Set me straight - ND Filters

[paulatkin73]

Thanks very much Paul. Your explanation is very helpful. The light bulb is starting to come on.

NP.

as i use tiffen box with 6 slots in it - i can tell what i carry with me. ND16 is on the bird. in the box - ND4, ND32, ND64, ND1000. and polarizers - CND16, CND8.

ND64 is only needed on the mountains in the snow top if you shoot wide open for some reason, otherwise it is an overkill.
transparent filter i do not carry at all as ND4 works fine and i do not shoot at night, but, if you do not need ND64 - then put UV filter in that spot.

tiffen box is best one for transporting and i personally think it is a best set of filters right now from what is out there, but, it is a matter of a personal preference.
https://www.amazon.com/Tiffen-Filte...mavic+2&qid=1550861783&s=photo&sr=1-1-catcorr

also , look up this review, especially the part with color accuracy deviations charts in the end.
54 Mavic 2 Filters Polar Pro, Tiffen, rest. Which filters are best? - DroneDJ

 

[CanadaDrone]

Really appreciate your feedback and this was most helpful. I do understand that those great images and videos are a result of post production edits in LR and other software. I expect that I may get to the level of effort at some point but for now your point about just leaving my settings alone and testing the impact of the filter is what I needed to hear. I like the footage I'm getting without the filter (just returned from the Amazon) but have plans to use the drone in Fort Lauderdale in a few weeks and with so much water I'm curious about using a ND PL filter to help with the water glare. Thanks again for your input.

You might be surprised how easy it can be to edit video. If you have a recent iPad, the LumaFusion app is a fully professional video editing app that is extremely simple and straightforward.

Water is actually where you will really notice it when you aren't using a ND filter at all because things like waves will appear choppy if the shutter speed is too high. As for glare off water, it's generally not too bad from a 100+ feet in the air, but as always conditions vary. I have done a lot of flying in Hawaii and it was never a problem.

 

[CanadaDrone]

make sure you set video format to dlog-m 10bit. that will give you 12 stops of the dynamic range and will allow to correct exposure, to some limit, in the post processing - same way as with DNG files. 8bit color is less forgiving and will require more accurate exposure set.

This is true, but it also requires him to process the video after the fact, and requires him to have a computer capable of working with 10bit H265 footage (unless you transcode it all to H264 first which adds a step). Just something to be aware of. Also note 10bit Dlog-M on the Mavic 2 Pro does not correct for distortion, you will have to do that manually in post every time.

 

[JMagnus]

@Thomas B Would you tell me what video the screen shots you provided came from? Thank you!