Mini 2 Bergen 4K. Transition from morning, evening and night in '1 shot'

[timsharp03]

This is my first published fully (almost) aerial video and I've stitched together 3 flights at different times of day to give a very almost matched up transition between scenes. Please let me know if there is a way to improve them further. The flights were all using a pre-set Litchi mission so they each flew as exactly the same path as GPS will allow. I was lucky with the morning clouds and the beautiful pre-sunset sun, though as it's a Mini2, the night shots are probably not as good as they could be. I'm using Videoproc as an editor and there were no filters used and no colour grading during editing.

Could I please have members thoughts?

 

[MS Coast]

I'll preface this by saying that I'm not an accomplished videographer or editor. So, take this as just comments from a rank amateur.

You chose a beautiful place to fly and you did some nice flight work. You captured some very beautiful clips and I like the idea of transitioning between times of day and daylight levels very much. The transitions were nicely flown and edited.

As for items to improve, I'll toss out a few things I've recently thought about with my own videos.

At O:14 as the brighter clip begins, there's some focus hunting. With advice from others here, I've found that it's best to use manual rather than auto focus, and set the focus near infinity for long shots like you have here.

There are a few places where the gimbal movements and yawing are a little abrupt and uneven.

I'm finding that shorter is better. You might consider reducing the length of some of the clips where there's just scenery going by and no other action. Maybe use just one clip of the microwave tower? The clips showing the single ship and the two cruise ships in the harbor were nice, and also a good length.

At about 2:00, I was struck by how fast that ferry was approaching the quay and I really wanted to see how it maneuvered to dock. (Probably not so interesting to most people.)

The changes in speed beginning at 2:27 and about 3:03 seemed out of place with the pace of the rest of the video and didn't make much sense to me.

At about 3:03, I see that you reversed a descent to show the view rising. Having the people walking backward is distracting. You might consider cutting the first portion of that clip.

Ending the final clip at about 4:26 when the city and hills come into view might be a good idea. The clip was a little long and there's an awkward pan after the gimbal pitch stops. Also, the last part of the descent made me a bit nervous about where the drone was going to end up. Fading to black from 4:26, maybe?

Thanks for sharing this. There have been a few interesting videos from Norway posted here in the last year and they've stirred my interest in the possibility of a visit. Your video shows me that I'll need to include Bergen.

 

[timsharp03]

I really appreciate your very comprehensive and detailed reply and the time you took to give these very constructive comments.

I think the problem at 0:14 is the transition, as the focus looks fine on both clips. The 3 different times of day were done with a Litchi waypoint mission and I think that using GPS, they will each be just a metre or so out from each other so it's difficult with my learner editing skills to iron that out - I'm sure there will be a way.

I agree about the gimbal yaw - again it's because most of the video is using Litchi - the only way I could get 3 near identical flight paths. I can't seem to iron out those uneven movements in Litchi waypoint missions.

I also like 'shorter is better' but after trialling my first effort on my family and friends, they all said they wanted to see longer shots to be able to take it all in, so I made the scenes longer. I did speed them up to my satisfaction for a section near the end starting at 3.10 and it looks great to me, though I notice that the clip focussing on the park at 3:17 is just a fraction out of time with the music.

Yes I can see the interest in knowing what the boat did - of course I missed it (I've checked the uncut and it's just out of shot)! This was a Litchi waypoint mission so I let it take it's course - I was just lucky a boat came along during the flight.

I partly agree with you about the changes in speed between 2:27 and 3:03. After viewing it myself now a few times, I didn't quite get the intended effect. I'm using Videoproc and I'm not sure if it's my ageing computer or Videoproc itself, but when I speed up parts of clips, it does not play it back properly until it is exported and I was so impatient to publish that I didn't take the time to re-do the video (it takes about 7 hours to export it at 4K). The speeded up night bit along the waterfront was intended to follow the bus right along to the King Tower, but it fizzled out instead. I speeded it up because I'm aware that my Mini 2 is not great for night shots, so having something to focus on would take your thoughts away from how grainy it is.

Yes at 3:03 I reversed the clip as it was more dramatic rising up - and yes I should have clipped the bottom, but I was amused by the people walking backwards. I tried to time the speeded up bits in this clip with the music.

