Mavic Air - Very Noisy and Grainy Footage (ISO 100)
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If you have Vivid than you have PL/ND so maybe your 50% of polarized was on the wrong part of scene ( on bottom instead of sky ) that would made bottom part darker and by that there would be more noise and sky will be too bright ..
What I do is: turn your MA with filter on and put it toward sky and easy start turning it around and see trough your screen on mobile or tablet when you see darker sky than you are on spot ..
sorry for my bad English but you will understand I think
What I do is: turn your MA with filter on and put it toward sky and easy start turning it around and see trough your screen on mobile or tablet when you see darker sky than you are on spot ..
sorry for my bad English but you will understand I think
Newbie here..... Receiving my Mavic Air today
I also have PolarPro ND/PL's coming 4, 8, 16 & 32. I understand about planning the shot at 90 degrees to the sun. What I don't have a clear understanding of is what happens if I'm flying 180 degrees from the sun? I assume the footage would be darker. It appears that you know the differences between ND and ND/PL's. In your opinion, would it be a better choice to use ND (non-PL's) for all directions without the fuss of PL's then use LUT's and/or color grading in post? I'm just getting into FCPX coming from Sony Vegas Pro. Your thoughts would be most appreciated. Thanks, RayNewbie here..... Receiving my Mavic Air today
Hi Ray,
Congrats on the purchase - I am fairly new to drones as well, but I have a long background in photography, so thankfully pretty much all the same principles transfer over.
At 180 degrees (sun behind you) polarization will be nonexistent. Between 90 degrees to the sun (where it is strongest) and 180 degrees to the sun (where it is weakest), you have varying levels of polarization. Further to this you can rotate the filter itself to control the amount of polarization, because sometimes the polarization effect can be too strong (it can make oddly or unevenly dark skies, crush blacks, etc.) A quick check is to make a "gun" shape with your thumb and index finger- point your index finger at the sun, and anywhere you can rotate your thumb to in an arc will have maximum polarization (the entire circle around the sun will be equally polarized).
The Mavic Air has a 24mm lens equivalent, so it's not quite wide enough to start running into problems with heavy vignetting or uneven skies with a polarizer, so there are a couple less things to worry about there that are concerns in the traditional photography world when using wide angle lenses.
I just use ND's most of the time, but polarizers can really make your footage pop if used properly. For example in tropical climates where you can often see the coral reef through crystal clear water, I would probably be utilizing a polarizer. Sometimes foliage can have distracting reflections especially on large leaves, and a polarizer will help remove that too, but it really does depend on each individual scenario. That isn't the only use for them of course, just one example. If you just want to set it and forget it and not worry about direction, ND's are easier to work with because all you have to worry about is exposure. You probably aren't going to ruin your footage by flying in all directions with a NDPL, but you may not like the inconsistent look as polarization changes throughout. Chances are anytime you want to use a polarizer it will be brighter out - I think an ideal kit (assuming you don't want to just buy every filter) would be ND4, ND8, ND16, ND32, ND16PL, ND32PL. If there are certain conditions you never shoot under, you could omit one or more of those as well (i.e. if you never shot at sunrise/sunset, you could probably omit the ND4).
A LUT cannot replace a polarizer - that is one thing no software can do even today. You can duplicate the slight contrast/color bump you sometimes get with a polarizer, but it is impossible to remove reflections in post processing and mimic that effect of polarization, so if you want to do that, you have to use a polarizer. Personally I get away with normal ND's most of the time, but if you have a well planned flight path and favorable conditions for a polarizer, it can make a significant difference to the footage.
Hope that helps.
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Awesome!! Your information makes total sense. I'm now considering to get PolarPro's six pack of the one's you mentioned instead of keeping the four pack I purchased. The nice thing is, PolarPro let's you make a custom four or six pack at a great price. Please correct me if I'm wrong, use of the NDPL's in lower lit conditions such as sunrises/sunsets would be closer to using just ND's? It totally makes sense that on brighter days that ND16PL's and up would be most beneficial. I sincerely appreciate and thank you for your time and help. Ray
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Awesome!! Your information makes total sense. I'm now considering to get PolarPro's six pack of the one's you mentioned instead of keeping the four pack I purchased. The nice thing is, PolarPro let's you make a custom four or six pack at a great price. Please correct me if I'm wrong, use of the NDPL's in lower lit conditions such as sunrises/sunsets would be closer to using just ND's? It totally makes sense that on brighter days that ND16PL's and up would be most beneficial. I sincerely appreciate and thank you for your time and help. Ray
You're welcome - happy to help.
