Tell me why you might shoot drone video using a slow frame rate?

[Pixeldawg]

I have a question here... Does anyone know if the M2P can have a custom white balance? If so, where is it? I have a device that sets ultra accurate color and if possible, would like to use it. Anyone know? Seems as if it should, but have not ran across it, only to adjust to a specific number of Kelvin degrees. Thanks for the input and Happy New Year!

Cordially,

Mark

 

[RobW01]

Some really great answers here some good knowledge sharing going on. I learnt something and I hope you did too.

To answer my own question.

I shoot in 5k so I can crop the footage. When I fly I think of my flight as a rough cut, I already know I’m going to be reframing the shots a little in post. My flying isn’t perfect, and in post I get all the time in the world to sit and decide the best way to frame what I’ve got. For me the flying is like making a sketch, jotting down what I want in scribbles, the actual painting itself happens in post. 5k allows me to make a bigger sketch.

As for why I use a higher frame rate that’s a little more complicated to explain. I myself don’t worry about motion blur for two reasons, it’s hard to see motion blur on a tablet which is what most of us watch drone videos on, and second, I’m rarely fly fast near objects or doing fast turns where motion blur is created. The possibility for motion blur to be present isn’t even there in in 97% of my footage. I tend to shoot low and slow, and too much speed near objects means more visits to DJI to get a crashed drone fixed lol.

Another reason I tend to shoot in a higher frame rate, what if something unexpected happens while I’m shooting and I want to show it in slow mo, like a bird gracefully flying past the drone.

Last reason I shoot in higher frame rates, for digital pans in post. If I shoot at 24 FPS at 5k then want to do a 1080 or even 720 digital pan using 24 FPS footage, it’s looks bad. When you do a simple straight on crop your fine, but we are magnifying and moving side to side in a digital pan there aren’t enough frames to support that level of editing in post. I learnt that by trial and error, it’s not information your going to see in many how to YouTube videos. Try it for yourself, go shoot a piece of video at 24 then do a digital pan and zoom, you will see dropped frames and stutter, then shoot the same thing in a higher rate and repeat the process, the results are far more satisfactory.

In the old days when 24 FPS was born it worked well, most cameras were stationary didn’t move much and the framing of the shot was always perfect because it was decided in advance. That kind of filming doesn’t apply to a drone, unless your flying high and not near objects. Drones spin and move fast, they have nothing in common with an old school stationary conventional movie camera.

So that’s my opinion, and it’s just that, an opinion. What works for me may not work for you and that’s okay.

Yeah, I agree with a lot of that. But I don’t spend a lot of time in post except for editing, including transitions, sometimes titles and music. Guess it’s a habit I got into when covering news—hard to get an important person, a football player or a runaway vehicle to “do it again”.

 

[canadian drone videos]

Yeah, I agree with a lot of that. But I don’t spend a lot of time in post except for editing, including transitions, sometimes titles and music. Guess it’s a habit I got into when covering news—hard to get an important person, a football player or a runaway vehicle to “do it again”.

What, no... Micheal Jordan interview take 3 lol. Not a lot of people enjoy editing as much as I do.

 

[RobW01]

True story: Once when I was covering news in Israel, one of my local colleagues arrived a little late for then PM Golda Meir‘s regular Sunday media conference on the terrace outside her office. My colleague, who had served in the Israeli forces during the war of ‘48, shouted to her in Hebrew, “Once more for me, please Golda!” She responded, “OK, Rolf,” and promptly did it again.

 

[canadian drone videos]

True story: Once when I was covering news in Israel, one of my local colleagues arrived a little late for then PM Golda Meir‘s regular Sunday media conference on the terrace outside her office. My colleague, who had served in the Israeli forces during the war of ‘48, shouted to her in Hebrew, “Once more for me, please Golda!” She responded, “OK, Rolf,” and promptly did it again.

That’s hilarious lol, he better have made her look just perfect.

 

[EricJT]

I shoot in high FPS to avoid using ND filters...I set the aperture to my M2P's sweet spot and ISO to 100.

I like my video to be sharp so the "blurred" effect is moot to me.

I also shoot in 4K as I can always save at a lower resolution if I want to and storage is relatively inexpensive these days.

 

[CanadaDrone]

I shoot in high FPS to avoid using ND filters...I set the aperture to my M2P's sweet spot and ISO to 100.

I like my video to be sharp so the "blurred" effect is moot to me.

I also shoot in 4K as I can always save at a lower resolution if I want to and storage is relatively inexpensive these days.

