Beginner ND Filter/Rolling Shot Question

[lockidy]

Hi friends,

I am just joining the drone community as a complere beginner, and I purchased a Mavic Air 2 as my first drone.

To start off my drone flying career, I was wanting to pursue aerial photography of automobiles as a way to learn the ropes of camera settings and best ways to fly the drone.

Could anyone give me some advice or pointers on an ND filter set to buy (if necessary) for this purpose, and a guide on how to get some good rolling shots of cars from an aerial setting with this drone? Anything would be very much appreciated, happy to be joining the community.
Thanks

 

[Meta4]

Could anyone give me some advice or pointers on an ND filter set to buy (if necessary) for this purpose, and a guide on how to get some good rolling shots of cars from an aerial setting with this drone?

What are you hoping to achieve with ND filters?
If you are talking about shooting stills, unless you have a particular reason to want to force a slower shutter speed, there's no reason to use ND filters.

 

[lockidy]

What are you hoping to achieve with ND filters?
If you are talking about shooting stills, unless you have a particular reason to want to force a slower shutter speed, there's no reason to use ND filters.

My understanding was that I can create motion blur in the background of the shot with the moving object with ND filters and not over/under expose it.
Camera settings and functionality is all new to me so I’m not really sure if this is correct or not, or even what I need

 

[Meta4]

My understanding was that I can create motion blur in the background of the shot with the moving object with ND filters and not over/under expose it.
Camera settings and functionality is all new to me so I’m not really sure if this is correct or not, or even what I need

ND filters might be helpful for that kind of shot, but managing to get your moving subject acceptably sharp might be tricky.

 

[lockidy]

ND filters might be helpful for that kind of shot, but managing to get your moving subject acceptably sharp might be tricky.

Thanks for your input! Is there any resources you could personally recommend, youtubers, websites etc for learning more?

 

[SethB]

Background motion blur is a really cool stills technique. What a great idea to aerialize it!

Yes, it does depend on camera motion matching subject motion. That’s the trick on the ground or in the air, and there will always be a lot of rejects. Do shoot many shots! If you have a drone that does “follow” shots you could test it more easily.

I’ve never seen such a drone tutorial - maybe you could figure it out and make one! There are plenty of conventional photo resources if you search on background motion blur.

<<edit>>
this has all the basics!

 

[lockidy]

Background motion blur is a really cool stills technique. What a great idea to aerialize it!

Yes, it does depend on camera motion matching subject motion. That’s the trick on the ground or in the air, and there will always be a lot of rejects. Do shoot many shots! If you have a drone that does “follow” shots you could test it more easily.

I’ve never seen such a drone tutorial - maybe you could figure it out and make one! There are plenty of conventional photo resources if you search on background motion blur.

Fortunately I do have the Mavic Air 2 so I can do a follow mode. I’ll be sure to check out that search query. That’s a good idea about the tutorial as well I’ll definitely make one once I have the technique down.
Thanks!

 

[vindibona1]

Lots of good answers. I liked what @Meta4 said.

Here's the thing. Motion blur is a cinematic effect. However the farther you are from the subject the less important and obvious that becomes. But lets say you want to set up your drone for that. Essentially you have to be on shutter priority with a shutter speed of 1/50 or 1/60 depending on whether you shoot in 24fps or 30fps.

What can come in handy is a hand held light meter so you can sample the lighting ahead of launching to determine your best choice of ND filter. But in lieu of that here is a quick cheat sheet for ND filters. With a MA2 you will always be looking at the scale to the far left for f2.8. It seems that if you need the cinematic blur you will almost always be using an ND filter. The MA2 A2s are incredible drones, but the one gift that DJI didn't bless them with was a variable aperture which they kept in reserve knowing that folks will pay up (currently to the Mavic 2 Pro) just for that feature.

Hope this helps.


and ob

 

[lockidy]

Lots of good answers. I liked what @Meta4 said.

