Professional use of the Mavic Video IMHO

Robbyg · Mar 31, 2017

After messing around with 100 combinations of settings and using ND filters and endless grading in Adobe premiere and then looking at lots of other peoples videos I have come to my personal conclusion. Everyone's opinion will be different but for me it comes down to two simple things as to if the mavics can take good enough pro video.

1) It's a good enough camera if I can choose the conditions that I will be filming under. By that I mean the composition and angles of the subjects that I want to film, the time of day and the amount of sunlight and then film each part that I need in a way that works within the cameras limitations. When I do that the final video edit is not bad at all.

2) The video is almost never going to be good enough if someone was to say to me film this tomorrow at 3pm and I want you to fly by this church and then pan the mountain over there with the sky in the background etc etc. No it just does not work! The lack of dynamic range along with no aperture adjustment and the finicky focus just make shooting acceptable footage on demand almost impossible unless I was to luck into favorable conditions or a person who is not going to know mediocre footage from good footage or maybe does not care.

So IMHO it's a good enough camera for doing what I feel like doing so long as I have plenty of time to go back to a location at different times to shoot different sections and then take lots of video and edit out most of the stuff that just does not look good enough.

Would that be feasible on a paid event?

I don't know how many people have come to the same conclusion but that's my personal verdict on the Mavic for pro video work.

Rob

Bintryin · Mar 31, 2017

Yes It is Good enough . Its up to your artistic skills to make it shine there are no limits as to what this drone can do !!

Qoncussion · Apr 1, 2017

I tend to agree with you, Rob. That said... I've been shooting professionally for many years, and I belong to a number of videography forums. A while back, the *pros* all started saying, if you're not shooting in 4K, you'll be out of business in a year - claiming (quite loudly) that our customers are demanding 4K from us. Uhm, no they're not. I believe that for my "average" client, I could use the Mavic to do a commercial shoot and they wouldn't know the difference (granted, I would). But, the Mav just ain't all that when it comes to images. I knew this when I bought it. But it just looked like way too much fun to pass it by. I knew what I was getting, but from the sound of *many* of the threads out here, others are/were not aware of the limitations.

DronePilotOne · Apr 1, 2017

Robbyg said:
After messing around with 100 combinations of settings and using ND filters and endless grading in Adobe premiere and then looking at lots of other peoples videos I have come to my personal conclusion. Everyone's opinion will be different but for me it comes down to two simple things as to if the mavics can take good enough pro video.

1) It's a good enough camera if I can choose the conditions that I will be filming under. By that I mean the composition and angles of the subjects that I want to film, the time of day and the amount of sunlight and then film each part that I need in a way that works within the cameras limitations. When I do that the final video edit is not bad at all.

2) The video is almost never going to be good enough if someone was to say to me film this tomorrow at 3pm and I want you to fly by this church and then pan the mountain over there with the sky in the background etc etc. No it just does not work! The lack of dynamic range along with no aperture adjustment and the finicky focus just make shooting acceptable footage on demand almost impossible unless I was to luck into favorable conditions or a person who is not going to know mediocre footage from good footage or maybe does not care.

So IMHO it's a good enough camera for doing what I feel like doing so long as I have plenty of time to go back to a location at different times to shoot different sections and then take lots of video and edit out most of the stuff that just does not look good enough.

Would that be feasible on a paid event?

I don't know how many people have come to the same conclusion but that's my personal verdict on the Mavic for pro video work.

Rob

Good post!

AlanTheBeast · Apr 1, 2017

Bintryin said:
Yes It is Good enough . Its up to your artistic skills to make it shine there are no limits as to what this drone can do !!

Well, there are always limits to everything everywhere. (Almost - diarrhoea is in fact faster than lightning).

The issue is that the MP camera has a limited sweet spot so being able to catch the right light from desired angles at various parts of the day is going to result in pretty inconsistent finals or a hell of a lot of return trips.

Mavic Pro ------------------------- Phantom 4 Pro
Small sensor area ................ 4x the sensor area
Fixed f/2.2 ............................. f/2.8 .. f/11
No mechanical shutter .......... Mechanical shutter to 1/2000 s
ISO 100 - 3200 (video) ......... ISO 100 - 6400
ISO 100 - 1600 (photo) ......... ISO 100 - 12800
................................................>> more video modes

So for many more situations you'll be able to adjust the camera for the conditions. (Even, then ND's mandatory most of the time)...

Conclusion, it's "good enough" if the conditions fit its sweet spot.

And indeed we could add another column there, throw in an Inspire 2 with the X5S and a great lens and the monster CineSSD's ...

So there are limits and less limits.

(Edit: fixed table)