How to set my exposure for a video shot with varying levels of brightness - e.g., from interior to exterior

[yawsteryup]

I'm having trouble figuring out the proper exposure setting for a shot that goes from a low-light area to a bright one (or vice versa). E.g., flying from an interior to an exterior, or a forest floor to above the canopy.

Auto-exposure isn't helping - I can see it change the exposure via integers or jumps that look choppy. Surely there's some way of getting a smooth cinematic change in exposure?

Any good tutorials on Mavic 2 Pro exposure techniques / practices out there?

Help please!

 

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

I don't have a pat answer for you, as the exposure system in the Mavic has much to be desired.

But aperture priority seems smoother than shutter priority to me (regardless of the fact that you might think you need a certain shutter speed to match to a frame rate).

Chris

 

[CaptHook]

Getting a smooth exposure transition for a large change in one shot is not really possible.
The changes will be harsh and abrupt and noticeable.
The way I approach it is to break it up into separate shots, and then also tweak it in post-production.
1) expose for and shoot the forest floor
2) Fly up into/above the canopy
3) Hover, and stop filming. Change exposure. Restart filming for above canopy. (or just keep filming and look for that section in post that will need to be edited out)
4) in post production, tweak step #2 with exposure changes with key-frames.
5) Combine clips #1, #2 and #3 into final clip

Would like to hear what others suggest also!

 

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

CaptHook

Do you make your exposure settings in full manual? Semi-auto?

Thanks, Chris

 

[CaptHook]

Full manual. And usually 'sunny' white balance, lowest ISO possible, and an ND 8 filter.
And then try to plan for shots on lighting, keeping the sun to the backside.
So filming a house, do the front with the sun coming from behind (in the morning) and the back also from behind (in the afternoon).
And do orbits near noon so the sun is above.
And I use Davinci Resolve to keyframe the brightness in the color page when needed.

 

[Paul2660]

AE works very well for me, if you make the move in slow transitions. For example panning down and back up with the gimbal or moving (yaw) around a sunset. I agree you can at time see jumps in the exposure, but this is not that common for me. Locking in at a fixed apeture for frame rate etc. will give best footage but many times that causes much of the image to be way to dark almost black and the DR of the DJI logarithm of this sensor is less than great. Faster you make the transition in flight the more the effect of jumping will be, go slower and you can always speed it up in post. Filming in low light or transition light (foggy morning, sunsets, sunrise etc.) I find that the AE is still overall the best solution.

Paul C

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

Tricky but I suppose you COULD expose for the light areas and lock the exposure and in post, ramp the exposure up to your liking for the darker areas slowly (instead of the jumps in exposure from the drone). Corrections will tolerate underexposure way more than overexposure. Keeping it at it's lowest ISO setting would (hopefully) minimize grain but it would depend upon the actual dynamic range (f-stops) between the darkest ares and the lightest.