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Am I expecting too much?

I think the key is to slow down the shutter speed and you will get a smoother pan. I can't explain your 1/60 version, though, and suggest you try a low light situation, or use your new ND filters, going to a slower and slower shutter speed until you get a smooth pan that is to your liking. At some point (1/20 sec!) you will see substantial horizontal blur during the pan, which I am not seeing in your example, even when you forced 1/60 manually.

Loved your chateau video.
 
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I agree with Geigy. Smoother pans can be achieved with an ND filter and a slower shutter speed but the video you uploaded is not that bad, actually it looks good.
 
I agree with Geigy. Smoother pans can be achieved with an ND filter and a slower shutter speed but the video you uploaded is not that bad, actually it looks good.
maybe i am expecting too much but when I'm viewing the video on my mac it doesn't look good and nowhere near as good as my Yuneec!! if I view the video on my phone or iPad it doesn't look too bad and I wonder why I'm moaning like a woman!!!
 
The roughness is less noticeable on smaller devices. It's understandable that you want your videos to look good. You are not asking too much. Do what you can to slow down the shutter speed and I think it will be smoother. Also try 30 fps instead of 24, which will help with that too.
 
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From what I saw I would say that your Mavic is working great. You do need to use an ND filter to slow down the shutter speed to knock down the flicker effect.
 
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From what I saw I would say that your Mavic is working great. You do need to use an ND filter to slow down the shutter speed to knock down the flicker effect.
Ok thanks for your reply. Did you look at the video on full screen as that's when it looks worse? When I watch it on my iPad or iPhone it doesn't look too bad but on my 27" mac it looks awful!
 
I'm looking at it on a fairly large monitor - 1900x1200 pixels. I do see pan-related flicker, but it looks normal - i.e. no tearing or rippling of the image, no dropped frames, focus seems good.

Pausing for individual frames, the image is still fairly sharp. At 24 fps, the "ideal" shutter speed would be about 1/48 sec, so even at 1/60 I would expect the flicker to have more of an edge to it. Really, experiment with manually reducing the shutter speed to as close to 1/24 sec as you can, and I think you will see a very smooth pan.

Or am I barking up the wrong tree here - are you seeing an overall, consistent flicker, or some other problem?
 
You know where I don't need a ND filter to capture great video with no stutter during panning? My iPhone 7.

And my iPhone 6.

And my iPhone 4s.

And my iPhone 3GS.

And my $200 point-and-shoot camera from 2001.

And if McDonalds ever comes out with a toy camera to stuff into my kids Happy Meal, probably that one.

I don't think you're expecting too much.
 
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I meant 1/24. 1/48 is the "ideal" speed, and is a trade-off between too much horizontal blur and too much flicker, but it is not perfect for every situation. 1/24 would be the longest possible shutter speed, and would give the smoothest possible pan, but with rather a lot of blur. 1/60, which you were using in your sample, is significantly faster than 1/48. Somewhere in that range is your sweet spot, where the flicker looks the way you want it to.

This is not a quality or camera issue, in my opinion. It is a shutter speed issue, unless I am misunderstanding the problem you are describing. Experiment some more with the slower shutter speeds, and I think you will find a pan that is as smooth as your previous drone.
 
You know where I don't need a ND filter to capture great video with no stutter during panning? My iPhone 7.

And my iPhone 6.

And my iPhone 4s.

And my iPhone 3GS.

And my $200 point-and-shoot camera from 2001.

And if McDonalds ever comes out with a toy camera to stuff into my kids Happy Meal, probably that one.

I don't think you're expecting too much.
my thoughts exactly!! if I film with my iPhone it looks great. Fantastic reply
 
I don't know what the problem is. When I watch your video it looks fine to me. I see nothing wrong. I'm no video expert so maybe I'm not that critical. It's not jumping. It nice and smooth to me.
 
At least you had chance to sell yours...

Did same swap an i have been more than happy with my mavic and video it shoots


eccb501ff72ca904413cc1a907ab173b.jpg
 
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I don't know what the problem is. When I watch your video it looks fine to me. I see nothing wrong. I'm no video expert so maybe I'm not that critical. It's not jumping. It nice and smooth to me.

At seconds 7 through 16 the sky looks like a strobe light on my iPhone. I'm no expert either but it was very noticeable, especially when compared to how smooth the video is during the slow panning in the beginning and end.
 
I'm about to admit I was wrong...I know, I am shocked as well. I just noticed something interesting while slowly scrubbing through the video on my iPhone. Each individual frame is crystal clear, but more importantly is that there are, in fact, 24 distinct frames in each second (surprise surprise considering you filmed it @24fps ;))

With how choppy it was, I was under the impression that it was skipping frames, but the camera is showing you exactly what you asked it to. So that brings my to the topic: What does "Cinematic" even mean? In my mind, and probably most others, that term cinematic somehow equates to "my video will look good.......somehow".

Well, as we can see, 24fps doesn't look like it does in Lord of the Rings. It kinda looks like s*** actually. The difference is when you pause a quick moving scene in LOTR, the video is blurry. In our videos we get a snapshot so clear we can frame it and put it on our wall. It seems that for 24fps to work right and look good, your brain needs to have ALL the visual information contained in a panned scene, even if that means taking two frames and smearing the transition from one to the next (i.e. slow the shutter down like everyone keeps suggesting so that each frame is a blurry smear of light)

Apparently your brain is simultaneously lazy enough to see a blurry panned scene and think "huh...well I guess that was just too fast for me to process so I'll just assume it was clear and be happy with it" but also when shown 24 clear distinct frames per second it's like "nah man....nah see that's some ******** right there, you can't fool me...where's the rest of the information??"

So I guess the answer to the question – what is cinematic? – would be "blurry fast moving objects shown to your brain really slowly"

The only other option is to film in a higher frame rate and give your brain the missing information between the frames.
 
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I don't know what the problem is. When I watch your video it looks fine to me. I see nothing wrong. I'm no video expert so maybe I'm not that critical. It's not jumping. It nice and smooth to me.
It's when it's viewed on a large screen the footage is choppy as it pans!
 
At least you had chance to sell yours...

Did same swap an i have been more than happy with my mavic and video it shoots


eccb501ff72ca904413cc1a907ab173b.jpg
Yikes!! If it makes you feel better I did the exact same thing to mine!! I bought a new frame from eBay then YouTubed how to change it! It was tricky but worked perfect afterwards
 
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