Bass Harbor Maine. Fall 2019. ~Cloudy day grainy footage :( [Need help with settings/editing low light footage.]

BingErr · Mar 6, 2020

Shot a bunch of footage last Fall on the East coast. On cloudy days my footage turned out very grainy. I tried to do brightness/contrast and highlight/shadowing on this video for probably 2 hours before I just gave up and removed all effects from it. The grainy footage just starts looking worse when you start messing with the picture. So... I need to learn to shoot better video right away. Using manual settings and getting the ISO right. Possibly buying/using filters properly. Anytips for getting your M2P settings correct BEFORE you start shooting.

Here's my video with no effects.

Here's a video I edited last night and messed with the brightness/contrast and highlight/shadowing and it turned out WORSE. I should have just left it alone. UPDATE. Removed this edit and replaced with a Non-color corrected version.

Any tips to capture less grain, setting the ISO correctly, when to use filters, and why I failed when trying to adjust brightness/contrast and highlight/shadowing on the second video.
I haven't flown the M2P a lot this winter, so I need to get my settings dialed in for Spring, Summer, and next Fall videos.

Dedal · Mar 6, 2020

Man, sorry to tell you, but the second video doesn't look very pleasing... OK, if that's your style, that's fine, for me it just looks too artificial, not the huge fan of too strong HDR look myself. Forget filters, they help sometimes, sometimes they make things worse. How is it possible for the first video to look so dull even on auto settings? In what time of the day was this video taken? Looks to me like it was cloudy day. Yes, of course, you should try manual (ISO as low as it goes for given situation, aperture depending on what you want to achieve, shutter 180degrees, twice the frame rate, if possible), but still, even Mini has more vibrancy and contrast then this on auto settings. Sorry, but this is really strange...

BingErr · Mar 6, 2020

Dedal said:
Man, sorry to tell you, but the second video doesn't look very pleasing... OK, if that's your style, that's fine, for me it just looks too artificial, not the huge fan of too strong HDR look myself. Forget filters, they help sometimes, sometimes they make things worse. How is it possible for the first video to look so dull even on auto settings? In what time of the day was this video taken? Looks to me like it was cloudy day. Yes, of course, you should try manual (ISO as low as it goes for given situation, aperture depending on what you want to achieve, shutter 180degrees, twice the frame rate, if possible), but still, even Mini has more vibrancy and contrast then this on auto settings. Sorry, but this is really strange...

Uploaded a new version of the 2nd video. All contrast, brightness, sharpening, highlight, and shadow effects removed. Better but still not great to to the poor lighting conditions and very obvious grainy look. Not sure if there is a way to increase colors and contrast on a video of this quality. Suggestions?
Looking for the EXIF data on my video files to try to find the ISO and aperture info. Is there a way to find this?

Dedal · Mar 6, 2020

BingErr said:
Uploaded a new version of the 2nd video. All contrast, brightness, sharpening, highlight, and shadow effects removed. Better but still not great to to the poor lighting conditions and very obvious grainy look. Not sure if there is a way to increase colors and contrast on a video of this quality. Suggestions?

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Looking for the EXIF data on my video files to try to find the ISO and aperture info. Is there a way to find this?

MediaInfo should give you all the data info you need.

MediaInfo

MediaInfo is a convenient unified display of the most relevant technical and tag data for video and audio files

mediaarea.net

Dedal · Mar 6, 2020

BingErr said:
Uploaded a new version of the 2nd video. All contrast, brightness, sharpening, highlight, and shadow effects removed. Better but still not great to to the poor lighting conditions and very obvious grainy look. Not sure if there is a way to increase colors and contrast on a video of this quality. Suggestions?

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Looking for the EXIF data on my video files to try to find the ISO and aperture info. Is there a way to find this?

Well, editing is always personal decision of how video should look like, depending on how well you know the software you use. Some video files are gonna allow for more aggressive editing, some will break down fast if you try to apply desired look. Any software, free or not, should do the job, it all comes to what you want to do. Basic ones, like Windows Movie Maker, Filmora, VSDC... Are good enough for starters.

Made2Phly · Mar 6, 2020

Dedal said:
Well, editing is always personal decision of how video should look like, depending on how well you know the software you use. Some video files are gonna allow for more aggressive editing, some will break down fast if you try to apply desired look. Any software, free or not, should do the job, it all comes to what you want to do. Basic ones, like Windows Movie Maker, Filmora, VSDC... Are good enough for starters.

Not sure if this is on point, but my MP1 will not give sharp video focus on leaves, and its inability to do so is particularly pronounced when there are buildings and trees in the same frame, as with a few of your shots. Sunlight seems to help, but even then leaves are still not as sharp as I would like. I am debatingthinking of upgrading to the M2P simply to get the 1 inch sensor in hopes of improving these issues.