FPS has no effect on your exposure, so it won't affect the need for a ND filter - you may be thinking of shutter speed. The problem with really high shutter speeds is it makes any motion in the video very jerky, but if you don't mind that or aren't sensitive to that, it saves you the hassle of NDs I guess.

 

[EricJT]

FPS has no effect on your exposure, so it won't affect the need for a ND filter - you may be thinking of shutter speed. The problem with really high shutter speeds is it makes any motion in the video very jerky, but if you don't mind that or aren't sensitive to that, it saves you the hassle of NDs I guess.

You are absolutely correct...it is the shutter speed I increase to get the right exposure, rather than using an ND filter.

I tried a test where moving vehicles were in the frame and I saw no evidence of jerkiness. But as you say, perhaps I am not sensitive to that in my elderly years.

 

[alex_markov]

I'll share my personal thoughts - I shoot 4K 60 fps - lower fps for me are only good at lower light conditions allowing for longer exposure but other than that 60 fps is the must for me!
4K instead of 5K for several reasons:
1. 4K is slightly wider than 5K on M3
2. 5K gives you bigger files and harder (at least for my HW) to edit
3. I Very rarely crop and post in 4K ...

 

[canadian drone videos]

I'll share my personal thoughts - I shoot 4K 60 fps - lower fps for me are only good at lower light conditions allowing for longer exposure but other than that 60 fps is the must for me!
4K instead of 5K for several reasons:
1. 4K is slightly wider than 5K on M3
2. 5K gives you bigger files and harder (at least for my HW) to edit
3. I Very rarely crop and post in 4K ...

I’m a 60 FPS guy for sure.

 

[baddog]

Many of us shoot drone video using slower frame rates, and that’s fine, what I want to know is what are you getting out of it? And second question, why did you buy a drone that shoots 5k footage, why did you want 5k?

24 fps creates natural motion blur. Also referred to a cinematic motion. It is what looks natural to the human eye. 60fps is good for fast action clarity in almost every frame but it does not look n.v natural and is easily detectable by the human eye sight.

 

[BDJ]

I'm not a fan of the supposed "Natural" motion blur of 24 fps. I think we've all filmed moving objects at this frame rate and experienced the most unnatural effect of vehicles "jumping" between frames. (And this is using the correct shutter speed of 1/50th) I do occasionally shoot at 24 or 25 fps though. When I'm chasing light. 1/50th lets in double the light compared to 1/100th (what you shoot with if you have selected 50 fps.)

 

[manowar_gub]

you should understood, 24fps for cinemas was chosed to: 1) save ribbon length 2) to shoot static scenes

I prefer to keep 50+ fps to: get natural motion of each subject in my vid, reduce rolling shutter effect

 

[RicGPDX]

Higher resolutions (4K+) allow greater flexibility in post, either cropping or using cropping to add zooms, pans, tilts, etc. The additional pixels, even though they go beyond the eye's ability to distinguish detail, also have a big impact on tone gradations, especially with 10-bit or higher imaging. It gives you nearly three times the number of intermediate shades going from bright to dim and one color to another. The look is far more real and less digital. This won't mean anything to most of you, but it's like using large-format film.

As you can see here, there are a lot of opinions about frame-rate. 24fps is the most common for high-quality, cinematic renditions. 29.9/30 fps is a holdover from analog TV (NTSC) when the frame rate was dictated by our 60-cycle AC power standard. That's why, back in the day, other world standards (PAL, SECAM) were 25 frames. Those nations had 50-cycle AC current.

I deliver nearly all my video production now at 24fps, not for size, but for the look of it. Most video encoding algorithms will just drop frames when going to a lower frame rate. The motion still looks too crisp if I shoot at a higher rate and I find that distracting.

One other note: to achieve the lower frame rates, you really do need a set of ND filters and a sense of which filter will give you the right rate at the lowest possible ISO.

One more thing: it would be SOOOO wonderful if DJI would release a drone with a Blackmagic Design sensor. Hasselblad is a wonderful name but BMD codecs are far superior, especially in a DaVinci Resolve workflow.

-Ric

 

[Rudiger]

As a few people have pointed out, there seems to be some confusion between between frame rate and shutter speed. Yes, 24fps is the film standard in North America and 25fps is the standard in Europeland. Film and cinema cameras use shutter angles so a 180° shutter translates to 1/48 for 24fps and 1/50 for 25fps. The main reason to shoot a 180° shutter is the get motion blur and a more natural look. The main reason to shoot 24fps or 25fps would be to edit footage from multiple cameras without conflicting frame rates.

