Do I really need ND filters ?

[Isaac94]

Hello, will be getting my very own Mavic Air in a few days time, I've watched many videos, and some of them suggest that using ND Filter will greatly affect the video / image quality and make it stunningly beautiful. I'm from Malaysia, and I went ahead to check out the prices for ND Filters, they are all about roughly 450+ Malaysian Ringgit, about USD 119. So here begs my question, do I really need those filters for a start ? And is it really worth paying such an amount to get them ?

Also to prevent creating more threads, what should I be paying attention to and what should I do when I first get my Mavic Air ? Would appreciate any advice and tips.

 

[Meta4]

I've watched many videos, and some of them suggest that using ND Filter will greatly affect the video / image quality and make it stunningly beautiful. I'm from Malaysia, and I went ahead to check out the prices for ND Filters

You don't need ND filters.
Try videoing without them first and see how you go.

 

[Olav van Gerven]

It depends on what and how you video.
With all video settings on automaticly and you don't need filters. The computer inside will take all decisions to create a nice video (except from when to start and when to stop.)

As soon as you start getting manual settings, in my experience, you need filters.
The footage I took about a week ago at Västra Kovik (Sweden, published on YT) was heavily overexposed because I forgot to put on the filter and used manual settings. Other footage (will be published later this week) made under similiar lightconditions with filter were okay.

Maybe you can compare it with coffee: Some people need it, some don't

 

[Dakarenduro]

They are like sunglasses. You don't NEED them but they help.

 

[Isaac94]

I see, ok I get it now, i don't NEED them, but if I can have them, it would be a good help. Just another question, once I get my Mavic Air, other than setting it all up for the first flight, what should I do to practice and master my flying techniques ? Any start go on that ?

 

[Stickybit]

It's nice to have them when you're using more manual modes. If everything is on automatic, it won't help you at all..
Also, when using ND-filters, you have to prepare before the flight. Using ND32 when you're already flying at night will not help and even will worsen your footage

 

[Dakarenduro]

Go to Youtube and watch a bunch of the 'new user' guide videos for the Air.
My recommendation (it sounds like this may be your first drone?) would be to enable all beginner flight modes/restrictions. Limit it to say 100m distance, 100m height. Turn on Beginner Mode (reduces control stick input sensitivity). Also check what Return to Home setting you have. I would recommend if RC signal is lost to have it Return to Home in lieu of Landing or Hovering. In the event you lose signal, I prefer to have it come back when you are new to everything. Later you can adjust to fit your flight plan (sometimes coming home is not good, hovering would be better, etc).

Go find a large field with minimal or no trees. Pick a nice clear day. Start it up and fly. Get used to it hovering, moving forward/backward/side to side in straight lines. Try to put a bunch of flights on it like this. Maybe run thru 2 or 3 sets of batteries until you get comfortable. Then maybe take Beginner Mode off and try again. The biggest error I've seen from new pilots is too much control input (moving the sticks too far). Watch the drone and see it manuever as you apply LITTLE stick input.

Until you feel super comfortable don't try any difficult flight paths or anything fancy. Try to keep away from doing close flying to buildings or trees, etc.

Good luck!

 

[Olav van Gerven]

I see, ok I get it now, i don't NEED them, but if I can have them, it would be a good help. Just another question, once I get my Mavic Air, other than setting it all up for the first flight, what should I do to practice and master my flying techniques ? Any start go on that ?

I have been binchwatching youtube videos of people crashing their drones. It showed me some of the dangers an made me more aware of risks. Just an example: If you move sideways, be aware of obstacles since your Air does not have a sideway avoindance system. Sounds simple, one could know that by reading the books but SEEING someone making that mistake is more impressiv (to mee.)

 

[Isaac94]

Go to Youtube and watch a bunch of the 'new user' guide videos for the Air.
My recommendation (it sounds like this may be your first drone?) would be to enable all beginner flight modes/restrictions. Limit it to say 100m distance, 100m height. Turn on Beginner Mode (reduces control stick input sensitivity). Also check what Return to Home setting you have. I would recommend if RC signal is lost to have it Return to Home in lieu of Landing or Hovering. In the event you lose signal, I prefer to have it come back when you are new to everything. Later you can adjust to fit your flight plan (sometimes coming home is not good, hovering would be better, etc).