The last clip was to wind down the video to the end of the song. To me the music is the most important part, I absolutely love it and am trying hard to find more music of the same quality. I thought the clip rounded things off nicely and the parent and child walking along the path in the trees right at the end I found appealing, though it did mean leaving in that unintended pan. You are most likely right though - it would be better fading it early.

Again Thanks for the detailed critique - I'd already re-edited the video to improve it including fixing a few of the things you mentioned, but I'd already posted the previous version to YouTube, so it's just sat on my computer! I suppose I should make another final edit and re-post it, when I find the time.

 

[Dale D]

I viewed the entire film and suffice it too say, I totally agree with and all of the comments by MS Coast. Shorter is always better on this forum. People are impatient to get on through the submissions. As I have said so many times here, my own Vimeo statistics monthly for several years now shows that only a few percent of people every finish a film, and the time spent viewing decreasing as the length of the film increases. Three minutes or less seem to be the "sweet spot." The other comments, such as the "almost crashing ship," the backwards walking man, the repeated flights through the harbor, etc. are often redundant and need to be edited out more judiciously.

Dale

 

[MS Coast]

I really appreciate your very comprehensive and detailed reply and the time you took to give these very constructive comments.

I think the problem at 0:14 is the transition, as the focus looks fine on both clips. The 3 different times of day were done with a Litchi waypoint mission and I think that using GPS, they will each be just a metre or so out from each other so it's difficult with my learner editing skills to iron that out - I'm sure there will be a way.

I agree about the gimbal yaw - again it's because most of the video is using Litchi - the only way I could get 3 near identical flight paths. I can't seem to iron out those uneven movements in Litchi waypoint missions.

I also like 'shorter is better' but after trialling my first effort on my family and friends, they all said they wanted to see longer shots to be able to take it all in, so I made the scenes longer. I did speed them up to my satisfaction for a section near the end starting at 3.10 and it looks great to me, though I notice that the clip focussing on the park at 3:17 is just a fraction out of time with the music.

Yes I can see the interest in knowing what the boat did - of course I missed it (I've checked the uncut and it's just out of shot)! This was a Litchi waypoint mission so I let it take it's course - I was just lucky a boat came along during the flight.

I partly agree with you about the changes in speed between 2:27 and 3:03. After viewing it myself now a few times, I didn't quite get the intended effect. I'm using Videoproc and I'm not sure if it's my ageing computer or Videoproc itself, but when I speed up parts of clips, it does not play it back properly until it is exported and I was so impatient to publish that I didn't take the time to re-do the video (it takes about 7 hours to export it at 4K). The speeded up night bit along the waterfront was intended to follow the bus right along to the King Tower, but it fizzled out instead. I speeded it up because I'm aware that my Mini 2 is not great for night shots, so having something to focus on would take your thoughts away from how grainy it is.

Yes at 3:03 I reversed the clip as it was more dramatic rising up - and yes I should have clipped the bottom, but I was amused by the people walking backwards. I tried to time the speeded up bits in this clip with the music.

The last clip was to wind down the video to the end of the song. To me the music is the most important part, I absolutely love it and am trying hard to find more music of the same quality. I thought the clip rounded things off nicely and the parent and child walking along the path in the trees right at the end I found appealing, though it did mean leaving in that unintended pan. You are most likely right though - it would be better fading it early.

Again Thanks for the detailed critique - I'd already re-edited the video to improve it including fixing a few of the things you mentioned, but I'd already posted the previous version to YouTube, so it's just sat on my computer! I suppose I should make another final edit and re-post it, when I find the time.

You know, I was forgetting that you'd used Litchi to shoot much of this.

The more I think about your time transitions during the day, the more interesting they get. Have you seen the seasonal transitions that @RadioFlyerMan posted last year? They're spectacular.

I've tinkered with Litchi a little with the Air 2S and it seems to present some great opportunities. I may be asking you for advice soon.

There's plenty of storage room on youtube. I'll look forward to seeing your edits on the Bergen tour.

 

[timsharp03]

I viewed the entire film and suffice it too say, I totally agree with and all of the comments by MS Coast. Shorter is always better on this forum. People are impatient to get on through the submissions. As I have said so many times here, my own Vimeo statistics monthly for several years now shows that only a few percent of people every finish a film, and the time spent viewing decreasing as the length of the film increases. Three minutes or less seem to be the "sweet spot." The other comments, such as the "almost crashing ship," the backwards walking man, the repeated flights through the harbor, etc. are often redundant and need to be edited out more judiciously.

