First video taken on DJI Mavic Pro - frustrated with settings

[pauloross90]

Hi guys,

I've owned my Mavic for a week. Finally got out of beginner mode. Spent some time researching the best photo & video settings, the advice varies a lot.
I've had a go at editing, looking some feedback.

Here's what I did.

OPTION 1
- Shot with drone video settings in AUTO mode
- iMovie - applied saturation using AUTO magic wand tool
Dropbox - IMG_3336.MP4

It's 'ok', not as HD as I would have liked.

OPTION 2
- Same video, transferred to iPhone. Simple LUT applied on iOS using Video LUT app
Dropbox - IMG_3339.mp4

Slightly better but some motor blur and pixelation going on.

I know it's preferable to shoot raw, researched these settings and going to see what it looks like later.

Manual settings
D-Log
24fps
Low shutter speed 50 fpsx2
ISO low as possible
White balance 5500-6000

 

[pixl]

AF is not really automatic. You've got to tap to focus -- if you do that at about 50m you will get sharp focus from 50m to infinity. For closer shots, you need to tap to focus again. Turning focus peaking on is helpful to show you what's in focus and what's not in flight -- hard to tell what's going on from the small phone screen. As far as the beautiful color you're looking for, that all happens in post. You are capturing a lot of information in D-Log, but it will take some work in post to get it to look nice. The grey weather is not a big help. ND filters will help to smooth the action, though working out the other things first is a good idea.

Don't worry, everybody's first videos look like this.

 

[pauloross90]

AF is not really automatic. You've got to tap to focus -- if you do that at about 50m you will get sharp focus from 50m to infinity. For closer shots, you need to tap to focus again. Turning focus peaking on is helpful to show you what's in focus and what's not in flight -- hard to tell what's going on from the small phone screen. As far as the beautiful color you're looking for, that all happens in post. You are capturing a lot of information in D-Log, but it will take some work in post to get it to look nice. The grey weather is not a big help. ND filters will help to smooth the action, though working out the other things first is a good idea.

Don't worry, everybody's first videos look like this.

Thanks for the reply, I'll try playing around with focus later.

Few quick questions;

When shooting in Mavic's auto settings...

Is it bad to add a LUT after the video has been been auto enhanced/corrected by iMovie?

i.e Would applying a LUT after having already applied auto correct with iMovie be 'doubling up' with effects too much?

Or should LUT's only been applied to video shot in D-Log?

 

[pixl]

Thanks for the reply, I'll try playing around with focus later.

Few quick questions;

When shooting in Mavic's auto settings...

Is it bad to add a LUT after the video has been been auto enhanced/corrected by iMovie?

i.e Would applying a LUT after having already applied auto correct with iMovie be 'doubling up' with effects too much?

Or should LUT's only been applied to video shot in D-Log?

Sorry, I don't use auto-anything (except focus, which isn't really auto), so I'm not sure of your results. AFAIK, mapping the color space on any image, moving or still, is the first thing you do before any corrections. I've never used iMovie, but I'm guessing those shortcuts won't give you the results you're hoping for.

FYI, instead of asking questions like this all in one thread, try the "search" function here -- you'll get a lot more than one person's perspective. And try to remember that every video that you've ever admired took a whole bunch of time in post and it's unlikely that there was much auto-correct used.

 

[UAVXTC]

It's a good idea to get you head around the relationship between how Exposure vs Shutter Speed vs Frame Rates vs ISO works and how they all effect each other and try to manually manipulate these as much as you can.
Master your filming skills in 1080 at higher frame rates before mastering 4k at the lower frame rates. Use the histogram to get a flavour of not under or over exposing. Mastering the fundamentals will pay dividends in post editing and your final rendered video piece