Most cinematic settings ... but without post? It there a thing even?

[erique]

Hi guys,

I'm new to the world of drones and have just purchased a Mavic Air with some ND filters. Well, at the time being, my objective is to take some videos and photos to be shared with family and friends. As a novice, what is the most cinematic settings that I can get from the drone with minimal or without doing any editing afterwards? I've scoured threads but haven't found anything that doesn't mention some bits on post editing. Over time I'd love to learn to edit my own footage for sure

 

[brett8883]

Hi guys,

I'm new to the world of drones and have just purchased a Mavic Air with some ND filters. Well, at the time being, my objective is to take some videos and photos to be shared with family and friends. As a novice, what is the most cinematic settings that I can get from the drone with minimal or without doing any editing afterwards? I've scoured threads but haven't found anything that doesn't mention some bits on post editing. Over time I'd love to learn to edit my own footage for sure

You are gonna get different answers to this so you’ll have to try a few to see what you like the look of.

If I was going to shoot knowing I was not going to do any editing after I would shoot:
-4K 30 FPS
-Auto exposure set to 0 EV
-Center weighted metering.
-AFC auto focus
-D-cinelike

Style settings would be:
0 sharpness,
+1 contrast,
+1 saturation.

 

[Photo-Sorko]

Hey,
creating real cinematic shots without editing is very hard to impossible. There are a few things that lay the base for cinematic shots.

1. Drone - (Camera-)Movement: the movement should be very smooth and steady and mostly not fast. You shouldn’t change the direction of panning in one shot. Watch some YouTube-Videos about how to reveal objects/landscapes. Don’t zoom while you’re are filming except there’s a good reason to do so.

2. Drone - 180° shutter angle: okay, most drones don’t have a real shutter but it means, you should expose the half of the time of the duration of one frame. If you shoot with 30fps than you should expose with 1/60s. At 60fps with 1/120s. You can achieve this with using ND-Filters.

3. Post - Cuts: Point 1 already include that you’ll need cuts. There are some great “One-Take”-Videos like flying slowly up in a spiral and revealing awesome landscape but that’s the minor. If you want to create a cinematic looking video, you’ll need cuts. It should be easy to learn how to create cuts in the software you are using. It’s not so easy to get a feeling where exactly to place a cut. If you have background music cut to the rhythm of the music. As long as you don’t edit a Star Wars movie, fancy transitions should only used very, very rarely. Just clean cuts or a soft blending will do the job.

4. Post - Colors: Colors and contrast is very important to get a cinematic look. This topic is a very big one and you’ll find tons of information in the web how to color grade your footage.

As you see, creating cinematic videos is always flying and post edit. But the basics of editing isn’t very hard to learn and if you want to do it anyways, just start from the beginning. With more experience and exercise you’ll get faster and more confident. But it will always take some time. A rule of thumb is that a minute of video will need an hour of editing.

Greetings
Jürgen

 

[erique]

Cheers for the input, Brett and Jürgen. I'm still experimenting with the Mavic Air and sifting through lots of Youtube videos on drone handling and cinematography. I do agree that post editing will make the captured footage look much, much better. I'm lacking the skills and tools to do editing at the moment but I'm excited to learn more through experience. The learning curve seems quite steep should I decide to take it more seriously, but for the time being I'm being the hobbyist and quite content to experiment and toy around with the settings.

 

[cyeung]

I like to shoot in full manual mode, using filters to get the shutter speed to 1/60.

So that you are not caught off-guard, the image will look flat when shooting in D-Cinelike. You WILL need a video editor to make the image look right again. If you do not have one, stick to "None" instead of "D-Cinelike." Here's something that explains why you want this: Understanding Log-Format Recording. The tl;dr of this is: It gives the dark areas more of the recording range, which will give you more detail. When post-processing, use the D-Log color space.

The one thing I want to add is to take the time to scan the area with the histogram on. Play around with the exposure settings and make sure you get a peak around the center.

I have taken to using DaVinci Resolve from Blackmagic Design. It is a very, very capable editor at a very good price (free). If you decide to go for the full version, it is $300, one-time.

 

[Alberta Pro 2]

You are gonna get different answers to this so you’ll have to try a few to see what you like the look of.

If I was going to shoot knowing I was not going to do any editing after I would shoot:
-4K 30 FPS
-Auto exposure set to 0 EV
-Center weighted metering.
-AFC auto focus
-D-cinelike

Style settings would be:
0 sharpness,
+1 contrast,
+1 saturation.

That seems to be a common setting. I totally get what the OP is fishing for. I want to just take out my Pro 2 and fly it over well thought out scenery. Take some great fly over movies if the Rockies , Pacific coast. Anything nice. I have very little desire to sit at a computer screen after and tweak n diddle with my footage. For now.....

 

[Pks]

I'm not a drone owner yet. But when it comes to video, I've come to enjoy the editing process because when you share the finished footage with family and friends, I get satisfaction from creating the best production I can based on being a real amateur. There's also always a ton of bad video to be ditched. I mainly video when on vacations. But if and when you ever get into editing, I wanted to just say that I like Sony's Vegas Pro software. It's much easier than something like Adobe Premier Pro which I used to use. I shoot in 4k with my Panasonic camcorder and import into Sony Vegas Pro and render the edited movie in 4k for showing on my 4k TVs and than also convert to 1080p using Wondershare's video converter for showing on my home theater projector which is only 1080p.