Go find a large field with minimal or no trees. Pick a nice clear day. Start it up and fly. Get used to it hovering, moving forward/backward/side to side in straight lines. Try to put a bunch of flights on it like this. Maybe run thru 2 or 3 sets of batteries until you get comfortable. Then maybe take Beginner Mode off and try again. The biggest error I've seen from new pilots is too much control input (moving the sticks too far). Watch the drone and see it manuever as you apply LITTLE stick input.

Until you feel super comfortable don't try any difficult flight paths or anything fancy. Try to keep away from doing close flying to buildings or trees, etc.

Good luck!

Thank you very much, this is such a helpful very informative guide for a start. Will do that first and get used to the flying before I do anything fancy. I know there's many modes available thanks to the intelligent system. Should I always stay in Normal Mode ? Because it seems like it's always best to stay in Cinematic Mode while shooting in the air most of the time, to get that feel and also for the drone to have a slower movement as it won't stop instantly like in Normal Mode, can i have a few pointers on that ? Just trying to figure out between Normal Mode and Cinematic Mode.

 

[Olav van Gerven]

I have not used cinematic at all. The advantage for video is supposed to be "softer moves", but you have to calculate longer ways for each move. I will try it this week (flying six batteries a day at the moment) but at this moment in time, I do not see the urgency to use it. Which might change ofcourse after I used it

 

[Dakarenduro]

Cinematic = less jerky. Smoother movement. Exactly like its title says.
You can also use Tripod. That mode however basically slows it down to almost no movement. I think the max speed in tripod is 2mph or 2kmh??

It all depends on what you are after. Flying around, taking photographs, you can leave it in Normal mode 100% of time. Even switch into Sport if you want to go hi speed.

If you want to do video recording the Cinematic helps reduce jerkiness in your videos. Of course if you are a smooth flier to begin with it might not be necessary. Personally I already adjusted my EXP values to soften the input response on the camera gimbal for smoother videos (think I have it around 10). I can fly pretty smoothly but if I remember I usually put it in Cinematic to just eliminate any bad controls on my end. Nothing sucks worst than thinking I caught the best video sequence only to get home and see that there is an unwanted jerk or movement in the video making it unusable.

 

[Isaac94]

Cinematic = less jerky. Smoother movement. Exactly like its title says.
You can also use Tripod. That mode however basically slows it down to almost no movement. I think the max speed in tripod is 2mph or 2kmh??

It all depends on what you are after. Flying around, taking photographs, you can leave it in Normal mode 100% of time. Even switch into Sport if you want to go hi speed.

If you want to do video recording the Cinematic helps reduce jerkiness in your videos. Of course if you are a smooth flier to begin with it might not be necessary. Personally I already adjusted my EXP values to soften the input response on the camera gimbal for smoother videos (think I have it around 10). I can fly pretty smoothly but if I remember I usually put it in Cinematic to just eliminate any bad controls on my end. Nothing sucks worst than thinking I caught the best video sequence only to get home and see that there is an unwanted jerk or movement in the video making it unusable.

I see, yup so I guess if I'm going to do video recording, I'm going to choose Cinematic Mode. As for Tripod yes, I know the uses of it, it's more for tight spaces and it's easier to fly by close up objects. So basically if I'm just flying around for fun, or taking pictures from the air, Normal Mode will do the trick just fine, but if I'm going to do a video, stuff like that it would be best to use Cinematic Mode just to be safe on every angle, can I put it that way ?

 

[Dakarenduro]

yes. once you get flying a few times you will see the difference and be able to decide when to put it in certain modes.

 

[Maskuleva]

My recommendation is that you should start in the Beginner mode. Next step you should choose is Tripod mode. This mode is perfect for filming at low altitude and reduce space. The film in Tripod is always very smooth and nice to look at. When you are in higher altitude then movement of the drone will be to slow so there I recommend Cinematic mode.

 

[e143slime8]

On my computer, I've created a "Mavic" Folder and within created more folders of specific topics since the more questions I had, I found creating an individual topic name for that question where I could drag and drop all the links such as:


"Batteries and care
Cases
Clubs
DJI and my mavic air info
DJI Care and insurance
DJI Mavic help list
Dutchess County info
FAA
flying over water"

You get the message. All of these were questions and the more I searched, the more I found multiple links. Anyway, works for me. Good luck.

 

[Pegasusboysa42]

If you shoot during the day get Nd 32 and Nd 64 filters. When using auto I had lines in my videos. PolarPro limited collection pack is prob your best bet. It has 4 filters. ND32 and 64 both regular and polarized. If you shoot on cloudy days or closer to dark times might wanna research others. But on any bright day I always use a 64.

