to make it better.

 

[RavenTBK]

could be better. Need to figure out what I need to do to make it better.

Are you fishing for suggestions? If not, stop reading at the upcoming period.

If you are, keep in mind I'm no Martin Scorsese, but here's my unwashed opinion to be taken for what it's worth: The ramblings of some random guy on the internet.

1 Gotta get closer. The extreme altitude made the subjects like ants. I couldn't see if the skier was waving at the camera, had fell off, or was a poodle in a poodle skirt. 40-50 ft instead of 100+ would make a huge difference. Given the title was along the lines of Mavic Goes Waterskiing, I saw more beautiful backdrop than I did skiing.

2 Frame your shot and follow through. Several times the boat was well on its way out of frame before you moved to keep up. Being the subject was a boat, it would work well to keep it in the center third, or let it lead you. You'd never want to stop moving and let your subject exit from view, unless you're transitioning to another subject in frame.

3 Dump the music. The track selected really doesn't belong with the subject matter...unless you're in the face of the action. Minutes of silence or a light classical track would've been more appealing given the overall "slowness" of the video.

4 Slide out slide in transition effects are better used to join clips of differing look, whereas a simple fade or dissolve would be more attractive in this scenario. Seeing the water slide out and back in again painfully triggered my ADD wondering what the heck just happened.

Of course, "better" is highly subjective, and I won't go comparing against others. What matters is if you're proud of your work. Are you?

By your own words, you're still pretty green at the whole thing, and that's perfectly okay. All of us started somewhere. Be proud you tackled the challenge and came out of it with usable video and without crashing. Going by all the crash threads, a lot of people have problems successfully flying over land, which you're already a step up.

Keep flying, keep editing, and things will naturally fall into place. [emoji106]

 

[DodgeP]

could be better. Need to figure out what I need to do to make it better.

Here are my opinions:

1) Plan the path! Not always possible but in this case I think you knew everyone involved so it should have been easy to say, "Look guys I'm trying to get some epic aerial footage so here's what I need from you." Let the driver of the boat make a few runs along the path they intend to take up and down the river, at speed and you set up a waypoint mission along that same path. The lake seemed to be fairly empty so taking the same path didn't seem like it would have been a problem.

2) Plan for obstacles! In this case your biggest obstacle would have been what? Birds (if any) and water spray? If you're going to fly it manually (which I don't suggest just yet - I think you need more practice and experience) keep an eye on your altitude and maintain alt. throughout the flight with enough room for spray that may shoot higher than normal, so I would probably build in a 10ft cushion above the height of normal jet spray.

3) Plan multiple angles! Plan to shoot a few different angles such as a tracking shot, panning shot and even a head on shot. These shots add dimension to any footage.

4) Tweak your settings your movements are really jerky, your sticks are really tight and when you're filming cinematic stuff I think you want movement to be more fluid and smooth.

You have to keep in mind that rarely ever is really dope footage captured the first time you put your camera in the air at any location. Most of the time (for me), it takes a battery to plan (from the air), run through the path and think about camera positions/angles, camera settings, etc and then the next couple of batteries actually getting the shot. I didn't watch the video with sound so I don't have any comment about the music or transitions but once your footage gets better you'll be able to find music that fits the feel of the captured footage and use transitions that fit.

 

[mark_t]

You can take off from the boat and set your home point to "Operator"

Just to avoid any costly misunderstanding...

You can't set the home point to 'operator' but you can reset the home point to the spot you are on at that moment.

When the boat moves and you move with it the home point does not move, it remains where you were, not where you are...