Filters for photography?

[Neo]

Greetings fellow droners

I have noticed that I have gradually moved from recording videos to mainly taking pictures with my Mavic 2 Pro.

Now I want step my game up by getting some filters. But I can't for the life of me choose what filters to invest in, for mainly landscape pictures.

So now I am turning to this lovely and highly competent community for some help/advice.

Thanks in advance

Kind regards
Neo

 

[Meta4]

Now I want step my game up by getting some filters. But I can't for the life of me choose what filters to invest in, for mainly landscape pictures.

Filters are of almost no use in drone photography.
The only thing that ND filters will do for you is reduce the light entering the lens and forcing a slower shutter speed.
Unless you have a particular reason to want to use slower shutter speeds, avoid ND filters.

 

[Neo]

Filters are of almost no use in drone photography.
The only thing that ND filters will do for you is reduce the light entering the lens and forcing a slower shutter speed.
Unless you have a particular reason to want to use slower shutter speeds, avoid ND filters.

But filters in general? Maybe should have excluded ND in the title.

 

[zocalo]

Obviously it depends a little on how and what you shoot as to which ones and how dense you want them, but my views on the three main types for stills use from my own research are:

ND: Darkens the entire frame, so useful if you are in bright light and want a longer exposure, e.g. to get some motion blur in water, or to get a correct exposure at a wider aperture - the M2P seems sharpest upto around f/5.6 or so, meaning a 2-stop ND might make the difference between a softer shot (with more DoF) at f/11 or a sharper shot at f/5.6. Or you can tweak the ISO a bit to help achieve the same DoF control, and if you shoot DNGs then you'll have more latitude in post too.

GND: A little more tricky as they are generally going to have the point of transition dead centre - e.g. you can only really shoot with the camera perfectly horizontal with the horizon in the centre of the frame, then crop as required. Can still be very useful if you have to deal with a large amount of dynamic range between the sky and ground though. I'd actually like to see some GND sets at 2/4/8 stops with the transistion point at (say) 33%, 50% and 66% of the way through the frame for a bit more flexibility for rule of thirds composition options, but I'm not sure if there would be enough demand to make that a viable product line.

CP: Even more tricky, as they depend on the angle of the sun so will change the level of effect as you rotate the drone. Worth it though, as they'll provide more saturated colours and cut down on reflections from water, etc. Ideally you need to pre-visualise your shooting angles and set the polarizer accordingly, making multiple flights with different CP settings if need to be to cover off different angles to the sun.

Andy

 

[genesimmons]

a polarizing filter may help photos if u have photos of water, in cameras u can get grad filters and such and but they would be harder to use in drone images, polarizer may be good place to start, but they also will block some light,depending on your photo that may be a good thing or a bad thing

 

[Meta4]

But filters in general? Maybe should have excluded ND in the title.

It's up to the individual photographer but I don't use any and can't think of any filters I'd want to use up in the air.
Photoshop is much more versatile.

a 2-stop ND might make the difference between a softer shot (with more DoF) at f/11 or a sharper shot at f/5.6. Or you can tweak the ISO a bit to help achieve the same DoF control, and if you shoot DNGs then you'll have more latitude in post too.

Depth of Field is about the last thing you need to worry about with a drone.
The lens has more DoF than you could ever use at any aperture.

a polarizing filter may help photos if u have photos of water, in cameras u can get grad filters and such and but they would be harder to use in drone images, polarizer may be good place to start, but they also will block some light,depending on your photo that may be a good thing or a bad thing

A polariser is easy to use on the ground but very difficult on a drone.
If you turn the drone, the polariser is no longer aligned correctly relative to the sun.

 

[genesimmons]

It's up to the individual photographer but I don't use any and can't think of any filters I'd want to use up in the air.
Photoshop is much more versatile.

Depth of Field is about the last thing you need to worry about with a drone.
The lens has more DoF than you could ever use at any aperture.

A polariser is easy to use on the ground but very difficult on a drone.
If you turn the drone, the polariser is no longer aligned correctly relative to the sun.

i wonder if u turned the camera portait orientation, oh wait the mav2 doesnt do that any more, i guess your right a polarizer would be tought to use properly as u cant turn it to optimal setting from the air

 

[zocalo]

Depth of Field is about the last thing you need to worry about with a drone.
The lens has more DoF than you could ever use at any aperture.

No, the issue is mostly avoiding diffraction, but with the 1" sensor, I'm definitely noticing that DoF isn't giving me full front to back sharpness at wider apertures with a lot of distance between foreground and background. Since you'll want NDs anyway for smooth video you might as well use them to avoid stopping down too much for stills as well.

A polariser is easy to use on the ground but very difficult on a drone.
If you turn the drone, the polariser is no longer aligned correctly relative to the sun.