 

[RobW01]

Got to love the fascination for ‘cinematic’ video in connection with your average foldable drone. I wonder how many Mavic Pilots actually use their video for documentary or ‘film’ production? I’m not talking about social media, YouTube or even your average real estate or similar jobs.

 

[canadian drone videos]

24 fps creates natural motion blur. Also referred to a cinematic motion. It is what looks natural to the human eye. 60fps is good for fast action clarity in almost every frame but it does not look n.v natural and is easily detectable by the human eye sight.

All true, except that drones are rarely flying low and fast near objects due to the crash factor lol. I’ve seen many videos on this Mavic page, yet to see a single one that would have motion blurr and I know they were shot at 24fps.

But if you want to see some serious motion blurr in drone video here’s one I shot 2 years ago. Watch the last scene, guess what that frame rate was?

Vancouver British Columbia and region | Some various scenes from my time in BC. Shot with Tweety, my P4P. | By Canadian Drone Videos. | Facebook

Some various scenes from my time in BC. Shot with Tweety, my P4P.

fb.watch

 

[Kentucky Ranger]

Slower frame rates give a more cinematic look for some shots, and higher resolution give you the ability to crop the shot, without losing good image quality.
To go deeper with slower frame rates, it all has to do with motion blur between frames.
It softens the scene up, and makes it look more cinematic, instead of something being shot for the evening news.

 

[Fly Petaluma]

24FPS is the world's most common frame rate for film making. Along with ~1/50 shutter speed, the idea is that the motion blur caused by those settings are most similar to what the human eye sees for motion blur in the real world, thereby giving a viewer the most natural experience possible (or "cinematic" look). Obviously there are plenty of reasons to use faster frame rates and shutter speeds, but that is the general reasoning behind 24fps.

You might be wondering why we don't always shoot at the maximum frame rate possible at any given resolution because you can just edit it in a lower FPS timeline if you wish, however the problem becomes the shutter speed - if you are shooting, for example, 4K/120FPS, your shutter speed is probably around 1/240sec. That shutter speed on a 24 or 30fps timeline will have a very different look to it (you will lose much or all of the motion blur) so there is more to consider there.

As for why you would might want to shoot in 5K (or any resolution higher than 4K for that matter) despite it being a non-standard playback resolution, the reasons are exactly the same as why you would want to shoot in 6K, 8K, or any resolution greater than your intended playback or end-use resolution. Just to list a few:

1) More leeway for 'lossless' cropping/panning/zooming. You can worry about composition after the fact and have a buffer for making mistakes. The higher the shooting resolution, the bigger your buffer.

2) The ability to grab higher resolution stills from any frame within your footage which is more than enough for a large print. For 5K this is around ~15MP and for 8K this is around ~33MP - more than enough for a decent print, and quite a lot more than the ~8MP still you can pull from 4K footage.

3) Higher resolutions downsampled to lower resolutions will always result in better image quality than if you had shot the lower resolution natively, all else equal. This is the principle behind oversampling and why it is so often used.

4) Higher resolution gives higher color fidelity and better gradients, even if your end-use resolution will be lower.

Programs like DaVinci Resolve allow proxy editing, so you don't need a computer capable of editing the higher resolution footage in real time. You can do all your post processing work at 1080P or 4K if you wish, even with an 8K shooting resolution and final output resolution.

The largest downside to filming in higher resolutions is storage, which is for the most part dirt cheap these days anyway, especially relative to the drone cost or other video equipment.

Of course it still won't appeal to everyone, for example those just wanting to take fun videos and edit them on their iPad or whatever, but higher resolution is always better from an image quality standpoint, all else equal. This goes for still photography as well.

All the same points above also apply (proportionately) to shooting a higher resolution than the intended end-use resolution, regardless of whether you are comparing 1080P to 4K or comparing 8K to 16K sometime in the future.

Thanks for such a detailed reply.

 

[baddog]

All true, except that drones are rarely flying low and fast near objects due to the crash factor lol. I’ve seen many videos on this Mavic page, yet to see a single one that would have motion blurr and I know they were shot at 24fps.

But if you want to see some serious motion blurr in drone video here’s one I shot 2 years ago. Watch the last scene, guess what that frame rate was?

Vancouver British Columbia and region | Some various scenes from my time in BC. Shot with Tweety, my P4P. | By Canadian Drone Videos. | Facebook

Some various scenes from my time in BC. Shot with Tweety, my P4P.

fb.watch

A dead give away is moving water, or tree leaves blowing in the wind, cars moving around. I can shoot in 60fps and it just does not look natural. This is from 50 plus feet away.