Dale

Thanks for your reply. And in view of your comments, thanks for watching to the end! I made the video to fit the song and It's intention was to make a film of interest to people wanting to go to Bergen, but I totally agree that for the forum I should have edited it more aggressively and cut it down a lot - it is my first proper edit, so I'm still finding my way. I have updated the original to address some of the comments though I haven't had time to export or upload it yet, but will now do a mini version and try to keep the time to well under 3 minutes. My problem is slow internet - it takes several hours to export the video at 4k and my latest 4gb effort took 9 hours to upload to YouTube. I'll try to post a shorter edit over the next few days.

 

[timsharp03]

You know, I was forgetting that you'd used Litchi to shoot much of this.

The more I think about your time transitions during the day, the more interesting they get. Have you seen the seasonal transitions that @RadioFlyerMan posted last year? They're spectacular.

I've tinkered with Litchi a little with the Air 2S and it seems to present some great opportunities. I may be asking you for advice soon.

There's plenty of storage room on youtube. I'll look forward to seeing your edits on the Bergen tour.

Yes, the 3 main harbour clips and the one with the boat nearly crashing were Litchi waypoint missions, as were 2 of the mountain clips. Just seen the RadioFlyerMan film and the transitions are great - I don't think I have the software to do that - looks like each clip has to be moved slightly to make it align with the last one and I can't see a way to do that in Videoproc. I'll try doing very short transition effects though to see if it softens the join - though I still want it to be exact with the changes in the song. And yes, I'll post a couple of edits soon - one will be the edited and polished as much as possible original length version and the other will be a short version especially for the forum. Thanks again for taking the time to give good advice to a new starter.

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

This is my first published fully (almost) aerial video and I've stitched together 3 flights at different times of day to give a very almost matched up transition between scenes. Please let me know if there is a way to improve them further. The flights were all using a pre-set Litchi mission so they each flew as exactly the same path as GPS will allow. I was lucky with the morning clouds and the beautiful pre-sunset sun, though as it's a Mini2, the night shots are probably not as good as they could be. I'm using Videoproc as an editor and there were no filters used and no colour grading during editing.

Could I please have members thoughts?

View attachment 153363

I love time period transitions. Your base shots are cool.
May I suggest that after aligning the shots from multiple flights, which is a challenge in itself, add a fade transition of 2 to 4 seconds between the clips. The longer the better, but that requires accurate alignment.
A multiple flight alignment technique I use is to match key objects while ignoring the zooming or offset’s required to make the match. This may create blank borders. Then after creating a “composite clip”, I zoom in to fill the field of view to eliminate any blank boarders.
My explanation is probably confusing… if you were here I could show you. If you are interested, I have some examples on YouTube from which we could go deep on the subject.
Anyway keep up the innovative videos.

 

[timsharp03]

I love time period transitions. Your base shots are cool.
May I suggest that after aligning the shots from multiple flights, which is a challenge in itself, add a fade transition of 2 to 4 seconds between the clips. The longer the better, but that requires accurate alignment.
A multiple flight alignment technique I use is to match key objects while ignoring the zooming or offset’s required to make the match. This may create blank borders. Then after creating a “composite clip”, I zoom in to fill the field of view to eliminate any blank boarders.
My explanation is probably confusing… if you were here I could show you. If you are interested, I have some examples on YouTube from which we could go deep on the subject.
Anyway keep up the innovative videos.

Thanks for the tips, it was frustrating trying to get them to align properly as even though they were flying the exact same Litchi missions, they were out by probably up to a metre or so sideways. I did want to try to make the transitions really crisp in exact time with the music, but I want to try your method and see what it does. I would very much like to see your YouTube examples

 

[MS Coast]

Thanks for the tips, it was frustrating trying to get them to align properly as even though they were flying the exact same Litchi missions, they were out by probably up to a metre or so sideways. I did want to try to make the transitions really crisp in exact time with the music, but I want to try your method and see what it does. I would very much like to see your YouTube examples

@RadioFlyerMan so would I.

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

Thanks for the tips, it was frustrating trying to get them to align properly as even though they were flying the exact same Litchi missions, they were out by probably up to a metre or so sideways. I did want to try to make the transitions really crisp in exact time with the music, but I want to try your method and see what it does. I would very much like to see your YouTube examples

@RadioFlyerMan so would I.