 

[Isaac94]

My recommendation is that you should start in the Beginner mode. Next step you should choose is Tripod mode. This mode is perfect for filming at low altitude and reduce space. The film in Tripod is always very smooth and nice to look at. When you are in higher altitude then movement of the drone will be to slow so there I recommend Cinematic mode.

Thank you very much for your advice. It really helps me even more to making sure which mode I should be using, so to put it in simpler terms. At low altitude or tight space, always use Tripod Mode, and at higher altitude like when shooting landscape etc, always use Cinematic Mode, would that be right ?

So in that sense, normal mode would basically only be use when i'm roaming the air for fun or for photography capture (?)

 

[Radovan]

When the shooter is set to 1 / 50s (if you shoot 25 frames per second) or 1 / 60s (if you shoot at 30 frames per second) then the shot will be most natural. To be able to shoot at 1/50 or 1/60 you will you will need to use ND filters, otherwise, because of the high light, the camera will set the exposure to a much higher value in the automatic mode. If you fix the exposure to 1/50 or 1/60 in the manual mode, then the shot will be too bright. Most cameras do not have a fixed aperture so it is possible to hold the exposure to 1/50 or 1/60 by reducing the aperture, but even in this case, ND filters are used, since the excessively closed blend sometimes does not meet the needs of the recorder. For professionally good recordings, the ND filters are imperativs.

 

[Isaac94]

Thank you all for the advice regarding ND filters. I do have another question, and to prevent making another thread just for that I'll ask them here.

When do I use Normal Mode ?

I understand that there's a reply or two from above that says only use Normal Mode when flying around for fun, or when capturing pictures from above. But here begs my question, I definitely will adjust the gimbal settings / other settings while in Normal Mode for more smooth movement. But if I'm using Cinematic Mode, which I will be using all the time if up in the air, and the settings will be automatically adjusted to that particular mode, so under what circumstances do I use Normal Mode ?

 

[macfawlty]

When the shooter is set to 1 / 50s (if you shoot 25 frames per second) or 1 / 60s (if you shoot at 30 frames per second) then the shot will be most natural. To be able to shoot at 1/50 or 1/60 you will you will need to use ND filters, otherwise, because of the high light, the camera will set the exposure to a much higher value in the automatic mode. If you fix the exposure to 1/50 or 1/60 in the manual mode, then the shot will be too bright. Most cameras do not have a fixed aperture so it is possible to hold the exposure to 1/50 or 1/60 by reducing the aperture, but even in this case, ND filters are used, since the excessively closed blend sometimes does not meet the needs of the recorder. For professionally good recordings, the ND filters are imperativs.

This synopsis is right on the money. The short answer is ABSOLUTELY YES, YOU NEED ND FILTERS if you're shooting video. The DSLRs I use professionally, I'm typically shooting at 24fps with a shutter of 1/50 (except higher frame rates for slow-motion). I use ND filters. Professional videocameras have a set of ND filters built-in.

When you shoot video at higher shutter speeds (rather than 1/50 or 1/60 for 24fps or 30fps respectively), you get jittery/skippy looking footage, like 'Saving Private Ryan' and other recent movies with high action scenes, intentionally filmed at higher shutter speeds to look jittery. This is most noticeable when you fly closer to objects. Instead of a 'natural' looking film-style motion blur, you get a jittery freeze frame look like a moving timelapse. It's a BAD LOOK. If you're flying high and far from your scene/subjects, it won't be as noticeable and you think it's fine, but it's really not fine. It's unquestionably bad to shoot above 1/50, 1/60, 1/120 respective to double frame rate.

I have been forced to shoot at higher shutter speeds if I didn't have the right filter handy or the light changes dramatically (like flying away from the sun, then back toward the sun). Flying out and back I'll film both even if I'm not going to use a section of footage. If no other reason, in case the bird crashes, I have a visual reference of where it occurred.

On the Mavic 2 Pro, I have options for aperture, which is helpful, but I understand that using apertures 8 or below yields a better quality image. Additionally, depending on the scene, I may want a wider aperture (shorter focal depth) or smaller (longer depth). On a sunny day, I use my ND64 or ND32, mostly the 64. The lesser ones aren't as useful except in the shade or very cloudy.

As a general rule, make sure you're getting the absolute best quality footage of your scene. It's much more difficult to correct for problems in post-production. And jittery footage can't be fixed.