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Cool Chicken.gif Go to a Dr man .
Looks good Ted and know you have been reading the online manual and up on how to fly safe .;)
Enjoy. Thumbswayup
 
Congrats on the purchase!

Keep in mind you will probably not want to be using those NDPL's very often (they are not something you can just put on the drone and forget about it like a normal ND filter), so if you haven't already it might be a good idea to pick up some standard ND's. Polarization changes relative to the angle of the sun, and you can't adjust polaizers in the air, so unless you fly a straight, very specific flight path every time, you are going to end up with uneven footage. Just something to be aware of.
 
Yikes. I may want to exchange them.
Congrats on the purchase!

Keep in mind you will probably not want to be using those NDPL's very often (they are not something you can just put on the drone and forget about it like a normal ND filter), so if you haven't already it might be a good idea to pick up some standard ND's. Polarization changes relative to the angle of the sun, and you can't adjust polaizers in the air, so unless you fly a straight, very specific flight path every time, you are going to end up with uneven footage. Just something to be aware of.
 
Congrats on the purchase!

Keep in mind you will probably not want to be using those NDPL's very often (they are not something you can just put on the drone and forget about it like a normal ND filter), so if you haven't already it might be a good idea to pick up some standard ND's. Polarization changes relative to the angle of the sun, and you can't adjust polaizers in the air, so unless you fly a straight, very specific flight path every time, you are going to end up with uneven footage. Just something to be aware of.

Wouldnt it be cool if you could change the angle of polarity (polarization) during the flight???
 
I have used ND filters on my P3A but I don't think they were PL.
If you're new to drones and don't have a complete understanding on how the NDPLs are used, it might be a good idea to swap them for regular ND filters which require far less effort to use properly, and is also what you will be using most of the time anyway.
 
Wouldnt it be cool if you could change the angle of polarity (polarization) during the flight???

It would be - perhaps a little gear system could get it done since the edges are already ribbed haha. All you could change is the strength of the polarizaton though by rotating the filter, you are still somewhat bound by your angle to the sun. PL's are just really tricky to use on drones - they have their place but they are hard to recommend to people outside of specific situations.
 
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It would be - perhaps a little gear system could get it done since the edges are already ribbed haha. All you could change is the strength of the polarizaton though by rotating the filter, you are still somewhat bound by your angle to the sun. PL's are just really tricky to use on drones - they have their place but they are hard to recommend to people outside of specific situations.

I dont mean to hijack the thread, but can you describe what would be the place for PL's, and would it be worth spending a little extra money on an adjustable polarization PL on a drone?
 
I dont mean to hijack the thread, but can you describe what would be the place for PL's, and would it be worth spending a little extra money on an adjustable polarization PL on a drone?

Polarization is one effect that no post-processing software can reproduce, not even close in fact, so if you want that look the only way to get it is to use a physical polarizer. Polarizers can both enhance or remove reflections, so depending on the scenario you might want one or the other. For example if you were shooting a landscape with lots of foliage, you may want to take the reflections off the leaves - or the most common example, making water less reflective and more see-through. Sometimes though you want the reflection enhanced - for example a rainbow or if there is a nice sunset reflecting off some calm water.

If the filter is going on a drone, there is little value in an adjustable/rotating one because chances are you want maximum polarization if you are bothering to use a polarizing filter in the first place. Basically rotating it toggles the angle relative to the sun that receives maximum polarization, but it cannot magically produce a polarized effect at any angle - think of it more as changing the strength of polarization at any given orientation to the sun. It would also allow you to reduce the amount of polarization while flying in the direction of maximum polarization (90 degrees to the sun), but that would be something you would have to set on the ground anyway and there are far fewer scenarios where you only want a partial polarization. Whether you have a filter capable of rotating or not, you are bound to a single direction of flight if you don't want your footage to change mid-flight. At 180 degrees and 0 degrees to the sun there is no polarization. Maximum polarization is always at 90 degrees to the sun. If the sun is directly above you at high noon in an area near equator, you can get pretty broad polarization because most horizontal orientations will be roughly 90 degrees to the sun. If the sun is lower in the sky, there is a much tighter and less useful range that you will be able to achieve good polarization (basically straight up or straight down).

