Working with polorisers when taking video?

[nicoloks]

Hi All,

I'm looking to get a set of Polar Pro Vivid filters for my Mavic. I've used polarisers for photography, but never videography and certainly not when using a drone.

Just wondering how people account for the varying levels of polarisation when taking shots with drone rotation? Do people use polariser filters all the time, or do they just use them when they know their shot is going to have a consistent angle to the sun (i.e level of polarisation does not change).

Also wondering what techniques / tricks of the trade people use for adjusting the level of polarisation on their filters? Using a CPL on a still camera is easy, a camcorder would be much the same. I imagine it might become a bit cumbersome having to return the drone home each time you want to alter the level of polarisation.

I really only want to have one set of filters and loved the result my CPL gave me with my dSLR. Just not sure how to manage this easily when taking video from a drone.

 

[BorisTheSpider]

I've asked this before and never got a satisfactory answer, I think because many drone users don't know how a polariser works or what it does! I also didn't see the point, I have regular ND filters but no polarisers. The only way I could see them being useful was over water if you could circle around and find the right angle where they cut the reflections.

 

[pilotattitude]

I have a set of the Polar Pro NDPol, I am familiar how they work, sure water is a big benefit. Idea behind it is ND is sunglasses, and the Polarizer just takes out glare. I am trying to see if that would hold true if I were to fly with the gimbal cover on. The CP is great in adjusting the intensity of the polarizer, darker = richer colors = more contrast = less brightness. With the drone, I would suppose without the aid and ability to alter the polarizer, we can change Exposure values/ISO/Shutter speed to alter the look, at least thats what we have control of on the ground.

 

[nicoloks]

Thanks for the replies and apologies for my spelling.

@pilotattitude - When you have you CP positioned to provide maximum effect, do you find the fluctuations in the image an issue when doing rotating shots (POI, panning, etc)?

For instance doing a POI shot of a bright white yacht on a lake surrounded by lush green vegetation on sunny day with lots of wispy clouds. I imagine here the changing definition in the clouds, intensity of the green vegetation and reflections from the lake and yacht are going to alter significantly as you circle around.

I love the idea of getting polarisers for my Mavic. Just don't know how I can approach a day of shooting when to have consistent polarisation effect I'd need to take every shot perpendicular (or close to) the sun.

Starting to think I should just get the 6 pack and be done with it

 

[pilotattitude]

Thanks for the replies and apologies for my spelling.

@pilotattitude - When you have you CP positioned to provide maximum effect, do you find the fluctuations in the image an issue when doing rotating shots (POI, panning, etc)?

For instance doing a POI shot of a bright white yacht on a lake surrounded by lush green vegetation on sunny day with lots of wispy clouds. I imagine here the changing definition in the clouds, intensity of the green vegetation and reflections from the lake and yacht are going to alter significantly as you circle around.

I love the idea of getting polarisers for my Mavic. Just don't know how I can approach a day of shooting when to have consistent polarisation effect I'd need to take every shot perpendicular (or close to) the sun.

Starting to think I should just get the 6 pack and be done with it

Right so polarizer is most effective when the sun is 90 degrees from your subject so as you orbit around your subject the suns light is hitting the subject differently, likewise how the filter effects your view of the background and subject. With that said polarizer will still limit the glare off the water.

 

[raymo]

In the "olden days" all we had were plane polarizing filters. These had to be carefully oriented at 90 degrees to sunlight. The more recent circular polarizers (CP) are less susceptible to direction, but still not perfect. Polarization filters are used to reduce and sometimes almost eliminate reflected (usually polarized) light from surfaces like water and other reflective surfaces which include windshields, paint and leaves. As a result, colors become much more vivid (saturated), and contrast is normally increased. Punchy images, both still and video.

 

[nicoloks]

Thanks for that Raymo. I think most of my CPL experience might qualify as "olden days" now being 10 years ago.

I've literally been unable to find any review or forum thread that discusses this as being an issue with drone videography. Only two real reasons for this is that people are either unaware of what to look for or that there is no issue to speak of.

Buying the 6 pack in the Polar Pro cinema series only saves me $10 off bying both collections independently. Think I'll just go ahead and get the Vivid collection, if they don't shape up I'll sell them and take the hit to get the shutter series.

 

[JoostGT3]

Thanks for that Raymo. I think most of my CPL experience might qualify as "olden days" now being 10 years ago.

I've literally been unable to find any review or forum thread that discusses this as being an issue with drone videography. Only two real reasons for this is that people are either unaware of what to look for or that there is no issue to speak of.

Buying the 6 pack in the Polar Pro cinema series only saves me $10 off bying both collections independently. Think I'll just go ahead and get the Vivid collection, if they don't shape up I'll sell them and take the hit to get the shutter series.

I have the PolarPro 3- pack (CP, ND8, ND16), and have only used the CP until now.
I was stupid enough to treat it as a UV filter, as I always had UV filters on my dSLRs... so I completely forgot to optimize the rotation of the filter for the best look, just left it on all the time.

Just now I was realizing the mistake I made, so I looked a bit into the use of the polarizing filter, and realized that I should have rotated it for each shot.

To be honest, all three following movies were created with the CP filter on, without giving the orientation any thought, and without any grading or color/contrast/etc adjustments whatsoever. Can't say that I see much fluctionations in saturation and contrast. Maybe the C aspect of CP is so good that it doesn't really matter anymore with these modern filters, or maybe the rotation of the drone is generally so slow that fluctuations are going slow as well...

 

[tjbarney]

Thank you for posting this question. I have been fighting with the same issue and trying to figure out which set to get. I feel exactly the same, I LOVE my CPL for my dslr. I want it for the Mavic, but just not sure if it will work well overall.

 

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