Mavic 3 Sunrise Videos are lackluster at best

[stevearends]

I am not sure if this is the right forum, but I was all excited and got up early to see if I could get some beautiful sunrise videos. Here is how the M3 was setup:

1) No ND filter
2) 4k 30
3) Everything automatic
4) D Log
5) MOV output
6) All setting "Auto"

I noticed the ISO was auto setting itself to 400, and it was pre-sunrise, so I concluded - this might be alright, I guess. There was enough pre-sunrise light in order for there to be fascinating and incredible colors being formed on the eastern horizon, coming up over some foothills to the east of our house (we live in the foothills and there are mountains west and foothills east of us). To the naked eye, it was utterly incredible. But, in the RC PRO viewfinder it looked flat and grayish. I thought to myself - "I hope it will look more like what my eyes are seeing once I upload to my Mac but, sadly it didn't. I mean - it looked nicer because it was on a larger PC screen but the stunning sunrise oranges, yellows and reds that I saw with my naked eye were mostly "not there". How do I begin to capture better sunrise/early morning videos? If the answer is too involved here and has been covered already, if you could perhaps point me in the right direction that would be great too. Thx! Steve

 

[MS Coast]

I am not sure if this is the right forum, but I was all excited and got up early to see if I could get some beautiful sunrise videos. Here is how the M3 was setup:

1) No ND filter
2) 4k 30
3) Everything automatic
4) D Log
5) MOV output
6) All setting "Auto"

I noticed the ISO was auto setting itself to 400, and it was pre-sunrise, so I concluded - this might be alright, I guess. There was enough pre-sunrise light in order for there to be fascinating and incredible colors being formed on the eastern horizon, coming up over some foothills to the east of our house (we live in the foothills and there are mountains west and foothills east of us). To the naked eye, it was utterly incredible. But, in the RC PRO viewfinder it looked flat and grayish. I thought to myself - "I hope it will look more like what my eyes are seeing once I upload to my Mac but, sadly it didn't. I mean - it looked nicer because it was on a larger PC screen but the stunning sunrise oranges, yellows and reds that I saw with my naked eye were mostly "not there". How do I begin to capture better sunrise/early morning videos? If the answer is too involved here and has been covered already, if you could perhaps point me in the right direction that would be great too. Thx! Steve

On the camera setting tab, you have the color profile set to Dlog. Switch to normal.

Dlog provides greater dynamic range and better editing opportunities, but requires adjusting the colors in post processing.

 

[Dave Maine]

DLog is not designed to look good right off the camera card. It is designed to be used in a post processing work flow where all the color and luminance information is expanded to the best possible rendition of what was shot.

Depending on your drone, there are a number of video settings that do bake a finished look into the video coming off the SD card, and will not require post processing.

Most critical users find that to get what they want requires some amount of post processing to get there.

 

[Dale D]

I am not sure if this is the right forum, but I was all excited and got up early to see if I could get some beautiful sunrise videos. Here is how the M3 was setup:

1) No ND filter
2) 4k 30
3) Everything automatic
4) D Log
5) MOV output
6) All setting "Auto"

I noticed the ISO was auto setting itself to 400, and it was pre-sunrise, so I concluded - this might be alright, I guess. There was enough pre-sunrise light in order for there to be fascinating and incredible colors being formed on the eastern horizon, coming up over some foothills to the east of our house (we live in the foothills and there are mountains west and foothills east of us). To the naked eye, it was utterly incredible. But, in the RC PRO viewfinder it looked flat and grayish. I thought to myself - "I hope it will look more like what my eyes are seeing once I upload to my Mac but, sadly it didn't. I mean - it looked nicer because it was on a larger PC screen but the stunning sunrise oranges, yellows and reds that I saw with my naked eye were mostly "not there". How do I begin to capture better sunrise/early morning videos? If the answer is too involved here and has been covered already, if you could perhaps point me in the right direction that would be great too. Thx! Steve

I think if you had it set to D-Log, you will most certainly need to process it as you do any RAW file. The RAW file is flat out of the camera. If you do not use LUTs, then process it as you usually do. Here is a video I made recently with the M3 showing sunrise and sunset hyperlapses over a series of days, all processed D-Logs with Premiere Pro color grading.

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Dale

 

[stevearends]

That is very beautiful! Thank you for sharing.

 

[Dale D]

That is very beautiful! Thank you for sharing.

Thanks. I pretty much used your same settings and video hyperlapse with 2 second interval for the maximum my battery would allow to shoot. I think I set it at 25 minutes with the shutter tripping every 2 seconds. Everything auto. I processed them in LR Timelapse.

 

[veryzebra]

I love the standard video out of my M3 for sunrises/sets and everything else. Only time I mess up is when I have a filter on, for some specific photos and I don't know how to adjust the vid for it

 

[Dale D]

I love the standard video out of my M3 for sunrises/sets and everything else. Only time I mess up is when I have a filter on, for some specific photos and I don't know how to adjust the vid for it

I usually do not use any filter for sunrises or sunsets. I need as much light as possible before the sun arrives. I am not ashamed to use auto settings.

 

[stevearends]

Ok everyone, I changed from DLOG to Normal and the video this afternoon was fantastic! Keep it simple Steve.

I plan to shoot at sunset tonight and see how that turns out. If it’s nice enough I’ll upload.

On another note, we live in the mountains and I have a clear line of sight over a valley to another mountain with a lake below it. I’ve went towards it in other days, about 5,000 feet. Today it was so calm I decided to try to get on top the mountain to view the lake. I have the Mavic 3 and RC Pro. So, I went for it - 9,000 feet out and the RC Pro showed all bars when I turned around. I was so blown away at how fantastic the performance and capability was! Next time I will stay at the neighboring mountain longer and use the 7x zoom to look down around the lake!

 

[akdrone]

Try under exposing by a fair bit try series of exposures. 711. Three etc. under exposed. I find auto exposure makes it quite often too bright in the deep sunset colors need an underexposure

 

[$DJ]

Great Use of Mavic 3 Telephoto

You can see in this setting with Kite Surfers it could be disruptive and outright dangerous to fly close enough to these Kite Surfers to film them. However, with the Mavic 3 Telephoto the Mavic 3 can stay away at a very safe distance and yet capture this very nice film!

mavicpilots.com

This was a video I made of a sunset in NYC and I really like it. I'm enjoying the drone and messing around with the cameras and settings. Let me know what you think.