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MAVIC FILTERS - Opinions On These Filters

I don't think the computer monitor method of PL orientation would work because you really need to set the filter rotation to the light rays of the sun, which would change over time of day and your shooting angle. You can get some really great looking stuff with circular polarized filters, but on a drone they can also produce banding in the sky and water when the orientation is off angle. Best practice would be to use a linear polarizing filter that doesn't need orientation or look through the filter right before flying, aim in the direction of the best scene, find a reflective object like glass or water and rotate the filter until the reflections diminish, then hold it steady and snap on the filter with the same orientation. Good to go. I have the ND32 and it's a little overkill. I had to shutter down to 30 with ISO 100 in shade. I think ND16 is best case for one size fits.

I just remembered I shot some footage with PL filter in wrong orientation. This was a combo PL and ND..See banding in the water sort of a gradient of blue?

 
I don't think the computer monitor method of PL orientation would work


You are correct, and that's what I was trying to get across in my post. You don't just rotate the filter to where it looks good and that's it. You have to change it every time the angle of the sun changes. This would make it useless on a drone camera because the angle of the sun is changing constantly while the drone is moving.
 
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Amazon sells a sun hood for $11.00 and free shipping. It fits very nicely on my Mavic.

It's more of a shade than a hood. Mavic camera is quite a wide angle and effective hood for it is impossible to make, given the gimbal and location of the camera. The effective wide angle hood is petal hood. And even it is not very effective, especially if you fly near reflective objects like water.
Generally speaking, shades improve contrast by removing ambient light from entering the camera eye from the sides and hoods remove flares by removing the rays from entering the eye directly from the light source at the "wrong" angles which cause internal lens reflections (which are also reduced by internal multicoating on the lens elements).
Imagine you shoot with the Mavic camera in the complete darkness, and you light up the flashlight and direct it at exactly 90 degrees angle right on the camera front glass element. In theory, the camera should see no light, but it will see quite a lot of light because of the glass internal light scattering. This is what shades are supposed to fight.
The filters that Bigstalks got aren't really cheap filters, they seem to be priced the same as PolarPro.
Depends on which PolarPros you are comparing with. The multicoated PolarPros are Cinema series and they are expensive. The "black" PolarPros are just HD glass. (this is from reading their website, I use TacoBell).
 

I've been looking at those! PGY Tech makes some nice stuff, and these filters are said to be multi-coated and not to interfere with gimbal initialization. The price is good and they come in a nice case.

My biggest problem with ordering these myself is that I'll be flying at the beach in the tropics so I expect to need an ND32 filter. That's why I haven't gotten a set of the DJI ones, which only go to ND16. One of the sets on Ali Express includes ND4, ND8, ND16, and ND32 filters, but there's also one with ND4 to 16, a UV filter, and a CPL filter. That's very tempting, especially as I'd like to leave a UV filter on the lens at all times when I'm not using a different filter, and I can't seem to find the PGY Tech UV filter for sale by itself.

Given the price, I think I'm probably going to order one of these sets. If the filters are crap, at least I'll have a decent filter case...
 
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I just ordered that Hooshion 4 pack of ND filters. They're arriving tomorrow and I'll be testing them out at some sand dunes this weekend.
 
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