Shooting motocross today - Focus question

nickelphoto · Dec 17, 2016

Some friends and I will be out at a private MX track and I'd like to film them airborne from several angles. One I have in mind will be to park the drone slightly off the track at roughly the height the rider will reach so he flies past the drone. For this scenario, how would you handle focus? I could have someone stand on the top of the jump prior and pre-focus if that's the best option.

I plan to shoot mostly 1080P at 48 or 96fps with 24p playback, so they will be on screen a bit longer. Thoughts?

halley · Dec 17, 2016

Use manual focus (not the new auto focus mode). Figure the distance you want to focus. Fly away from your setup and face some other obvious large obstacle like a wall or the ground, at the same distance you plan to use at your setup. Focus. Fly back to your setup point.

And be careful to be positioned WELL above and/or WELL out of the arc of jumps.

nickelphoto · Dec 17, 2016

Haven't tried manual yetm i'll check it out thanks. That video is crazy. No way I would get that close, but thanks for the reminder!

nickelphoto · Dec 18, 2016

Update. Content is awesome and I'm really happy with the controls. Footage itself looks absolutely TERRIBLE. I mean it looks worse than 240p. Settings were 1080p at either 60fps or 96fps.

Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

nickelphoto · Dec 18, 2016

Here a cross post to my thread in help with a sample clip.

why does this clip look like garbage, what did I do wrong?
http://mavicpilots.com/index.php?th...-like-garbage%2C-what-did-I-do-wrong%3F.3128/

Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

nickelphoto · Dec 18, 2016

Here's the video. I didn't really cut a full one together or fully grade anything since I'm super frustrated with the footage (and I barely know how to use Davinci Resolve).