Time Wasting Whales

[RobinM]

I have a couple of video questions i'm hoping people can help me with in order to improve my very ordinary whale videography.
I upgraded from an Air2s to a MP3 in order to get better quality. Currently i'm struggling with

1. Blown highlights in video footage. I'm in D-Log and MP4 and use manual settings ( like i do exclusively in my stills camera). I just cant find a happy medium between water and water erupting even at -3 exp.value.
2. Is it my imagination or is the x7 zoom really unstable? It seems to accentuate any little movement of the drone.
3. Is it my imagination or is the resolution better at the x3 zoom? Better to crop in in post then?
4. How tight do you set your pitch and yaw? I just cant find smooth and tight-ish settings and wonder if it's the x7 zoom or the wind or both?
5. Do the video settings change between normal and sport or are they generic across those settings? i'm choosing to shoot as high a quality and best frame rate possible so translate to decent footage.
6. i'm still an IMovie lover after 25yrs - is this to my detriment?

Happy to hear any technical information you have and here is 2.5 mins of a pair of Time Wasting Whales today off Sydney with all it's flaws. Many thanks.


Time Wasting Whales

 

[DINOROCK]

As a photographer you should know that any telephoto lens is very unstable and usually requires a tripod imagine putting the same lens on a moving drone !!!! remember it is not a true tele X7 it is a crop from the centre of the image. hth Mike. ps i have just got into flying drones but i have been a photographer for many years .

 

[Meta4]

As a photographer you should know that any telephoto lens is very unstable and usually requires a tripod imagine putting the same lens on a moving drone !!!! remember it is not a true tele X7 it is a crop from the centre of the image.

The OP is talking about the Mavic 3 pro which has three separate cameras.

With two telephoto cameras, there's no need for any cropping to achieve this range.

 

[AeroJ]

1. Turbulent water is foamily white and reflective, so of course it is a bit more challenging to film and get the exposure right for, especially if the rest of it is quite dark and deep. There will be a middle ground that works OK for both, but the best hint I can give you is that it is better to underexpose everything (can be rescued in edit) than to blow anything out (which can't be fixed later).

2. 7 times zoom essentially magnifies the movement of your drone by that amount in the footage. Big zooms on drones (even optical ones) are always compromised because of this basic fact. Fine for stills, or for pilot feedback, but I wouldn't bother filming stuff that is maximally zoomed.

3. Set your expo to be very slow and gradual in both Cine and Normal Mode, and ultra responsive and fast in Sport Mode - then you have the best of both worlds covered.

4. I'll leave No 4 to people that actually have that craft...

5. Nope - video settings are entirely independent of flight mode.

6. Well nothing's as good as DaVinci Resolve ! You'd have to watch several of the many in-depth overviews of that software to work out if it's £269 good (spoiler; it is), which is what the full version costs, and you need that to process H.265 10 bit files.

 

[MS Coast]

1. Blown highlights in video footage. I'm in D-Log and MP4 and use manual settings ( like i do exclusively in my stills camera). I just cant find a happy medium between water and water erupting even at -3 exp.value.
2. Is it my imagination or is the x7 zoom really unstable? It seems to accentuate any little movement of the drone.

I'm assuming that you mean Mavic 3 Pro when you say MP3.

The 7x lens and camera are no less stable. But they do enlarge the image, and the motion in the image, seven times compared to the 1X. A certain about of yaw or pitch by the drone or the gimbal results in seven times as much movement within the frame with the 7X.

1. Is it my imagination or is the resolution better at the x3 zoom? Better to crop in in post then?

The 3X camera does have a larger sensor and better image quality, and the 1X camera is better than the 3X. Shooting at the native focal length is better than cropping to seven from the 3X camera.

1. How tight do you set your pitch and yaw? I just cant find smooth and tight-ish settings and wonder if it's the x7 zoom or the wind or both?

If you're over-controlling, change to lower values. You might also try adjusting the EXPO settings to allow smoother easing in and out of control changes.

1. Do the video settings change between normal and sport or are they generic across those settings? i'm choosing to shoot as high a quality and best frame rate possible so translate to decent footage.

No, they/re constant from one flight mode to another.

When shooting video and stills of Whale Sharks over the Gulf of Mexico to support a tagging operation, we ran into the same problem with white sea foam, boat hulls, and fish bellies being blown out. We were using good Sony video cams and Nikon cameras and telephoto lenses from a Cessna 182 at low altitude.

I enjoyed your video. The word "frolicking" came to mind.

 

[Meta4]

• Blown highlights in video footage. I'm in D-Log and MP4 and use manual settings ( like i do exclusively in my stills camera). I just cant find a happy medium between water and water erupting even at -3 exp.value.

The contrast between dark whales and white water is too much in bright sunlight.
Try shooting on overcast days.
As you can't change exposure quickly enough, perhaps auto exposure might help too?

• Is it my imagination or is the x7 zoom really unstable? It seems to accentuate any little movement of the drone.

None of the lenses are zoom lenses.
The long tele is quite stable, but will magnify any movement x 7 so you should be very gentle on the sticks and/or use Cine Mode.

• Is it my imagination or is the resolution better at the x3 zoom? Better to crop in in post then?

What's better resolution?
The resolution for both tele cameras is the same at 3840×2160

• How tight do you set your pitch and yaw? I just cant find smooth and tight-ish settings and wonder if it's the x7 zoom or the wind or both?

Not sure what you mean about setting pitch and yaw.
Your long tele camera is quite stable in wind.
If your drone is making jerky moves, that is magnified by the tele lenses.
Turn off obstacle avoidance and experiment with Exp and braking sensitivity.

