Advice from Whale Photographers

[RobinM]

I'm much better at shooting whale stills from on the water than I am above the water and have no issues with technique - But i'm simply rubbish from my drone.

I upgraded from an air2s to the Mavic 3PRO this year with the specific aim of improving my video and pics and understand batteries/ distance/ wind/exposure values/video quality etc so im left with one issue -

Do you use a polariser for videoing the whales or just an ND filter? I just cant wrap my head around how i'm going to manage a polariser if i'm turning the drone every which way in the air. How do people manage it?

The Drone videos I took last year were rubbish by my standards - when the whales breached the water highlights blew right out to unrecoverable, and dynamic range in the black water too black to recover and given that they are such difficult critters to predict I'm so focussed on doing a better job.

Any thoughts about polarisers would be helpful
cheers.

 

[GFields]

Looks good

 

[waynorth]

I just cant wrap my head around how i'm going to manage a polariser if i'm turning the drone every which way in the air. How do people manage it?

Many people do not know how a polarizer work, but you obviously do. To get effect from a polarizer you must have the lens pointing at around 90 degrees angle from the sun. For your type of photos where you probably turn the drone all the time to get the best shots, it won't have much effect. Also remember that polarizers steal light, so you will get slower shutter speeds, with risk of blurry images. In other words, don't use polarizing filter on a drone. And especiall not if you use a wideangle lens, it will look terrible.
ND filters has no use for still photos, unless you deliberately want blurry whales

 

[RobinM]

Many people do not know how a polarizer work, but you obviously do. To get effect from a polarizer you must have the lens pointing at around 90 degrees angle from the sun. For your type of photos where you probably turn the drone all the time to get the best shots, it won't have much effect. Also remember that polarizers steal light, so you will get slower shutter speeds, with risk of blurry images. In other words, don't use polarizing filter on a drone. And especiall not if you use a wideangle lens, it will look terrible.
ND filters has no use for still photos, unless you deliberately want blurry whales

thanks,
So how do you control the dynamic range with a breaching whale? One minute you're looking into black and the next is an explosion of white - auto ISO did nope cope with that last year for me

 

[waynorth]

thanks,
So how do you control the dynamic range with a breaching whale? One minute you're looking into black and the next is an explosion of white - auto ISO did nope cope with that last year for me

Auto ISO will not help - higher ISO decreases the dynamic range.
You need to shoot in RAW (DNG) and develop the images in a RAW converter. DNG-files have a much higher dynamic range than jpg, and you use the full potential of what the sensor is capable of. It may help to underexpose slightly, it is easier to lighten the shadows a little than to recover blown highlights.

 

[Meta4]

Do you use a polariser for videoing the whales or just an ND filter? I just cant wrap my head around how i'm going to manage a polariser if i'm turning the drone every which way in the air. How do people manage it?

An ND filter won't do anything to help you get good stills of whales and definitely won't reduce glare.
All it would do is cut light uniformly, forcing a slower shutter speed and/or higher ISO, neither of which is desirable for what you want to do.

A polariser is more trouble than it's worth and next to useless as you've found out.

What you need to do is position the drone relative to the subject and the sun to reduce glare and have the sun light the subject.
Look with the sun rather than against it.
These two shots illustrate how changing the position of the drone can reduce glare:

 

[RobinM]

Auto ISO will not help - higher ISO decreases the dynamic range.
You need to shoot in RAW (DNG) and develop the images in a RAW converter. DNG-files have a much higher dynamic range than jpg, and you use the full potential of what the sensor is capable of. It may help to underexpose slightly, it is easier to lighten the shadows a little than to recover blown highlights.

Well, i always shoot on auto ISO on land on my a1, i was hoping it would translate to the ocean but it's not. I never ever shoot in jpg so lets dismiss that direction. If i underexpose slightly i'm missing the ability to see the whales underwater but then it all changes when they explode out of the water.

 

[RobinM]

An ND filter won't do anything to help you get good stills of whales and definitely won't reduce glare.
All it would do is cut light uniformly, forcing a slower shutter speed and/or higher ISO, neither of which is desirable for what you want to do.

A polariser is more trouble than it's worth and next to useless as you've found out.

What you need to do is position the drone relative to the subject and the sun to reduce glare and have the sun light the subject.
Look with the sun rather than against it.
These two shots illustrate how changing the position of the drone can reduce glare:

I think i'm getting the idea that a polariser is indeed more trouble than its worth, so i'm better off concentrating on trying to keep the sun behind as you say ( depending on whale direction). I suspect i wasnt shooting on d-logM last whale season either.

 

[Meta4]

If i underexpose slightly i'm missing the ability to see the whales underwater

Not necessarily ... setting the exposure compensation appropriately can handle that for you.

 

[DoomMeister]

I’m a bit confused by the term Auto ISO. Most cameras I’m familiar with allow you to set the ISO (the lower the better in most instances), and then shoot in aperture or shutter priority with EV settings from -2 up to +2.

Since the drone’s camera has a fixed aperture you would essentially be shooting in aperture priority mode if you set the ISO to a specific value. You then can adjust the EV setting (as suggested earlier most advise is to underexpose by 1/3 to 2/3 stops as shadows are easier to extract than blown highlights).

You obviously set your standards high and as we know photographic sensors (from film to digital sensors) do not have the dynamic range that the human eye does. We can only make our best exposure at the time and adjust it in post processing to try and achieve what we perceptive at the time of exposure.

Best of luck in your endeavors at capturing this magnificent creatures in all their glory. Hope to see more of your efforts here on the forum.