Here are a couple of examples of transitions over time using multiple flights using my M2P:

This first example was created over one month calendar time. The first segment of the video was flown strictly vertical, aligned over a marked spot on my lawn with the camera at horizontal and pointing at some bush in my back yard. The concept I was going for was a silhouette foreground in motion, while the clouds, sky and sunset images changed from week to week.
The second segment of the video was flown using a 15 point waypoint mission, capturing a wide/distant field of view. I believe I used Full FOV rather than HQ. I then employed my transformation alignment and zoom in technique. The objective of this section was to see how repeatable Waypoint missions are and whether alignment could be achieved. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. I noticed that to get a consistent camera angle, the waypoint mission needed to be started from a consistent location and a higher altitude that the mission altitude. That forced the M2P to go through the same gyrations to start the flight.
The rest of this video is just ho-hum filler and is no big deal.

In this next example, all flights were manual over a several month time period. I aligned from flight to flight using specifically placed stakes in the ground, horizontal camera pointed at a known object, and noted elevation and speed. It was a lot of work, and sometimes the shots worked and sometimes they didn't. But given that all the degrees of freedom were restricted, alignment was actually pretty easy.

In this final example, I captured video clips of a forest changing over the fall into the winter. This one was pretty straightforward. I set a waypoint mission to get me to the location over a "hole" in the trees. Then simply pointed the camera down, turned on Tripod mode and flew straight up. Multiple flights were made over a handful of months. Again, alignment was pretty simple dealing with the changing scale of the field of view due to elevation rather than horizontal location.

Hope this gives you some ideas!

 

[timsharp03]

Here are a couple of examples of transitions over time using multiple flights using my M2P:

This first example was created over one month calendar time. The first segment of the video was flown strictly vertical, aligned over a marked spot on my lawn with the camera at horizontal and pointing at some bush in my back yard. The concept I was going for was a silhouette foreground in motion, while the clouds, sky and sunset images changed from week to week.
The second segment of the video was flown using a 15 point waypoint mission, capturing a wide/distant field of view. I believe I used Full FOV rather than HQ. I then employed my transformation alignment and zoom in technique. The objective of this section was to see how repeatable Waypoint missions are and whether alignment could be achieved. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. I noticed that to get a consistent camera angle, the waypoint mission needed to be started from a consistent location and a higher altitude that the mission altitude. That forced the M2P to go through the same gyrations to start the flight.
The rest of this video is just ho-hum filler and is no big deal.

In this next example, all flights were manual over a several month time period. I aligned from flight to flight using specifically placed stakes in the ground, horizontal camera pointed at a known object, and noted elevation and speed. It was a lot of work, and sometimes the shots worked and sometimes they didn't. But given that all the degrees of freedom were restricted, alignment was actually pretty easy.

In this final example, I captured video clips of a forest changing over the fall into the winter. This one was pretty straightforward. I set a waypoint mission to get me to the location over a "hole" in the trees. Then simply pointed the camera down, turned on Tripod mode and flew straight up. Multiple flights were made over a handful of months. Again, alignment was pretty simple dealing with the changing scale of the field of view due to elevation rather than horizontal location.

Hope this gives you some ideas!

Wow! I particularly liked the 2nd video, so many amazing transitions and lovely music. You live in a lovely place. I must try out some of your techniques, but not sure if I will have the time or skill to master them.
Thanks for sharing the videos - they deserve to be watched a lot more!

 

[MS Coast]

Here are a couple of examples of transitions over time using multiple flights using my M2P:

This first example was created over one month calendar time. The first segment of the video was flown strictly vertical, aligned over a marked spot on my lawn with the camera at horizontal and pointing at some bush in my back yard. The concept I was going for was a silhouette foreground in motion, while the clouds, sky and sunset images changed from week to week.
The second segment of the video was flown using a 15 point waypoint mission, capturing a wide/distant field of view. I believe I used Full FOV rather than HQ. I then employed my transformation alignment and zoom in technique. The objective of this section was to see how repeatable Waypoint missions are and whether alignment could be achieved. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. I noticed that to get a consistent camera angle, the waypoint mission needed to be started from a consistent location and a higher altitude that the mission altitude. That forced the M2P to go through the same gyrations to start the flight.
The rest of this video is just ho-hum filler and is no big deal.

In this next example, all flights were manual over a several month time period. I aligned from flight to flight using specifically placed stakes in the ground, horizontal camera pointed at a known object, and noted elevation and speed. It was a lot of work, and sometimes the shots worked and sometimes they didn't. But given that all the degrees of freedom were restricted, alignment was actually pretty easy.