Here's the thing. Motion blur is a cinematic effect. However the farther you are from the subject the less important and obvious that becomes. But lets say you want to set up your drone for that. Essentially you have to be on shutter priority with a shutter speed of 1/50 or 1/60 depending on whether you shoot in 24fps or 30fps.

What can come in handy is a hand held light meter so you can sample the lighting ahead of launching to determine your best choice of ND filter. But in lieu of that here is a quick cheat sheet for ND filters. With a MA2 you will always be looking at the scale to the far left for f2.8. It seems that if you need the cinematic blur you will almost always be using an ND filter. The MA2 A2s are incredible drones, but the one gift that DJI didn't bless them with was a variable aperture which they kept in reserve knowing that folks will pay up (currently to the Mavic 2 Pro) just for that feature.

Hope this helps.

View attachment 132421
and ob

Thanks for the all the info and the chart, very helpful!!

 

[Meta4]

My understanding was that I can create motion blur in the background of the shot with the moving object with ND filters and not over/under expose it.
Camera settings and functionality is all new to me so I’m not really sure if this is correct or not, or even what I need

Here's an example of this kind of photography (not shot with a drone).

The camera is tracking the rider to keep the subject sharp while the background is blurred by the motion of the camera using a relatively slow shutter speed.
Usually this is done with a telephoto lens which magnifies the movement blur for the more distant background and helps isolate the subject.

This is going to be tricky with a drone because you would need to match the speed of your subject to keep it sharp and the very wideangle lens will provide less difference between subject and background and require you to be closer to keep the subject prominent in the frame.

It's going to take a lot of trial and error to get it right.

 

[Dave Maine]

The wide angle lens used on DJI drones will make this almost impossible to do. Telephoto lenses have very narrow angles of view and shallow depth of fields, both of which help get this effect.

 

[SethB]

Lots of good answers. I liked what @Meta4 said.

Here's the thing. Motion blur is a cinematic effect. However the farther you are from the subject the less important and obvious that becomes. But lets say you want to set up your drone for that. Essentially you have to be on shutter priority with a shutter speed of 1/50 or 1/60 depending on whether you shoot in 24fps or 30fps…

The context here is still photography, not video. It’s different, and relates to how we have learned to interpret blur as an indicator of speed. A frequent application is in still photography of motorsports.

In terrestrial filming, conventional motion blur is considered normal. This is a convention regarding how viewers have learned to see film and television. It isn’t a “cinematic” effect in terrestrial use - it’s what every pro videographer and cinematographer learns as foundational practice. There can be motivations to use something other than the conventions, to create an unusual representation of motion. Non-conventional shutter speeds are recognized as an “effect”.

Vin’s post reflects a movement towards a different convention in drone filming (not stills!). To restate Duke Ellington’s famous quote: “If it looks good it is good!”, and sharpness (no blur!) at 4k and above is valued more than conventional motion blur by many people sharing their experience or amplifying what others have shared. Not to mention the difficulty, expense, and potential loss of ND filters! Whether a particular combination of shutter speed, framerate, and resolution produces motion that is janky or stutters is in the eye of the beholder.

The wide angle lens used on DJI drones will make this almost impossible to do. Telephoto lenses have very narrow angles of view and shallow depth of fields, both of which help get this effect.

Another famous quote: “In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice sometimes they’re different.” I’d restate that as “One experiment is worth a hundred internet opinions.” No offense to Dave Maine, I encourage the original poster to experiment with motion and blur in stills, and I plan to do the same when I have the opportunity!

 

[vindibona1]

The context here is still photography, not video. It’s different, and relates to how we have learned to interpret blur as an indicator of speed. A frequent application is in still photography of motorsports.

I'm not a very good reader, but the words "rolling shots" in conjunction with ND filters indicated video to me- as in video rolling from the drone... not the car rolling on the ground . Had the OP specified that the CARS would be rolling to get blur of the wheels etc it would have been more clear. Words mean things, and as without illustrations as Meta4 provided with the bicycle shot it was clear that the rolling of the car was unclear.