Calling Film Makers and Photographers

[shaunmichaelj]

I've watched a lot of videos now in what my camera settings should be... However I seem to be getting a lot of white balance, or it's too dark.. I cannot get my footage right.. I've edited some photographs which came out okay.

Yes I am a noob at drones and a noob at film making/photography.. But I've had some fun and I'd like to create some stuff.

Question..

What is your favourite set up for video and why?

What settings work for you on the MA in both evening and morning time shots?

What the hell am I doing wrong.

Current set up is daylight and ISO to 100.
Many thanks

Shaun

 

[mblaide]

Your photos should be shot in raw format (DNG), not just jpg. I then send these to Adobe Lightroom to make adjustments, like brightening the darks, etc. I do the same with photos from my DLSR camera. For videos I've been using Davinci Resolve (free version) for editing videos, adding music, and color correction. I shot everything in auto on my Spark but now with the Mavic Air I am playing around more with the manual settings. ISO 100 is preferred whenever possible to reduce noise. On really bright days you could benefit from an ND filter to help reduce your shutter speed and make the videos look a little smoother. It is difficult for cameras to properly expose a scene with a dark landscape and a bright sky.

 

[shaunmichaelj]

May I ask.. What are your exact settings for all of your video settings?
Are their filters out for the Mavic air yet?

 

[Fmoots]

For video settings I'd recommending the following, if you're trying to achieve cinematic shots:

4k @ 24fps (or if you're struggling getting smooth movements with 24fps you can always shoot at 30fps then conform to 24fps in post, which will give you 80% speed video, so it will appear slightly smoother). Or you can even shoot at 2.7k 60fps fps, then place on a 24fps timeline and you'll achieve 40% slow motion which is even smoother.

Always keep ISO a low as possible - so 100. Also set the white balance according to the conditions (sunny/cloudy etc), I wouldn't use auto since it means it'll adjust on the fly, which is a nightmare when applying colour later.

If possible try to achieve a shutter speed of double your framerate (or a close as you can) - so 1/50th if you're shooting 24fps, 120th if shooting 60fps etc). This will give you nice motion blur that is associated with a cinematic look.It also prevents stutter. You'll need ND filters to achieve this, since on very bright days the shutter will be very fast, since the sensor needs to limit the amount of light coming in, otherwise it will be very overexposed (slower shutter lets more light in - the ND's will act as sunglasses and allow the shutter to be open longer)

For picture profile I'd shoot in Cinelike, and possibly adjust the contrast or saturation to -3 and -1. You can add this back in post but it gives you more flexibility. Especially if you're applying LUTS (which are basically colour presets). I'd agree with mblaide regarding Davinchi Resolve, which is very powerful editing software and it's almost hard to believe it's completely free. You can add LUTS, colour grading, aspect ratio black bars (some people like these to make it appear more cinematic, stabilisation etc. There's alot of free LUTS you can download that mimic different film styles and can be used to make your footage look alot better. Some are paid packs and some are free, and you can apply them using Davinchi (also free). I'm sure they'll be plenty coming out in the near future made specifically for the Mavic Air

Have fun!

 

[NKZY]

To OP - It would also help if you posted sample footage, then we could give you a better idea of what you need to do in order to correct the problems. What Fmoots said above me is an excellent start though. You cant expect your footage to come out of the camera and look like all the cinematic video you see from DJI and other users. That kind of footage looks terrible to the casual viewer when captured (if using the settings as listed above, D-Cinelike -3 contrast, -1 sat.) and then is heavily colored in a program such as Adobe premier pro, Davinci Resolve etc. Depending on what program you are using to edit, watch some youtube tutorials on color correcting. It is not too hard to get some decent results with a bit of practice. If you do not have a program that allows you to color correct, then you are going to want to play around with your color settings in the menu a bit more in order to capture solid footage right out of the camera (don't use D-Cinelike if you don't plan on color correcting).

 

[OldBlueHeron]

Good video

 

[zwt100]

For video settings I'd recommending the following, if you're trying to achieve cinematic shots:

4k @ 24fps (or if you're struggling getting smooth movements with 24fps you can always shoot at 30fps then conform to 24fps in post, which will give you 80% speed video, so it will appear slightly smoother). Or you can even shoot at 2.7k 60fps fps, then place on a 24fps timeline and you'll achieve 40% slow motion which is even smoother.

Always keep ISO a low as possible - so 100. Also set the white balance according to the conditions (sunny/cloudy etc), I wouldn't use auto since it means it'll adjust on the fly, which is a nightmare when applying colour later.