 

[Droning on and on...]

thanks,
So how do you control the dynamic range with a breaching whale? One minute you're looking into black and the next is an explosion of white - auto ISO did nope cope with that last year for me

One of the most important things is to shoot d-log, then color correct in post. This expands dynamic range quite a bit.

Shoot with a fixed ISO, let the aperture and shutter speed float to get the correct exposure.

 

[RobinM]

One of the most important things is to shoot d-log, then color correct in post. This expands dynamic range quite a bit.

Shoot with a fixed ISO, let the aperture and shutter speed float to get the correct exposure.

aah, I've never done that on my stills land camera as i shoot fully manual, but that does make sense to me for what i'm looking for- fixed iso and auto aperture and shutter speed. thanks!

 

[RobinM]

I’m a bit confused by the term Auto ISO. Most cameras I’m familiar with allow you to set the ISO (the lower the better in most instances), and then shoot in aperture or shutter priority with EV settings from -2 up to +2.

Since the drone’s camera has a fixed aperture you would essentially be shooting in aperture priority mode if you set the ISO to a specific value. You then can adjust the EV setting (as suggested earlier most advise is to underexpose by 1/3 to 2/3 stops as shadows are easier to extract than blown highlights).

You obviously set your standards high and as we know photographic sensors (from film to digital sensors) do not have the dynamic range that the human eye does. We can only make our best exposure at the time and adjust it in post processing to try and achieve what we perceptive at the time of exposure.

Best of luck in your endeavors at capturing this magnificent creatures in all their glory. Hope to see more of your efforts here on the forum.

Auto ISO is useful for shooting in fully Manual mode. As i shoot mostly wildlife and birds the priority setting in the triad is shutter speed - if I dont have speed to freeze the subject, i have no photo so aperture choice and iso setting are secondary. Thanks for your words - trying to master a new genre of photography is always a fun challenge. cheers.

 

[Meta4]

fixed iso and auto aperture and shutter speed. thanks!

You need to choose Aperture or Shutter Priority.
You don't leave both in auto.

 

[Droning on and on...]

aah, I've never done that on my stills land camera as i shoot fully manual, but that does make sense to me for what i'm looking for- fixed iso and auto aperture and shutter speed. thanks!

For stills, do the d-log video equivalent and capture RAW images, then color correct (and more) in post.

However, I'm mostly a video photographer, not stills. I'd defer to some of the stills experts here, @Meta4 among them.

 

[Droning on and on...]

You need to choose Aperture or Shutter Priority.
You don't leave both in auto.

I don't have a Mavic 3, so admittedly I was presuming there was independent ISO, aperture, and shutter control. Assumed any of the three could operate in AUTO or be fixed while in manual, just like ISO and shutter can be in the lower tier (Air, Mini) drones.

So, for us po' folk that don't have any flavor of the Mavic 3 with that beautiful 4/3, variable aperture camera, what flexibility of exposure control is available?

TIA

 

[Meta4]

So, for us po' folk that don't have any flavor of the Mavic 3 with that beautiful 4/3, variable aperture camera, what flexibility of exposure control is available?

As you imagined ... here's the exposure control

 

[Droning on and on...]

As you imagined ... here's the exposure control

Cool.

What would be the downside to putting both shutter and aperture in AUTO, while fixing the ISO? Kind of like a film camera in full auto, but picking the film speed for the application and lighting...

 

[MS Coast]

thanks,
So how do you control the dynamic range with a breaching whale? One minute you're looking into black and the next is an explosion of white - auto ISO did nope cope with that last year for me

That's an exposure issue, not a dynamic range issue.

You can always just set a fixed exposure for a leaping whale and the current light conditions. It's something that old geezers used to do when cameras used film and shutter speed/ISO/and aperture were all manually set and if you were lucky, there was an exposure meter that waved a needle up and down in the viewfinder.

Decades ago before automatic smart cameras, people often used the Sunny 16 Rule and derivatives to choose exposures. It was very handy when the battery on your four-pound SLR died and the light meter needle pegged on the lower end or when you wanted to have the camera set for a particular scene and ready to shoot immediately.

On a bright sunny day, set the aperture to f16 and set the shutter speed to the inverse of the ISO, e.g. 1/100 second for ISO=100.

1/100 is certainly not the best shutter speed for shooting whales with a drone camera. But, the depth of field is so good for drone cameras and typical shots, that you can increase aperture (wider opening, not higher number) and increase shutter speed in equal numbers of stops to get the shutter speed you want. Increase aperture four stops (f/16 to f/11 to f/5.6 to f/4 to f/2.8) and increase shutter speed by three stops (1/100 to 1/200 to 1/400 to 1/800 to 1/1600).

f/2.8 and 1/1600 should give pretty good results for whales on a sunny day. If it's really bright, try f/2.8 and 1/3200.

The Sunny 16 Rule gets modified "up" by one stop for white sand or snow and "down" a stop or two for less bright sun and overcast sky.


Here's a full f-stop table for those who never knew manual cameras. (A change of 1 in EV is the same as a change of one f-stop. Double of halve shutter speed or ISO to change one stop. One stop in aperture changes with the area of the shutter aperture, so multiply or divide by the square root of 2 or about 1.4 to change one stop. Changing the EV setting on a drone by one number also changes exposure one stop.)



Or, just forget the tables and arithmetic as set ISO as low as it goes and let the camera's auto settings do their thing and bracket the shots.

 

[offtheback]

That's an exposure issue, not a dynamic range issue.






Or, just forget the tables and arithmetic as set ISO as low as it goes and let the camera's auto settings do their thing and bracket the shots.

Your F/16 table left my favorite from the Kodak sheets---"Open Shade"