Can you add filters?

[westwind77]

I have been running a MPP for years and basically never remove my polarized filter as a lot of my shooting is over water at wildlife under the sea. Filters are small and easy to swap on the MPP but the potential size of the new camera seems like it might be difficult to get a filter around it, plus the filter would have to be that much larger adding to additional weight for the gimbal to handle and balance. Curious your thoughts on this, thanks!

 

[MA2 317]

The gimbal motors may be stronger since it has two cameras and DJI may have it's own filter pack for the M3.

It won't take long for the third party filter makers to do the R and D and produce products for the M3.

We rely on the Amazon reviews, YouTube reviews, and Forums like this to weed out the bad from the good.



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[CanadaDrone]

Without a doubt, filters will be available for the M3. We know this for a fact because the Cine package already includes a full set of OEM DJI ND filters. ND filters in particular are necessary for any kind of serious or professional video work, which the M3 is aimed squarely at.

Keep in mind as well that you have to remove the OEM clear glass protective filter (like on the M2P) or decorative filter ring (like on the A2S, Air, etc.) to install the aftermarket filter, so the actual weight change on the gimbal is either zero or almost zero.

DJI will offer their own filters, and you can be sure all the usual suspects will be offering third party options (PolarPro, Neewer, Freewil, etc.) Filters are incredibly high margin products and everyone will want their usual piece of the pie.

 

[Korrd]

What good are filters on a drone with a variable aperture camera?

 

[CanadaDrone]

What good are filters on a drone with a variable aperture camera?

Three main reasons for this, no different than a traditional DSLR lens that has much greater aperture range (often out to F22 or F32).

1) Filters aren't limited to ND filters, something like a polarizer can be very useful depending on the scenario. The ability to use filters if/when needed is always an advantage.

2) Diffraction starts to degrade image quality rather early on due to the sensors being so small and the resolutions being fairly high, so you never want to be using too small of an aperture for typical usage cases. For example, on the M2P, with a 20MP 1" sensor, diffraction starts to degrade the image beyond F4. Essentially what that means is the information intended to a single pixel starts to spill over onto neighboring pixels beyond F4. By F8 this gets quite bad and by F11 in my opinion the image is so bad it's unusable, so you would only use such a small aperture if you had no other option.

Keep in mind F11 on a 1" sensor is the equivalent of using F30 on a full frame camera, and anyone familiar with traditional DSLR photography knows how much worse the image looks at apertures that tiny. Again in the case of the M2P, F4 is sharper than F2.8, so if you wanted the highest possible image quality, you would always shoot at F4, with a tiny bit of leeway to F2.8 or F5.6 if absolutely necessary. Beyond that, the image degradation is very noticeable.

On the M3 with the rumored 20MP M43 sensor, it will become diffraction limited after F6.7 and the image quality will begin to degrade noticeably, so the sweet spot will very likely be F4.0-F5.6 (will depend on the specific lens design, but it cannot be above F6.7).

So, as you can see, you can get away with fewer ND filters, but you absolutely will still need them if you are at all serious about video or want to do long-exposure photography. For example if you are comfortable with the image quality you are getting at F2.8, F4.0, and F5,6, setting your exposure based on a ND8 filter at F4 and changing the aperture within that range will give you the equivalent of a ND4 and ND16 without having to land the aircraft and swap filters. You always want to be using base ISO until you have no other choice but to raise it, so that should be considered a constant.

3) Using wide apertures in bright scenarios, usually to control depth of field. This is less important for drone applications though because the sensors are so small that DOF is usually around 3 feet to infinity at typical usage distances. But on a traditional camera, say you're on a beach shooting stills of a model at F1.4 in the middle of the day, you are going to need a ND filter in most instances to avoid exceeding the shutter speed limit of the camera, and if you are shooting video, you absolutely will need a very strong ND filter for that.

 

[Korrd]

Wow. That’s awful. It means that variable aperture on a drone is not that useful given 2). Gimmickey.

 

[CanadaDrone]

Wow. That’s awful. It means that variable aperture on a drone is not that useful given 2). Gimmickey.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that, but it's not as useful as it may seem on paper. The same thing can be said about literally any digital camera though, so really it is not at all specific to drones, it has everything to do with the physics surrounding pixel size on a digital sensor. Also, different people will have different tolerances for what they view as acceptable image quality - I definitely fall into the extremely picky crowd.

Having the option is always better than not, especially in a pinch or a scenario where image quality is not the priority, and it still lets you use fewer ND filters which means landing less often and more time in the sky.

Even on my traditional DSLR (I use a Nikon D850), the number of photos I have taken beyond F11 are incredibly few, but that camera isn't diffraction limited until around F8. It has everything to do with pixel size.