If possible try to achieve a shutter speed of double your framerate (or a close as you can) - so 1/50th if you're shooting 24fps, 120th if shooting 60fps etc). This will give you nice motion blur that is associated with a cinematic look.It also prevents stutter. You'll need ND filters to achieve this, since on very bright days the shutter will be very fast, since the sensor needs to limit the amount of light coming in, otherwise it will be very overexposed (slower shutter lets more light in - the ND's will act as sunglasses and allow the shutter to be open longer)

For picture profile I'd shoot in Cinelike, and possibly adjust the contrast or saturation to -3 and -1. You can add this back in post but it gives you more flexibility. Especially if you're applying LUTS (which are basically colour presets). I'd agree with mblaide regarding Davinchi Resolve, which is very powerful editing software and it's almost hard to believe it's completely free. You can add LUTS, colour grading, aspect ratio black bars (some people like these to make it appear more cinematic, stabilisation etc. There's alot of free LUTS you can download that mimic different film styles and can be used to make your footage look alot better. Some are paid packs and some are free, and you can apply them using Davinchi (also free). I'm sure they'll be plenty coming out in the near future made specifically for the Mavic Air

Have fun!

Not OP but I had a quick question. When I go into my color settings it does offer Cinelike as an option unless I’m set to video. Is that normal or should I have that option for photos as well? Sorry if this is a dumb question, I’m very new to this as well. Thankfully everyone in this forum has been really helpful!

 

[Fmoots]

Not OP but I had a quick question. When I go into my color settings it does offer Cinelike as an option unless I’m set to video. Is that normal or should I have that option for photos as well? Sorry if this is a dumb question, I’m very new to this as well. Thankfully everyone in this forum has been really helpful!

No problem! Cinelike is what's referred to as a 'picture profile' and is only for video. It's basically what is 'baked in' to the image, and most cameras will have several choices of picture profile depending on the style you want. The MA only has 2, I believe the MP has more.

With Cinelike it's really meant to give you a flatter image, which won't look that great straight out of camera, but will give you more flexibility later on should you wish to colour grade your footage to give you it a specific cinematic look or style. If you're not intending to colour the footage the normal setting still produces perfectly good results, and probably the best option if you're just looking to share straight with friends/family or social media.

The picture profiles don't apply to stills so you won't have this option for stills - the closest thing to a 'flat' image for photos would be raw (select jpeg&raw for format). This gives you a jpeg image which should be ready to share and has things like saturation/contrast 'baked in' since the processing is done in camera, the raw file takes in a lot more data from the sensor, and is really designed so you can 'develop' the photo later on in a program like Lightroom, or I'd even recommend 'Snapseed' which is a great mobile app for iOS and android which allows you to edit Raw files. An example of when this is very useful is if you take a photo in low light, you can increase in shadows in a raw file and you'll notice a lot of detail in very dark areas that was previously not visible can be recovered, and you can actually make a very dull dark looking photo a lot better. The same works for a very bright sky that may look overexposed, bring the highlights right down and you can recover the sky. The same applied for video.

Hope you're enjoying the drone!

 

[zwt100]

No problem! Cinelike is what's referred to as a 'picture profile' and is only for video. It's basically what is 'baked in' to the image, and most cameras will have several choices of picture profile depending on the style you want. The MA only has 2, I believe the MP has more.

With Cinelike it's really meant to give you a flatter image, which won't look that great straight out of camera, but will give you more flexibility later on should you wish to colour grade your footage to give you it a specific cinematic look or style. If you're not intending to colour the footage the normal setting still produces perfectly good results, and probably the best option if you're just looking to share straight with friends/family or social media.

The picture profiles don't apply to stills so you won't have this option for stills - the closest thing to a 'flat' image for photos would be raw (select jpeg&raw for format). This gives you a jpeg image which should be ready to share and has things like saturation/contrast 'baked in' since the processing is done in camera, the raw file takes in a lot more data from the sensor, and is really designed so you can 'develop' the photo later on in a program like Lightroom, or I'd even recommend 'Snapseed' which is a great mobile app for iOS and android which allows you to edit Raw files. An example of when this is very useful is if you take a photo in low light, you can increase in shadows in a raw file and you'll notice a lot of detail in very dark areas that was previously not visible can be recovered, and you can actually make a very dull dark looking photo a lot better. The same works for a very bright sky that may look overexposed, bring the highlights right down and you can recover the sky. The same applied for video.

Hope you're enjoying the drone!

Thank you that’s very helpful I really appreciate it. Love my drone, haven’t been this excited about a hobby since I was young. When editing in Lightroom, what are the main properties you typically look to adjust first? I’ve only had three days of flying and they’ve all been and overcast so I’ve been tinkering mostly with the saturation and vibrance in an attempt to add more color. Sometimes this leads to over saturation and unrealistic looking images. Is it just a matter of finding that sweet spot or is there a good way to easily find the right color balance?

