Mini 3 New M3Pro RC first flights

[FlushVision]

Commissioning flight of a new M3Pro quadcopter.
This was at a fairly safe location with no trees and stuff because the aircraft was an un-known quantity so the video is a bit un-remarkable.
About the video quality: I'm not impressed with the quality of it if I'm honest. I'll have to learn how to improve on the camera settings: This was shot on auto settings, but those auto settings were basically crap. In the original footage it was too bright and 'blown out', and the focus was a bit 'soft'. I have gone some way to rectify that in post production using my editor, and in one section there was some artifacts going on which I wasn't able to put right. I think next time I use this aircraft I'll dial down the EV a couple of stops and experiment with the shutter speed to get better footage. That said, enjoy it as it is.
4K. 30 fps. Turn on 4K in your YouTube player. 2 flight batteries and in the air for just under 40 minutes all told.

 

[GFields]

Good video

 

[FlushVision]

Good video

You really think so ? Personally I think it's not so good. I get much better quality from my Typhoon H480! The source footage was really bad and I think I did well to salvage what I did. I really put my video editor through it's paces to get what I did.

I'm currently watching lots of You Tube vids on camera settings for the M3pro so that next time I make a video from the M3pro the finished quality will be vastly improved.

 

[Paul Iddon]

There's something not right there as you noted. Way to many artefacts. Have you contacted the vendor, or DJI to ask what can be done?

 

[GFields]

You really think so ? Personally I think it's not so good. I get much better quality from my Typhoon H480! The source footage was really bad and I think I did well to salvage what I did. I really put my video editor through it's paces to get what I did.

I'm currently watching lots of You Tube vids on camera settings for the M3pro so that next time I make a video from the M3pro the finished quality will be vastly improved.

I said good, not great. What ISO setting were you using?

 

[FlushVision]

I said good, not great. What ISO setting were you using?

What do you think the optimum ISO setting is for the lighting conditions in the above video on the M3Pro ? I didn't change the setting. It was as it came out of the box. In fact I didn't change any settings. You gotta understand that my primary aim in these first flights was to just get a feel for the drone so I left all the camera settings as is thinking that I would concentrate on the camera settings on subsequent flights. What I didn't expect was that using out-of-the-box settings was gunna be so poor.

It was the same thing for my Typhoon H480. Leaving that in auto settings led to poor video too, but I found that by simply adjusting the shutter speed (640th for bad light and up to 1000th or 1200th in bright sunlight) and leaving ISO on 100 and EV at 0 gave very good results. The trouble with that bird was it's habit of dropping the video feed on raising the landing gear necessitating me having to reset the settings which is very annoying.

 

[GFields]

What do you think the optimum ISO setting is for the lighting conditions in the above video on the M3Pro ? I didn't change the setting. It was as it came out of the box. In fact I didn't change any settings. You gotta understand that my primary aim in these first flights was to just get a feel for the drone so I left all the camera settings as is thinking that I would concentrate on the camera settings on subsequent flights. What I didn't expect was that using out-of-the-box settings was gunna be so poor.

It was the same thing for my Typhoon H480. Leaving that in auto settings led to poor video too, but I found that by simply adjusting the shutter speed (640th for bad light and up to 1000th or 1200th in bright sunlight) and leaving ISO on 100 and EV at 0 gave very good results. The trouble with that bird was it's habit of dropping the video feed on raising the landing gear necessitating me having to reset the settings which is very annoying.

You should always change the camera settings to meet the current lighting situation as they change constantly.

As a general rule, I keep the ISO at 100 and make adjustments, to the shutter speed, EV values, and/or Aperture (on those equipped). The lower the ISO the better. You may increase some in low-lighting situations, but I rarely go higher than 800.

Some use the automatic settings on everything, but that is not always the best practice.

 

[FlushVision]

You should always change the camera settings to meet the current lighting situation as they change constantly.

As a general rule, I keep the ISO at 100 and make adjustments, to the shutter speed, EV values, and/or Aperture (on those equipped). The lower the ISO the better. You may increase some in low-lighting situations, but I rarely go higher than 800.

Some use the automatic settings on everything, but that is not always the best practice.

I agree. Low ISO is the way to go except if it's a particularly murky day. The thing I changed the most on my other aircraft to get good video has always been the shutter speed: The brighter it is the higher it goes...generally I set the shutter speed to anything between 400 if it's a particularly dark day to 1000 on a bright CAVOK day (only rarely going up as far as 1200). Previously I haven't paid much attention to EV values on my other aircraft, but with the M3P I think I'll need to pay more attention to it.

Anyway, thanks for all the critique. It's been helpful.
Flush.

 

[Flyby_77]

There are some weird artefacts in the footage, was that caused by over processing the footage in your editing software ? I've never seen this in any Mini 3 pro footage.

 

[FlushVision]

There are some weird artefacts in the footage, was that caused by over processing the footage in your editing software ? I've never seen this in any Mini 3 pro footage.

The original footage before editing was even worse, As soon as I opened the files I thought 'OMG' it was that bad. In my editor I managed to clean it up somewhat. The main problem was that the original footage was over exposed and 'blown out'. With this being it's first flights I didn't even bother to check the ISO wanting to concentrate on getting a feel for the drone in the air and procrastinating the camera set up to subsequent flights. I flew the camera settings out-of-the-box, so to speak...for all I know the ISO could have been way up there.

The editing software I've been using for years but I admit that I updated it on starting the editing of this footage. It may be that the artifacts where caused by my recovering the blown out footage: As you know, it's very difficult to tone down over exposed video: Better to tone up from underexposed stuff than over exposed stuff.

I couldn't see all this on the RC screen of course. The sun glare on the screen was too much (Is there a sun screen thing out there?).

Anyway, lessons learned and hopefully my next vid shot with this drone will be much better than this pile of cr*p.

Flush.