Best ND Filter Grade and DJI Go Capture Settings for Hawaii / Other Tropical Outdoors Footage

[highcastle]

Sup ‘Vic Squad!

First off wanna thank you all for the countless helpful posts here - this forum has been a fountain of useful knowledge since I made the decision to upgrade from my P3P to a Mavic Air. Hope I will be able to contribute here a lot going forward.

I just purchased a Mavic Air (Fly More) and have about two hours of flight time logged so far. This thing is incredible. Hard to believe that they can pack all the features (well at least when the Mobile SDK gets updates in April) that my P3P had into something you can fit in the bottom of a backpack.

I’m taking a 7 day trip to Hawaii on the big island at the end of April, and bought the Air specifically for this trip.

This is the big island - we chose it instead of Waikiki because it’s mainly an outdoors trip.

As far as types of filming locations, we are going to be hiking all the waterfall trails and also doing some offshore excursions. Beaches, Volcano/lava hikes, and off-shore boat day trips to scuba. Also going to be doing some kitesurfing if conditions allow. And a Luah of course.

I want to go into this trip knowing what ND filters I need to be using, and when I should be using them. Additionally I want to ensure I’m making the most out of my camera + filters by using the correct Capture/Photo settings for all of the different filming scenarios (aka adventures I mentioned in the last paragraph) we are going to encounter.

Right now I have a set of ND32/64 filters from Fstops on Amazon ordered - should I be looking at purchasing any other filters for the filming scenarios I mentioned?

Any advice you guys can provide will be much appreciated - I can’t wait to come back with a hard drive full of footage to edit and post here.

 

[Squamer]

I flew Hawai‘i 3 weeks ago with ND32 16 and 8... few times I thought I should be using the 4 as it was raining and cloudy but it depends on your weather. Others witll disagree but my go tos on hay trip were the 32 mostly the 16 and then the 8.. we didn’t get many blazing sun days

 

[highcastle]

I flew Hawai‘i 3 weeks ago with ND32 16 and 8... few times I thought I should be using the 4 as it was raining and cloudy but it depends on your weather. Others witll disagree but my go tos on hay trip were the 32 mostly the 16 and then the 8.. we didn’t get many blazing sun days

Ok then looks like I will be picking up another set! Thanks for the input. What brand filters did you use? And would you recommend that brand or something different?

 

[Mr. Salty]

Which filter you use depends on what the light is like that day. If you're shooting video at 30 fps you use whichever filter will get your shutter speed to 1/60th of a second when shooting at 100 ISO.

On a bright, sunny day that will probably be the ND32. If you've over a white sandy beach it might even take an ND64. But in general, I use ND32 and ND16 the most.

 

[Squamer]

Ok then looks like I will be picking up another set! Thanks for the input. What brand filters did you use? And would you recommend that brand or something different?

Polar pros are the only filters I use on my Mavic Pro and Air. Tried them first and never left, scratched one by dropping it and they hooked me up with a replacement.

 

[highcastle]

Polar pros are the only filters I use on my Mavic Pro and Air. Tried them first and never left, scratched one by dropping it and they hooked me up with a replacement.

Did you go with Cinema or Standard.. if standard are you happy with it? Decisions decisions...

 

[Qoncussion]

I'm using Polar Pro, Skyreat and Neewer filters. I've been shooting photography for over 40 years, and was a pro videographer for over a decade. I honestly can't tell the difference between the three brands. I think that is due largely to the fact that the Mavic cameras (all models), in general, are not very good to begin with. If the camera had a larger sensor and aperture control, some differences might be noticeable. As it stands, I can't see any difference.

 

[Squamer]

Did you go with Cinema or Standard.. if standard are you happy with it? Decisions decisions...

I went with cinema series just because that’s what I ordered for my Mavic Pro last year and never had complaints.

 

[msinger]

I honestly can't tell the difference between the three brands.

I've had the same experience after trying many filter brands. The major differences I always find are the way the filters attach to the camera and the materials used to construct the filter. Image-wise, they always seem very close (indistinguishable to my eyes).