 

[Fmoots]

Thank you that’s very helpful I really appreciate it. Love my drone, haven’t been this excited about a hobby since I was young. When editing in Lightroom, what are the main properties you typically look to adjust first? I’ve only had three days of flying and they’ve all been and overcast so I’ve been tinkering mostly with the saturation and vibrance in an attempt to add more color. Sometimes this leads to over saturation and unrealistic looking images. Is it just a matter of finding that sweet spot or is there a good way to easily find the right color balance?

No problem! I feel the same, this is also my first drone after being quite into photos/video on normal camera that don't fly! So I'm just getting used to the flying mechanics aswell, but really enjoying it so far.

I feel your pain with the overcast conditions, rare that the sun comes out in Scotland! When it's cloudy I'd recommend setting your white balance to cloudy since it'll warm up your image abit. I'd avoid going too heavy on the saturation since as you say it ends up looking quite unnatural.

I'm by no means an expert, and also just a hobbyist but in terms of main properties to adjust I'd start with making sure the exposure is correct. The histogram will help with this, which is basically a graphical representation of true blacks and true whites in your image. I'd start with pulling highlights down and shadows up, since this will likely bring out the sky better and bring out details in darker areas of your image, it will also add contrast. You can also do this by messing about with the contrast slider. In terms of colour, it's really just a personal preference and a case of tinkering the image until you find a look or style you like, there's no set way to do it, it's all about being creative I guess!

The colour tabs also allow you to add in specific colours only in shadows or only in highlights, for example you can add saturation to only the green part of the image without affecting the rest. A popular look is changing the hue of the green to an orange tone and the blue's to a more of a teal. This creates the much used 'orange and teal' or 'blockbuster' look as it's sometimes referred to. Best advise is youtube is your friend here, loads of good Lightroom tutorials and loads of amazing free content on there! You can also get preset packs for Lightroom which do alot of the work for you and you can still get good results.

For example here's the raw from the MA followed by the image with abit of added contrast, dehaze, highlights brought down, saturation increased and some reds added to the midtones:




Best of luck!

 

[Aerial West]

I've watched a lot of videos now in what my camera settings should be... However I seem to be getting a lot of white balance, or it's too dark.. I cannot get my footage right.. I've edited some photographs which came out okay.

Yes I am a noob at drones and a noob at film making/photography.. But I've had some fun and I'd like to create some stuff.

Question..

What is your favourite set up for video and why?

What settings work for you on the MA in both evening and morning time shots?

What the **** am I doing wrong.

Current set up is daylight and ISO to 100.
Many thanks

Shaun

one tip i always give my students is to learn the drone camera ON THE GROUND.

You get far more time to learn exposure, ISO, frame rate, etc. So be it photography or videography, spend time on the ground. try 3 different exposures on the same ****, write it down, see which one worked for you in post. THAT'S how you get quality time on a drone camera.

 

[zwt100]

No problem! I feel the same, this is also my first drone after being quite into photos/video on normal camera that don't fly! So I'm just getting used to the flying mechanics aswell, but really enjoying it so far.

I feel your pain with the overcast conditions, rare that the sun comes out in Scotland! When it's cloudy I'd recommend setting your white balance to cloudy since it'll warm up your image abit. I'd avoid going too heavy on the saturation since as you say it ends up looking quite unnatural.

I'm by no means an expert, and also just a hobbyist but in terms of main properties to adjust I'd start with making sure the exposure is correct. The histogram will help with this, which is basically a graphical representation of true blacks and true whites in your image. I'd start with pulling highlights down and shadows up, since this will likely bring out the sky better and bring out details in darker areas of your image, it will also add contrast. You can also do this by messing about with the contrast slider. In terms of colour, it's really just a personal preference and a case of tinkering the image until you find a look or style you like, there's no set way to do it, it's all about being creative I guess!

The colour tabs also allow you to add in specific colours only in shadows or only in highlights, for example you can add saturation to only the green part of the image without affecting the rest. A popular look is changing the hue of the green to an orange tone and the blue's to a more of a teal. This creates the much used 'orange and teal' or 'blockbuster' look as it's sometimes referred to. Best advise is youtube is your friend here, loads of good Lightroom tutorials and loads of amazing free content on there! You can also get preset packs for Lightroom which do alot of the work for you and you can still get good results.

For example here's the raw from the MA followed by the image with abit of added contrast, dehaze, highlights brought down, saturation increased and some reds added to the midtones:
View attachment 30798

View attachment 30799

Best of luck!

Your pics are amazing, I’d love to get on that level some day. Thanks again, I had no idea about the color tab. I’ll definitely follow your advice. I’ve started watching some videos last night as well which have been helpful. It’s been fun hearing everyone’s suggestions. I’m really impressed by everyone of the forum and how eager they are to help.

 

[strademarkworld]

Raw+iso 100+aeb or 7 burst
edited on ps and lr

and i explained how to print a a1 size file also with a technique called super resolution
videos: not my thing yet