Yeah, that's why I mentioned multiple flights. A CP is the one filter that you simply can't emulate properly in post, so if you're serious about the IQ of your stills then you'll be doing multiple flights to get each angle. It's easy enough to approximate the right angle on the ground provided you can workout your angles up front, but it is definitely a PITA not being able to adjust in-flight.

Andy

 

[Neo]

Obviously it depends a little on how and what you shoot as to which ones and how dense you want them, but my views on the three main types for stills use from my own research are:

ND: Darkens the entire frame, so useful if you are in bright light and want a longer exposure, e.g. to get some motion blur in water, or to get a correct exposure at a wider aperture - the M2P seems sharpest upto around f/5.6 or so, meaning a 2-stop ND might make the difference between a softer shot (with more DoF) at f/11 or a sharper shot at f/5.6. Or you can tweak the ISO a bit to help achieve the same DoF control, and if you shoot DNGs then you'll have more latitude in post too.

GND: A little more tricky as they are generally going to have the point of transition dead centre - e.g. you can only really shoot with the camera perfectly horizontal with the horizon in the centre of the frame, then crop as required. Can still be very useful if you have to deal with a large amount of dynamic range between the sky and ground though. I'd actually like to see some GND sets at 2/4/8 stops with the transistion point at (say) 33%, 50% and 66% of the way through the frame for a bit more flexibility for rule of thirds composition options, but I'm not sure if there would be enough demand to make that a viable product line.

CP: Even more tricky, as they depend on the angle of the sun so will change the level of effect as you rotate the drone. Worth it though, as they'll provide more saturated colours and cut down on reflections from water, etc. Ideally you need to pre-visualise your shooting angles and set the polarizer accordingly, making multiple flights with different CP settings if need to be to cover off different angles to the sun.

Andy

Thanks for the great reply.

The thing is I usually don't plan my shots. With the two latter filters you mentioned it seems like I have to plan a wedding or something. Alot of work in other words. By the time I'm done planning, the lighting has changed [emoji23]

But the again if I want to get more of the professional look it might be worth it. Its all about developing your skills I guess.

[emoji120]

 

[zocalo]

Thanks for the great reply.

The thing is I usually don't plan my shots. With the two latter filters you mentioned it seems like I have to plan a wedding or something. Alot of work in other words. By the time I'm done planning, the lighting has changed [emoji23]

But the again if I want to get more of the professional look it might be worth it. Its all about developing your skills I guess.

[emoji120]

GNDs are actually quite easy to use with a drone, the limitation comes from lack of control over where the filter becomes clear so you just need to remember to keep the camera level when shooting then crop for composition. If you have a very bright sky compared to the ground then it's usually better to have some texture present than have it all blowout to white, and for that you'll need a GND. Generally I'd crop those down to around 16:9 by removing the uppermost strip of sky, which gives you a "rule of thirds" style composition.

You definitely need to think a bit more about using a CP with a drone, although it's worth it for the right shot as it'll really bring out the colour in things like autumn foliage or skies, helps make water seem crystal clear, and so on. You've also got a reasonable amount of latitude on angle so don't sweat the accuracy too much, especially if your shots are all going to be from the same side of the subject.

Simplest option until you get the hang of previsualisation and the CP effect is probably to just set the CP with the indicator at the top, take all your shots, bring the drone back and rotate the CP 90 degrees and take the same shots again then pick whichever of each pair you prefer. Alternatively, do three flights with 60 degrees of CP rotation each time, or four flights of 45 degrees for a more of choice.

Andy

 

[jsinon]

With a CPL you're also going to want to avoid including large expanses of sky in the photos. Due to the way a CPL has the greatest effect at 90° to the sun, as the angle changes across the frame, in relation to the sun, you're going to get uneven polarization. Which I can tell you is a royal pain in the backside to "try" to correct in post. If you have a sky with a lot of clouds in it the uneven polarization won't be so noticeable, but with a clear blue sky it's going to be very noticeable.

 

[gnirtS]

For still, other than a CPL there arent any others of any use at all.
Even then it requires specific setup and has limitations (no panoramas etc).
You certainly dont want NDs at all for photos.

 

[SteveCA]

ND filters are absolutely necessary for photography with the Mavic 2 pro. Especially landscape photography.

The reasons are numerous starting with the fact that this camera is only sharp at F4.0 which forces you to use a very high shutter speed.

High shutter speeds are fine for many photos but not all, especially where motion blur is desired. Examples:

shooting waterfalls where you want natural looking water as opposed to frozen droplets and streams of water.

Shooting hyperlapse with motion blurred cars

shooting moving water where you want streaks in your photo.

here are actual photos I’ve taken with ND filters as an example. some are drone shots, while some were ground tripod shots. ND range from ND8-1000.

 

[PC1134]

Beautiful photos - well done!