 

[harraizon]

One of the most important setting to get shots that feel cinema-like is your shutter speed. That's why you have those ND filters.

You want to shoot at 24 fps and then have a 1/50 of a second shutter speed. Hollywood movies have used that frame rate forever—more specifically 23.976 fps—using a 180° shutter angle, which just means half the frame rate, in this case 1/50th of a second is about half the 1/24 of a second for each frame. The reason you need those ND filters is because you can't get the shutter that slow in bright daylight, so that dark glass is helping you by cutting the light.

You could do 30 fps and 1/60 like was suggested about, but it will have a slightly different look to the discerning eye. 60 fps and 1/120 will have that soap opera look when played back full speed. However, if you then convert either 30 fps or 60 fps to 24 fps in post (editing on your computer) you'll maintain that familiar cinema-like look with slow motion added.

The rest will come from what you actually shoot, how you move the camera, and the color grade (look applied in post) as was mentioned above.

For photography, it's going to come down to what you shoot and how you edit it, and ND filters aren't usually necessary. The only reason you'd ever use an ND filter is if you were trying to get a long exposure to blur movement in the image.

 

[brett8883]

One of the most important setting to get shots that feel cinema-like is your shutter speed. That's why you have those ND filters.

You want to shoot at 24 fps and then have a 1/50 of a second shutter speed. Hollywood movies have used that frame rate forever—more specifically 23.976 fps—using a 180° shutter angle, which just means half the frame rate, in this case 1/50th of a second is about half the 1/24 of a second for each frame. The reason you need those ND filters is because you can't get the shutter that slow in bright daylight, so that dark glass is helping you by cutting the light.

You could do 30 fps and 1/60 like was suggested about, but it will have a slightly different look to the discerning eye. 60 fps and 1/120 will have that soap opera look when played back full speed. However, if you then convert either 30 fps or 60 fps to 24 fps in post (editing on your computer) you'll maintain that familiar cinema-like look with slow motion added.

The rest will come from what you actually shoot, how you move the camera, and the color grade (look applied in post) as was mentioned above.

For photography, it's going to come down to what you shoot and how you edit it, and ND filters aren't usually necessary. The only reason you'd ever use an ND filter is if you were trying to get a long exposure to blur movement in the image.

I thought about this before my original comment and I almost recomemded 24FPS but the reason I didn’t is because having a higher frame rate actually gives you more forgiveness in your shots than 24FPS especially in panning or tilting maneuvers.

Every Mavic owner will tell you the most difficult thing to do with a Mavic is getting a slow smooth pan. The Mavic wants to yaw faster than what you really want to get slow cinematic panning shots.

Using a lower frame rate also means your a using a slower shutter speed as @harraizon has pointed out. What that means is you introduce more blur with movement. Now this often looks good and gives your that “cinematic feel” but it also means when panning or tilting the camera you have to slow down the camera even more or else you get this really ugly and disturbing swirling look. Shooting in a higher frame rate means you use a faster shutter speed and can move the camera faster without getting the swirling look and putting off your audience. That’s why I reccomended the 30 FPS but again, experiment and see which you like better

 

[harraizon]

I thought about this before my original comment and I almost recomemded 24FPS but the reason I didn’t is because having a higher frame rate actually gives you more forgiveness in your shots than 24FPS especially in panning or tilting maneuvers.

Every Mavic owner will tell you the most difficult thing to do with a Mavic is getting a slow smooth pan. The Mavic wants to yaw faster than what you really want to get slow cinematic panning shots.

Using a lower frame rate also means your a using a slower shutter speed as @harraizon has pointed out. What that means is you introduce more blur with movement. Now this often looks good and gives your that “cinematic feel” but it also means when panning or tilting the camera you have to slow down the camera even more or else you get this really ugly and disturbing swirling look. Shooting in a higher frame rate means you use a faster shutter speed and can move the camera faster without getting the swirling look and putting off your audience. That’s why I reccomended the 30 FPS but again, experiment and see which you like better

Good points. I also like the look of 30 slowed down to 24 in post, but of course that requires editing. If I'm not mistaken, 30 fps is the European PAL standard, right? What will have a much bigger impact than the small difference between those two frame rates is what you're filming, how you move the camera, and how you grade the footage.

 

[Photo-Sorko]

30fps is NTSC
25fps is PAL

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

I’ve radically adjusted yaw and gimbal speed downwards in settings, makes it much easier to get smoother flying turns and pans when in normal flight mode.
I haven’t tried tripod mode, feel it’s just too slow for my liking, but this can be used to make things smoother in flight turns too, not sure if that slows gimbal movement ?

 

[JakeRobinson]

Does the Mavic Air have the same option as the M2's where you can vary the sensitivity of the sticks and movement?

this guy covers how to smooth the gimbal

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also, there's Tripod mode to help with movement smoothing

 

[bronze661]

Does the Mavic Air have the same option as the M2's where you can vary the sensitivity of the sticks and movement?

this guy covers how to smooth the gimbal

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this is how to adjust M2s

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also, there's Tripod mode to help with movement smoothing

yes

 

[RedBird2020]

Yes, called EXP (exponential)