Air 2s Challenging Flight at Mill Pond Preserve, Long Island, NY (July, 2021)

[projectarjun]

Flying the DJI Air 2S in this location was a challenge. On a scale of 1 to 5, this was a 5, 5 being very difficult. From narrow paths to lots of vegetation as well as people; compliance and safety is the number one priority. Enjoy! Filming Location: Mill Pond Preserve, Bellmore / Wantagh, NY Track: Footprints (Mokita Remix) Artist: Morgan Page with HALIENE

Headphones recommended, this one is short, simple, and sweet

Again, special thanks to @MARK (LI) for accompanying me, looking forward to sharing more content. Cheers

 

[Prop Wash]

Very cool flying! Great music to support your video.

 

[projectarjun]

Very cool flying! Great music to support your video.

Thank you @Prop Wash.

 

[Dale D]

Flying the DJI Air 2S in this location was a challenge. On a scale of 1 to 5, this was a 5, 5 being very difficult. From narrow paths to lots of vegetation as well as people; compliance and safety is the number one priority. Enjoy! Filming Location: Mill Pond Preserve, Bellmore / Wantagh, NY Track: Footprints (Mokita Remix) Artist: Morgan Page with HALIENE

Headphones recommended, this one is short, simple, and sweet

Again, special thanks to @MARK (LI) for accompanying me, looking forward to sharing more content. Cheers

I found several problems with this video-

(1) Around 0:27 seconds the straight down -view flight was so fast my eyes couldn't grab focus of the scene. Likewise, the panning was too fast.

(2) generally the bright sky blew out any details (no clouds,no blue, etc.), and overpowered the exposure so that the foreground trees were dark. The High Dynamic range of the lighting condition made the exposure of both the sky and the foreground poor. You flew a challenging route and that is commendable but the video needs some post-processing work, and even then, the original exposures will be a challenge to correct.

Dale
Miami

 

[EB - Chester]

What software do you use for your editing? I've only had my Air 2 for four months and was wondering how best to edit the video I take.

 

[projectarjun]

I found several problems with this video-

(1) Around 0:27 seconds the straight down -view flight was so fast my eyes couldn't grab focus of the scene. Likewise, the panning was too fast.

(2) generally the bright sky blew out any details (no clouds,no blue, etc.), and overpowered the exposure so that the foreground trees were dark. The High Dynamic range of the lighting condition made the exposure of both the sky and the foreground poor. You flew a challenging route and that is commendable but the video needs some post-processing work, and even then, the original exposures will be a challenge to correct.

Dale
Miami

Thank you for the invaluable feedback @Dale D You are absolutely right on many of the things needed to be corrected in this video. I did not use any ND filters, that may have been able to mitigate some of the exposure issues. I did pan too fast, I think I got too overly excited for this flight. Rain was also in the forecast that day, had a bit of a adrenaline rush ? I greatly value your feedback and will embrace and do better for subsequent videos Cheers

 

[projectarjun]

What software do you use for your editing? I've only had my Air 2 for four months and was wondering how best to edit the video I take.

I strictly use Adobe Premiere Pro and have using Premiere Pro for several months now, there is a learning curve, but you get better overtime. There is so much functionality built into the video editor; I can correct exposure settings, customize HDR provided I record in D-log, add transitions, edit durations for each clip, and so on. This video in particular consisted of 28 clips, each clip was carefully edited before being added to the compilation

However, I do have Final Cut Pro installed on an M1 mac with a 90-day trial. I may try that on a future video.

The video editing software is so dense, sometimes you may find yourself spending more time than necessary for putting together a quality video. Had I spent another day on this video, I may have been able to address the feedback provided by Dale

 

[Dale D]

Thank you for the invaluable feedback @Dale D You are absolutely right on many of the things needed to be corrected in this video. I did not use any ND filters, that may have been able to mitigate some of the exposure issues. I did pan too fast, I think I got too overly excited for this flight. Rain was also in the forecast that day, had a bit of a adrenaline rush ? I greatly value your feedback and will embrace and do better for subsequent videos Cheers

I think if you had used an ND16 filter you could have held back some of the bright sky. Then, I would have turned on the over-exposure indicator (zebra lines) and adjusted your shutter to remove all of the zebra lines. You also need to adjust the histogram to keep the file in the middle or to the right, but not to clip the highlights where the image runs off of the right side of the histogram. I never start filming until I get the drone where I am ready to film (e.g.: I don't set the shutter before take off). Once my drone is ready to film, I check the exposure using whatever I can do to rid myself of the over-exposure lines which you will find in your settings.

Dale

 

[projectarjun]

I think if you had used an ND16 filter you could have held back some of the bright sky. Then, I would have turned on the over-exposure indicator (zebra lines) and adjusted your shutter to remove all of the zebra lines. You also need to adjust the histogram to keep the file in the middle or to the right, but not to clip the highlights where the image runs off of the right side of the histogram. I never start filming until I get the drone where I am ready to film (e.g.: I don't set the shutter before take off). Once my drone is ready to film, I check the exposure using whatever I can do to rid myself of the over-exposure lines which you will find in your settings.

Dale

This is exactly what I needed to hear, will definitely keep that in mind, I was afraid it was going to rain that day, the histogram was on my display the entire time during the flight, I should have been weary about that haha

 

[GFields]

Awesome, thanks for sharing!