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Resolution opinions

hidaven

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. Is the difference between the 5.4K vs 4K resolution (especially when you will likely downsample it to post it anywhere) worthwhile? Are you guys actually recording in 5.4k, or sticking to 4k?

What do you use between normal, d-log, and HLG color? I often post video straight out of the camera, but I can use davinci when I'm putting together longer videos. What gives the best picture out of the camera? What gives the most editing flexibility?

Is there any reason to use the mov container over MP4? I heard .mov us less compressed.

Any settings tips in general?
 
. Is the difference between the 5.4K vs 4K resolution (especially when you will likely downsample it to post it anywhere) worthwhile? Are you guys actually recording in 5.4k, or sticking to 4k?

What do you use between normal, d-log, and HLG color? I often post video straight out of the camera, but I can use davinci when I'm putting together longer videos. What gives the best picture out of the camera? What gives the most editing flexibility?

Is there any reason to use the mov container over MP4? I heard .mov us less compressed.

Any settings tips in general?
Use 5.4k for best results. There are a couple reasons for this with the most important one in my opinion being that when you record 5.4k you are using all the pixels in the largest 16:9 area of the sensor. To record 4k on a 5.4k sensor the Air2s has to skip lines and bin pixels to lower the resolution so it’s not reading out the full area of that sensor.

I like the HLG color the best. HLG is pretty amazing in that it’s a standardized gamma and colorspace which makes it easier to work with in DaVinci Resolve and will playback straight out of camera natively as SDR or HDR without any editing. Look up color management for DaVinci Resolve it learn how you can leverage working with HLG by transforming it to a working colorspace. I have never been a fan of log and DJI’s implementation is particularly frustrating to work with. They use a different log profile for every single aircraft which makes it very difficult to do colorspace transforms and tone mapping.

As was already said there’s almost no practical difference between .mp4 and .mov these days
 
Not specific to the Air 2s, there are times I choose lower resolutions.

a) If I’m creating instructional video and I know that I’ll be using screen capture footage from the controller intermixed with drone footage intermixed with a camera on a tripod I’ll often make resolution decisions at the start of the project based on the device with the least rez. The V1 smart controller captures at 720p.

One *can* use multiple resolutions in a project to good effect. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t.

b) Shooting higher framerates for later slow motion. Each drone has unique combos of rez and framerate available. I shoot quite a bit at 60fps, and occasionally at 120fps.

On the other hand, if you’re shooting landscapes, if you’re not shooting things that move fast, you may never use slow motion.

YMMV. This is really down to individual choices and applications.
 
Unless you have a storage space issue (which is very hard to understand these days, especially if you could afford the drone), there is no good reason to leave the resolution behind. You never know when you might be glad you have it in the future, so you can use a cropped part of that clip in some project you can't anticipate.

I've been using a 256gb card lately that works just fine with 5.4k on all my DJI drones, and they're cheap enough I'm just using them for long term storage too. $33 on Amazon:

61snd5p3IoL._AC_SL1500_.jpg


I buy 3 at a time, then fill them up with raw footage. I've got a nice zippered case that holds the archive.
 
MP4 and MOV are "container/wrapper" file formats and don't have any absolutely value for quality of content.
That depends on used video codec and bitrate.
(H.265 better than H.264 per bitrate)
And of course chosen resolution, 1920x1080 won't ever have more details than 3840x2160...
(unless the latter has been overcompressed to hell and back)
 
If found the options to grade and tweak exposure with dlog work well. Download the LUT and guide for the air2s and use that imported into Davinci as a starting point for your own grades.

The Davinci free tutorial videos are excellent, though I have to go through them a few times to get to grips with what feels like a thousand options!

I shot footage over mountain area at sunrise, with and without dlog and the difference is amazing.

Sensor size of the 2s really helps
 
. Is the difference between the 5.4K vs 4K resolution (especially when you will likely downsample it to post it anywhere) worthwhile? Are you guys actually recording in 5.4k, or sticking to 4k?

What do you use between normal, d-log, and HLG color? I often post video straight out of the camera, but I can use davinci when I'm putting together longer videos. What gives the best picture out of the camera? What gives the most editing flexibility?

Is there any reason to use the mov container over MP4? I heard .mov us less compressed.

Any settings tips in general?
There is a reason and there may be a slight difference too. (I use HLG exclusively and I post in HLG/HDR).

First, if you record video in 5.4K you have the ability in post to zoom in without any or much loss of resolution (if your post is 4K of course). I don't zoom in often, but it is a nice feature to retain. Second, if you post in a high quality production system as for example Davinci Resolve Studio, the down-sampling quality may be quite a bit better than what the camera is capable of doing in real time.

Here are some reasons why not to record 5.4K. First, APAS is disabled and most advanced functions don't work either. Second, there are occasions where the encoder/writer in the A2S is "falling behind" causing some pixelations artefacts. Those situations only occur occasionally (not often) with fast moving changes (panning etc.). The files are bigger.
 
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