In this final example, I captured video clips of a forest changing over the fall into the winter. This one was pretty straightforward. I set a waypoint mission to get me to the location over a "hole" in the trees. Then simply pointed the camera down, turned on Tripod mode and flew straight up. Multiple flights were made over a handful of months. Again, alignment was pretty simple dealing with the changing scale of the field of view due to elevation rather than horizontal location.

Hope this gives you some ideas!

I have some studying to do. Thanks for sending that.

 

[monteolsen1]

This is my first published fully (almost) aerial video and I've stitched together 3 flights at different times of day to give a very almost matched up transition between scenes. Please let me know if there is a way to improve them further. The flights were all using a pre-set Litchi mission so they each flew as exactly the same path as GPS will allow. I was lucky with the morning clouds and the beautiful pre-sunset sun, though as it's a Mini2, the night shots are probably not as good as they could be. I'm using Videoproc as an editor and there were no filters used and no colour grading during editing.

Could I please have members thoughts?

View attachment 153363

Wow. If I had to live in a city, Bergen would be amazing. Your pacing and scenes are captivating. You have a real gift for this.

By the way, you look a LOT like my brother. Our ancestors came from Karmsöy, specifically, near Alvaldsnes.

Thanks for publishing these videos. I look forward to seeing more.
.
Monte Olsen
Oregon, USA

 

[timsharp03]

Thanks for the comments Monte, really glad that people seem to like what I'm trying to do.
My approach on these aerial videos is to find a piece of music that goes with the subject and then edit the film to the music. I do long hyperlapse travel videos as well where the music is more to fill in the boredom!
I did add transitions into my Bergen video and was quite pleased with them, but both my wife and our daughter were adamant they spoilt it, preferring the hard transitions, so I'm now trying to match the transitions up more exactly to make a bigger impact.

I did do a video for Stavanger, to another piece of music by Scott Buckley. Unfortunately I didn't get chance to do multiple similar flights so there is no instant changing from day to dusk to night, but see what you think.

Your brother sure is good looking then ;-) Actually I'm not that good looking anymore, because when I was in Bergen, the drone tried to kill me by flying in my face - I got a bad cut on my nose which will be my defining feature from now on! That will teach me not to try to land on my hand with gusty winds.

We went fairly close to Alvaldsnes on our trip, but I'm not from Norway, I'm from the UK. Our daughter's boyfriend is from Stavanger so we went with her to Stavanger and then went off on our own.

 

[monteolsen1]

LOL. Well, he has a few years on ya (my brother, that is). So that insult delivered by your drone has time to heal. Your video of Stavsnger is another stunned. You really get a lot out of the Mini 2. The light changes and framing are terrific.

I’m envious of you guys. My ancestors went out of Stavsnger. I believe the ship then stopped in the UK, and then continued on where my great grandpa and family processed into the USA. The first stopped in Wisconsin for several years before ultimately settling in southern Washington and northern Oregon.

Your daughter must speak Norwegian. My grandfather grew up speaking it but didn’t use it much in front of us until he got older when he became a Norwegian chatterbox. That was awesome.

Thanks again for your videos. I’m now a subscriber!

 

[timsharp03]

Thanks again for your comments, it will spur me on to continue. Not sure if I've a few years on your brother - I'm 68.

We have cousins in the US, though they are in Saugus near Boston (or were when we last had contact about 50 years ago!). Maybe the ship your ancestors were on dropped off some of my ancestors when they stopped in the UK which might explain the likeness! Unfortunately our daughter Lydia doesn't really speak Norwegian - she met her boyfriend doing online gaming and of course that's all done in English. We're so lazy with languages - we expect everyone else to speaks ours!

 

[monteolsen1]

Thanks again for your comments, it will spur me on to continue. Not sure if I've a few years on your brother - I'm 68.

We have cousins in the US, though they are in Saugus near Boston (or were when we last had contact about 50 years ago!). Maybe the ship your ancestors were on dropped off some of my ancestors when they stopped in the UK which might explain the likeness! Unfortunately our daughter Lydia doesn't really speak Norwegian - she met her boyfriend doing online gaming and of course that's all done in English. We're so lazy with languages - we expect everyone else to speaks ours!

We’re lucky, my friend. LOL.