Residential Video Techniques

[zephrypn]

I've been asked by lots of friends and neighbours to take still aerial photos of their property. No problem. But lately, I've been asked to take videos and combined with a Davinci Resolve learning curve, my resulting videos leave much to be desired. Typically, I hover before changing directions or I move the camera up instead of down. These I can correct with practice but I would like to know what techniques or DJI apps are used by others to make more polished videos of residential properties (outdoors) - I'm definitely doing indoor flights. I want to re-do my last video shoot and would like to avoid 2 weeks of editing to remove pics of me or static images. All advice gratefully received

 

[slup]

1. AC handling & combined stick inputs to avoid hovering's & only movements in one axis ---> Practice, practice.

2. Dial down the stick sensitivity for all movements & use slower flight modes like Cine mode or Tripod mode if you have it for your craft.

3. Carefully plan the flight ... no going airborne & see what I can film. Spend a battery looking for heights, angles & suitable flight paths before going in to film. Perhaps also scout out the area from ground level & sat. pictures even before going airborne.

4. Divide the flight in several sections with few turns/moves ... don't try to fly everything in one turn. If doing it in small sections you can redo each until you nail them & then join the clips. It's also easier to avoid handling mistakes doing the shot step by step.

5. Practice, practice ... there's no shortcuts to a smooth flight not needing a lot of editing.


App ...

Will never surpass doing it manually ... but depending on what craft you have it's several mission planning apps out there, like Litchi & Dronelink. But all those also needs a lot of time for pre-planning regarding flight paths, camera angles & height, both on your computer & on location.

 

[zephrypn]

Thank you Mark. Good advice. I was wondering if you use Mavic 2 Pro options such as 'Point of Interest' to circle the residence or property? Do you fly a certain height for PoI? How do you keep yourself out of the photo? Do you try to speed up the playback when preparing output for the neighbour and if so, how do you do that? Any specific editing that you do that is typical of each project? 'David

 

[slup]

Thank you Mark. Good advice. I was wondering if you use Mavic 2 Pro options such as 'Point of Interest' to circle the residence or property? Do you fly a certain height for PoI? How do you keep yourself out of the photo? Do you try to speed up the playback when preparing output for the neighbour and if so, how do you do that? Any specific editing that you do that is typical of each project? 'David

I'm not into residential filming especially so can't advice regarding certain typical moves ... but can imagine that starting out with an overview, perhaps with a small portion of a circular move (yeah ... you can use the quick shot "Point of interest" for that), but still think a manual circular move transitioning over to another move is better instead of a cut in the clip. The 5 tips I gave you earlier are general ones in order to get a smooth video without hesitant moves & jerkiness ... they aren't especially for residential filming.

Speeding up sections of the video is possible ... but it looks very bad if it's noticeable, if for instance capturing objects on ground moving abnormally fast. It's also easy to make smaller craft wiggles more visible when speeding up.

To keep out of the frame you could stand under a tree or in the deeper shadows in the edge of the frame ... your camera is up high so that ought take care of that.

 

[Smooth Rhythm]

Thanks for sharing!??

 

[GFields]

Practice!