Polar Pro has strategically positioned their ND filter packages to encourage you to buy two different packages (you can't get 8/16/32 in any one set) but thankfully you can buy directly from them and custom make a pack as you have found out.
Polarization always has an effect, you just aren't really going to notice it as much as the light starts to get dim. If you're in the deep shade or something, it may still have value removing reflections from wet surfaces, but beyond that there wouldn't be much point. Also if the reflected light has color (i.e. a deep orange sunset reflecting onto some wet rocks) you probably don't want to remove those reflections because it will look really nice. Same goes if you are trying to get a "mirror" look on some extremely calm water - a polarizer is going to reduce or remove that reflected mirror image. As things start to get really dark, chances are you want to let in as much light as possible to keep ISO as low as possible, and a polarizer is going to cut about 2 stops of light, so you wouldn't want to be using one then either as it will prevent a lot of light from hitting the sensor (same would go for a ND filter if you're past the point where removing the filter altogether still cannot get the shutter speed to the desired level and are forced to raise ISO). Lastly, using a polarizer or any filter when it's not really needed just needlessly introduces another piece of glass to the optical formula, which means more chance of flare or internal reflections potentially ruining your footage.
Most people use polarizers to get the clouds to 'pop' against a deep blue sky, or to take the reflection off of water for the see-through effect. Other common uses would be taking the reflection off of wet rocks (i.e. behind a waterfall) or wet skin (especially animal skin like a dolphin or a whale). Polarizers can also be used to enhance, or completely eliminate, rainbows depending on how it's oriented. Of course it's not limited to those things, but that is often why people want polarizers because it's difficult or impossible to get that same look any other way.
Let me know if that doesn't answer your question.
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Thank you doesn't seem to be enough for all the fantastic info. you shared here. I both Thank and Applaud you for taking the time in explaining all the differences between the both types. I'm going to make up a six pack just like yours which I feel will give me the best bang not only for the buck but, the type of video I want to capture. If for nothing else, it will give me a great starting point. You made really good points in regards to different scenario's. I'd like to add, I've seen "many" Youtube video's that hasn't explained this as well as you have. Thank you again! Sincerely appreciated. Ray
Thank you doesn't seem to be enough for all the fantastic info. you shared here. I both Thank and Applaud you for taking the time in explaining all the differences between the both types. I'm going to make up a six pack just like yours which I feel will give me the best bang not only for the buck but, the type of video I want to capture. If for nothing else, it will give me a great starting point. You made really good points in regards to different scenario's. I'd like to add, I've seen "many" Youtube video's that hasn't explained this as well as you have. Thank you again! Sincerely appreciated. Ray
You're welcome. If any other questions pop up, feel free to reach out.
Static8
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I'ma sure Air and Pro have around 28mm lens and Phantom Pro 4 have 24mm - it doesn't seem like a lot but it's a LOT
I'ma sure Air and Pro have around 28mm lens and Phantom Pro 4 have 24mm - it doesn't seem like a lot but it's a LOT
The Air is a 24mm equivalent, and the Pro is 26mm. That's an 85 degree FOV on the Air, and 78.8 degrees on the Pro.
Kilrah
Well-Known Member
No noise visible here.
The trees are a bit "mushy" on the 2nd one but that's normal and due to being a dark area of a high contrast scene shot in cinelike. It artifically boosts shadows so you get processing latitude... but that means you're supposed to bring them to normal levels in post and that would hide the defects again.
Aka the dark areas are shot at higher "equivalent iso" than what you've set and will thus exhibit either noise or noise reduction mush.
Cinelike and log aren't miracle solutions you should leave always on and magically get better results, they have their own limitations and processing requirements and if you don't adapt your workflow accordingly you'll get worse results with them than without..
The trees are a bit "mushy" on the 2nd one but that's normal and due to being a dark area of a high contrast scene shot in cinelike. It artifically boosts shadows so you get processing latitude... but that means you're supposed to bring them to normal levels in post and that would hide the defects again.
Aka the dark areas are shot at higher "equivalent iso" than what you've set and will thus exhibit either noise or noise reduction mush.
Cinelike and log aren't miracle solutions you should leave always on and magically get better results, they have their own limitations and processing requirements and if you don't adapt your workflow accordingly you'll get worse results with them than without..
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