So let's say you were in Hawaii and wanted to get a nice shot over a coal reef, a polarizer would be great for that, you would just have to carefully plan the flight. If you wanted to fly in a different direction, you would need to bring the drone back home to adjust or remove the filter to avoid uneven footage. Or let's say you were hired to shoot some drone footage or photos of someone's car - you might want to completely remove the reflections in the freshly waxed paint by using a polarizer.

It's a good tool to have in the tool box, it just requires careful planning to get the most out of it and it's not something you want to just leave on and forget about like you can do with a standard ND filter. Most filter companies do a very poor job of explaining this to people and simply choose to market their PL filters as "vivid" or whatever, giving the customer the impression that they can just use them for any scenario and get better colors, which is far too simple and not the case.
 
I love polarizing filters for regular photography. The best way to see what they do is to get a pair of polarizing sunglasses and see what they do on a sunny day. As you look at different angles to the sun or sometimes by (hmmm how to explain) **** (lol wouldn’t let me use the first word I choose so say tilt your head) your head sideways you will get an idea of what they do. White clouds against a blue sky at a 90 degree angle to the sun really pop. As for objects think of it as a glare filter. Objects will look more saturated in color. Eg leaves, flowers. Etc
 
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It will also intensify the blue in the sky and really pop the clouds out white, but again, only at a particular angle to the sun and not in all directions, as you spin around. You can hold up a rotating PL and see the effect in the line you expect to travel just by rotating it to the best effect, but again, it has to be in the correct angle to the sun to achieve anything.

However, if you have a Mavic 2 Pro, it wont rotate anyway since that Hassi has no round lens fitted. In Hawaii for example you really get incredible looking ocean colour when at the right angle to the sun and when you see reflections coming off a car windscreen when standing outside, if the angle is correct to the sun, when you look through a PL there is suddenly no reflection at all and it ill look like there is no window in the car, it is so see through looking. A PL is worth its weight in gold for the right situation, subject, lighting conditions and angle to the sun.
 
Ok, my next question. How much would you be willing to pay for a remotrly operated device that could change the polarity of a filter while you are flight? @CanadaDrone I think you had mentioned in a previous post that this would be a nice feature to have, for those that know how to use it.

For pro's who dont want to have to land to manually rotate the filter to change polarity, would this be worth $100, $200?
 
To my feeble way of thinking, this would require too much hardware on the gimbal not to mention that it would need to either be integrated into Go4 (extremely unlikely,) or, there would have to be some sort of remote to adjust the filter.
 
To my feeble way of thinking, this would require too much hardware on the gimbal not to mention that it would need to either be integrated into Go4 (extremely unlikely,) or, there would have to be some sort of remote to adjust the filter.

Good points. What if this device was to impose no strain on the gimbal at all, as if the PL was independent of the gimbal? Also, in terms of integrating with DJI Go 4, could you use your device display and camera meters to adjust the PL to the optimum desired effect?
 
To my feeble way of thinking, this would require too much hardware on the gimbal not to mention that it would need to either be integrated into Go4 (extremely unlikely,) or, there would have to be some sort of remote to adjust the filter.

The device would be remotely operated independent of DJI Go 4.
 
Think this might be something for another thread don't ya think TD ;)
 
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Ok, my next question. How much would you be willing to pay for a remotrly operated device that could change the polarity of a filter while you are flight? @CanadaDrone I think you had mentioned in a previous post that this would be a nice feature to have, for those that know how to use it.

For pro's who dont want to have to land to manually rotate the filter to change polarity, would this be worth $100, $200?
I am not experienced enough with drone flying/video to add the extra workload at this point, but I use polarizing filters for still photography regularly and it’s sometimes indispensable. If there were an option to do in-flight adjustment, I’d think plenty of folks would pay $200 for that, and I might at some point.
 
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