 

[gnirtS]

Comparing ground shots with multi second exposures which are utterly impossible on a drone makes no sense.
To get the silky smooth water effect you need exposure times measured in seconds or even tens of seconds. There is no drone on the market at all thats stable enough in flight to produce anywhere near that length exposure which is why there are no images at all showing it. To get those you need a ground based, sturdy tripod and even then it doesnt always work depending on conditions.
Its comparing apples to microwave ovens.

Pretty much every photo people takes on drone the creative effect wanted is sharpness and not blurred and indistinct. So people want as high a shutter speed as possible.

All you're going to end up doing with an ND is (if you picked the right ND) get an image where things such as leaves, branches, grass and maybe depending on wind, the foreground itself is blurred due to movement resulting in an image that looks indistinct and fairly nasty. You want that shutter speed to reduce or ideally eliminate all of that.

Taking stills with an ND on (which people who don't understand filters do a lot) simply results in motion blur and/or more noise due to an increased ISO and have no positive effect on the image what-so-ever.

 

[gnirtS]

No, the issue is mostly avoiding diffraction, but with the 1" sensor, I'm definitely noticing that DoF isn't giving me full front to back sharpness at wider apertures with a lot of distance between foreground and background.

You can do the maths yourself on dofmaster.com. Even wide open at f/2.8 once the subject distance hits 4m then you're at infinity focus so as the other poster says, DOF isn't a consideration on a drone with a small sensor like this - there simply isn't any flexibility in it at all for real world use. Pretty much nobody shoots wide open and closer to 4m for the majority of their shots.

Since you'll want NDs anyway for smooth video you might as well use them to avoid stopping down too much for stills as well.

Why would you stop down? Just use the higher shutter speed. As an added bonus you remove all the jitter and motion blur and have less noise due to using the lowest iso possible.

 

[zocalo]

You can do the maths yourself on dofmaster.com. Even wide open at f/2.8 once the subject distance hits 4m then you're at infinity focus so as the other poster says, DOF isn't a consideration on a drone with a small sensor like this - there simply isn't any flexibility in it at all for real world use. Pretty much nobody shoots wide open and closer to 4m for the majority of their shots.

Certainly, if you want to be critically sharp at the hyperfocal distance which gives you acceptable sharpness out to infinity (but not critical sharpness, which is something often misunderstood about DoF calculators). At least, I assume that is what you meant with the bit about infinity focus?

Unfortunately, while it might be the majority of shots, that's not always the case and sometimes you might want to throw the background out of focus, which mean focussing closer and opening up the aperture. That's hard to do with a 1" sensor than it is with larger sensors, but definitely not impossible; generally you need to focus much closer than your primary subject but keeping them within the greater range of acceptable sharpness of the smaller sensor.

Why would you stop down? Just use the higher shutter speed. As an added bonus you remove all the jitter and motion blur and have less noise due to using the lowest iso possible.

Because sometimes you *want* some motion blur for creative effect? It's not all about multi-minute exposures, or even moving water for that matter, and sometimes just a few 10ths is enough to get a decent effect, which is definitely within the reach of the M2P in tripod mode. I'm still waiting for a truly still day to see what the exposure time limits are, but there are already plenty of examples of multisecond exposures on image sites and YouTube, which bodes well even if a lot of them are essentially sales pitches for filter makers. A long way short of DSLR+Big Stopper territory, certainly, but definitely enough to achieve the level of motion blur on the waterfall images posted above if the flow is fast enough.

Ultimately, as I said right off the bat in my first post above, it's a creative choice as to what filters you might need. Depending on what, where, and how you shoot, NDs might indeed be completely useless, which appears to be the case for you. That's fine, but for me I've already realised they're absolutely essential to get the level of creative control I want. Counter arguments are good though, and since the OP didn't indicate what type and style of landscapes are preferred hopefully they'll be able to decide whether or not to bother with NDs (and GNDs and CPs, for that matter).

Andy

 

[SteveCA]

Bottom line is this: blanket statements simply never hold up in the creative world of photography period. But do as you please. No drone could ever hold steady for tenths of a second? go out an fly and you will see as others have and you will prove yourself wrong, very wrong

 

[jsinon]

To get the silky smooth water effect you need exposure times measured in seconds or even tens of seconds.

Not true at all. How much motion blur, on water in particular (and therefore exposure duration) will be dictated by how fast the water is moving and how much blur you want to create. I've created many very nice waterfall images(ground based) with shutter speeds of 1/10sec. and faster. Sure, for really long exposures I can't imagine a drone holding steady long enough to get a sharp image. But I can certainly see a place for ND filters when shooting still images.

 

[SteveCA]

a number of us have gotten sharp multi second exposures with this drone. Including some 8 second exposures posted elsewhere on this forum.