DJI Mavic, Air and Mini Drones
Friendly, Helpful & Knowledgeable Community
Join Us Now

Camera/Video Settings for In doors?

Rik

Active Member
Joined
Apr 6, 2018
Messages
25
Reactions
17
Age
24
I fly the Mavic Pro in doors, well in the warehouse filming video of operations as well as some photos.

Is there a particular setting that would work best for indoors?

Not that I have a problem with the factory settings, however, with the warehouse doors open; any shots that are aiming towards the doors get dark or whited out.

Should I be using a specific filter for the indoor shots?

Looking for advice as now I just press the screen on my phone where I want the auto focus to be at and try to orient the drone so that the camera does not point towards the open door.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Chirp
Not to sound like a jerk or nothin’ ... but this might come out wrong.

Filters are used... not generally for indoor... unless you’re going for a special look .... in which case this wouldn’t be asked.

Really... can you narrow down the question? What don’t you like with your video?

A few terms you really might want to look up - histogram, polarizer, ND filter, FPS (no, not counter strike).

Then the best thing to do is do a lot of flying, and learn about how each impacts the resulting video. When getting started just play with one element until your comfortable and anticipate the result.

It’s an enormous topic and there are a ton of resources out there.
 
Sorry for the delay, what I’m trying to do is figure out how to make the videos and photos the best while filing in limited natural sunlight as the warehouse isn’t excessively bright.

When the warehouse doors are open it restricts the video and photos to be taken with the door to the back of the drone, else the video and photos will be excessively dark and really unusable.

I’ve read that photography advise a high ISO for indoors with a flash but we do not have a flash. Hence the unknown.

Just looking for advice for flying in poorly lit areas, and dealing with the imbalance of light as the situation with the doors being open presents.

TIA
 
There is nothing magical you can do in such high dynamic range situations. Unless you have an awesome camera with huge dynamic range you just want to avoid the situation altogether by either keeping the doors closed or lighting the dark regions to match the outdoor brightness which may or may not be feasible, or just deal with either of the dark or bright regions being blown.
 
There may be a way to do what you are talking about, if you haven't already tried it.

As I understand it you are taking photos in your warehouse and if bright daylight is introduced to the scene, the rest of the photo gets too dark.

That's because the exposure system is now seeing all that bright light and trying to bring it down to 'normal' which makes everything else darker.

If you tap on your screen (pad/phone) in the area of the warehouse it will (should) lock in that exposure for the next photo.
The camera will go back to normal for the next photo so you must repeat it for every AE you want to shoot.

This is accomplished in DJI GO 4. The diagram below shows the locked padlock which indicates the exposure is locked. When released (after you take the photo) it goes back to unlocked and the diagram of course shows the padlock as unlocked.

It's important to 'lock' in the exposure before you have the bright light in the scene.

upload_2018-4-21_20-47-38.png

[Edit] I don't know why I didn't think of this til later. You can just set the exposure to manual instead of auto. Once you find the exposure you like, it won't change automatically when you move the camera to a brighter or darker scene as long as you leave it on manual...
 
Last edited:
There may be a way to do what you are talking about, if you haven't already tried it.

As I understand it you are taking photos in your warehouse and if bright daylight is introduced to the scene, the rest of the photo gets too dark.

That's because the exposure system is now seeing all that bright light and trying to bring it down to 'normal' which makes everything else darker.

If you tap on your screen (pad/phone) in the area of the warehouse it will (should) lock in that exposure for the next photo.
The camera will go back to normal for the next photo so you must repeat it for every AE you want to shoot.

This is accomplished in DJI GO 4. The diagram below shows the locked padlock which indicates the exposure is locked. When released (after you take the photo) it goes back to unlocked and the diagram of course shows the padlock as unlocked.

It's important to 'lock' in the exposure before you have the bright light in the scene.

View attachment 36250

[Edit] I don't know why I didn't think of this til later. You can just set the exposure to manual instead of auto. Once you find the exposure you like, it won't change automatically when you move the camera to a brighter or darker scene as long as you leave it on manual...


Thanks, I'll try this
 
  • Like
Reactions: Chirp
Thanks, I'll try this

Set the camera to manual, get your best exposure of the area that is most important such as inside the warehouse by adjusting shutter speed, ISO, or EV and the brightness of your scene (once again inside the warehouse or whatever you set it for) will stay constant. The only problem I could see is if part of the warehouse is way brighter or darker.

Note: when adjusting your exposure on manual you don't want to set your filmspeed too high because the scene gets grainy. Try to keep it at 100 if possible. If you're shooting video you don't want to have the shutter speed too fast. There is a formula where you set the shutter speed according to the frame rate. I'm not sure exactly how that goes--my experience is 99% is still photography. But except for a couple caveats exposure is exposure. You can vary the exposure by changing the EV value to an extent. Once you're video-ing you can adjust the exposure by turning the dial at the top right.
 
Lycus Tech Mavic Air 3 Case

DJI Drone Deals

New Threads

Forum statistics

Threads
131,236
Messages
1,561,138
Members
160,190
Latest member
NotSure