Capt KO · Mar 6, 2020

Don’t know why everything seems a bit out of focus. But I do love the location.

BingErr · Mar 6, 2020

Santoli said:
Not sure if this is on point, but my MP1 will not give sharp video focus on leaves, and its inability to do so is particularly pronounced when there are buildings and trees in the same frame, as with a few of your shots. Sunlight seems to help, but even then leaves are still not as sharp as I would like. I am debatingthinking of upgrading to the M2P simply to get the 1 inch sensor in hopes of improving these issues.

My MPP has a fuzzy/soft focus on the left side only in some videos. Not sure why.

BingErr · Mar 6, 2020

Capt KO said:
Don’t know why everything seems a bit out of focus. But I do love the location.

I think it's just the low light giving everything a grainy look. Some videos shot on the same vacation but with more light turned out just fine.
example

Dedal · Mar 7, 2020

L

BingErr said:
I think it's just the low light giving everything a grainy look. Some videos shot on the same vacation but with more light turned out just fine.
example

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Light is everything. No camera (or software) can perform wonders without it.

mraroid · Mar 7, 2020

I guess I missed it, but I am unshure of which software you are using to edit and color correct your footage. Can you tell me?

Because of time issues, I was forced to shoot some video with my mavic mini at 3 PM on a very overcast day. The 2.7K video came out very flat looking. I am learing DaVinci Resolve 16. I did some very modest color, contrast and white balance correcting. I have found that a *very little* goes a long way. I do not know enought to give advice. But for me, less was better.

mraroid

BingErr · Mar 8, 2020

mraroid said:
I guess I missed it, but I am unshure of which software you are using to edit and color correct your footage. Can you tell me?

Because of time issues, I was forced to shoot some video with my mavic mini at 3 PM on a very overcast day. The 2.7K video came out very flat looking. I am learing DaVinci Resolve 16. I did some very modest color, contrast and white balance correcting. I have found that a *very little* goes a long way. I do not know enought to give advice. But for me, less was better.

mraroid

I'm using Premiere Pro, and I am not good at color correction. How did your "flat" footage turn out after using DaVinci? I'd love to see an example.

mraroid · Mar 8, 2020

Hi BingErr....

Premiere Pro is outstanding. So the issue is not the software you are using.

DaVinci is free and is available for the Mac and the PC. It comes with a pdf of the users manual which is slightly over 3,000 pages long. I also bought a book on DaVinci Resolve 16 on Amazon (about $39 and free prime shipping). But mostly I learned how to do basic edits and basic kindergarden kind of stuff with color correcting by watching You Tube videos. I am sure You Tube has many vidoes on how to color correct with Premiere Pro.

If you want to look at it, here is a link to DaVinci Resolve 16. Scroll to the very bottom of the link below to see the down load options:

DaVinci Resolve | Blackmagic Design

Professional video editing, color correction, visual effects and audio post production all in a single application. Free and paid versions for Mac, Windows and Linux.

www.blackmagicdesign.com

Here is a link to my 6 minute video I color corrected with DaVinci. Note that I am new to flying, so the video is very basic and full of mistakes.

mraroid

Scrinch · Mar 12, 2020

I am new to drones, but have done photography since 1967. As someone said previously light is everything. Dull light gives dull pictures. The second thing I learned over my years is to find something that is rated well and learn it. So many photographers are looking for the next best technology to fix issues. when what they have is fine, they just need to learn how to use it. ISO.....use the lowest you can to achieve the aperture you need to achieve DOF and proper exposure. Higher ISO and grain go together. I used to shoot Fugichrome Velvia, ISO 50 and a tripod, simply because it had great color and very little grain. All that said, I really liked your video.

mraroid · Mar 12, 2020

Thank you Scncer. When Kodak stopped making Kodachrome, I switched to Fugichrome Velvia, ISO 50 as well. I still shoot film. As well as slides, I shoot Super8, 16mm and a little 35 mm. A couple of years ago, Kodak re introduced a new mix of the old Ektachrome. I have shot some in my 35mm SLR camera and also some Super8 Ektachrome. I love the look of film myself....

mraroid

BingErr · Mar 12, 2020

Scrinch said:
I am new to drones, but have done photography since 1967. As someone said previously light is everything. Dull light gives dull pictures. The second thing I learned over my years is to find something that is rated well and learn it. So many photographers are looking for the next best technology to fix issues. when what they have is fine, they just need to learn how to use it. ISO.....use the lowest you can to achieve the aperture you need to achieve DOF and proper exposure. Higher ISO and grain go together. I used to shoot Fugichrome Velvia, ISO 50 and a tripod, simply because it had great color and very little grain. All that said, I really liked your video.

Good tips. Thank you.