• Do the video settings change between normal and sport or are they generic across those settings?

The camera settings are independent for each camera, but don't change when you change flight modes.
But the speed of the drone's yaw movement will change.

 

[RobinM]

1. Turbulent water is foamily white and reflective, so of course it is a bit more challenging to film and get the exposure right for, especially if the rest of it is quite dark and deep. There will be a middle ground that works OK for both, but the best hint I can give you is that it is better to underexpose everything (can be rescued in edit) than to blow anything out (which can't be fixed later).

2. 7 times zoom essentially magnifies the movement of your drone by that amount in the footage. Big zooms on drones (even optical ones) are always compromised because of this basic fact. Fine for stills, or for pilot feedback, but I wouldn't bother filming stuff that is maximally zoomed.

3. Set your expo to be very slow and gradual in both Cine and Normal Mode, and ultra responsive and fast in Sport Mode - then you have the best of both worlds covered.

4. I'll leave No 4 to people that actually have that craft...

5. Nope - video settings are entirely independent of flight mode.

6. Well nothing's as good as DaVinci Resolve ! You'd have to watch several of the many in-depth overviews of that software to work out if it's £269 good (spoiler; it is), which is what the full version costs, and you need that to process H.265 10 bit files.

Thank you . Lots of good info for me to consider there. Generally i expose to the right in my stills camera with wildlife, but already i've noticed that d-log on the drone gives me more dynamic range to work with.

Whale footage is difficult to capture whilst obeying local distance laws. I get that many people push the envelope so to speak to get clean clear shots but can see a huge difference in the quality in doing so. I'll go back to not using the zoom so diligently i think!
Cheers to Da vinci Resolve - I just wish i could use Photoshop really.

 

[RobinM]

I'm assuming that you mean Mavic 3 Pro when you say MP3.

The 7x lens and camera are no less stable. But they do enlarge the image, and the motion in the image, seven times compared to the 1X. A certain about of yaw or pitch by the drone or the gimbal results in seven times as much movement within the frame with the 7X.

The 3X camera does have a larger sensor and better image quality, and the 1X camera is better than the 3X. Shooting at the native focal length is better than cropping to seven from the 3X camera.

If you're over-controlling, change to lower values. You might also try adjusting the EXPO settings to allow smoother easing in and out of control changes.

No, they/re constant from one flight mode to another.

When shooting video and stills of Whale Sharks over the Gulf of Mexico to support a tagging operation, we ran into the same problem with white sea foam, boat hulls, and fish bellies being blown out. We were using good Sony video cams and Nikon cameras and telephoto lenses from a Cessna 182 at low altitude.

I enjoyed your video. The word "frolicking" came to mind.

Great info thank you. So much frolicking - they went nowhere in 3 hours!

I think it's the Yaw and Pitch controls that i really need to embed into my brain. What represents smoothness on the XY graph- the smooth line on the diagonal? I'll go and do a deep dive on Youtube.
Good to know about the native length - on my stills camera I get super quality at whichever length on the zoom lenses, so, quite different.
many thanks.

 

[RobinM]

The contrast between dark whales and white water is too much in bright sunlight.
Try shooting on overcast days.
As you can't change exposure quickly enough, perhaps auto exposure might help too?

None of the lenses are zoom lenses.
The long tele is quite stable, but will magnify any movement x 7 so you should be very gentle on the sticks and/or use Cine Mode.

What's better resolution?
The resolution for both tele cameras is the same at 3840×2160

Not sure what you mean about setting pitch and yaw.
Your long tele camera is quite stable in wind.
If your drone is making jerky moves, that is magnified by the tele lenses.
Turn off obstacle avoidance and experiment with Exp and braking sensitivity.

The camera settings are independent for each camera, but don't change when you change flight modes.
But the speed of the drone's yaw movement will change.

The Whales dont let me choose when to shoot., so i just try to work with the conditions i get. Auto exposure cant shift itself fast enough when a whale breaches i've noticed, hence my blow outs. thanks for your input.

 

[Meta4]

I'll go back to not using the zoom so diligently i think!

Good to know about the native length - on my stills camera I get super quality at whichever length on the zoom lenses, so, quite different.

Your drone has 3 cameras with fixed focal length lenses.
There are no zoom lenses on your drone.

The Whales dont let me choose when to shoot., so i just try to work with the conditions i get.

If you choose to shoot frolicking whales in full sunlight, expect to have issues with blown out highlights.
If you manually set exposure to properly expose for the undisturbed water and whales underwater, it's always going to be blown out when the whales generate a lot of white water.
But if you shoot on overcast days, you'll find the results will be much better.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Dont every rely on the Zoom for a moving object , its not good enough not even on the Mavic 3
If your going to zoom in ,make sure you already have some footage without any zoom.

I am not sure why your Auto Exposure did not do a better job, but I think you already had it focused on the sky and started to record.

I have posted many times about the Quality Jump of video Footage from 1080 to 2K , this jump is the sweet spot for video, that really can be seen on the computer screen , let alone my Projector unit.

Its heartbreaking when you have a breathless moment like this and the video is so poorly captured.

None the less , what you captured is as rare as when I capture a Bolt of Lighting, and its the adventure that is priceless.

phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Mavic 3 in the Rain. Land on the Water, and Capture the Spouts.

 

[AeroJ]

Cheers to Da vinci Resolve - I just wish i could use Photoshop really.

The grading controls in DVR are quite similar to workflows in PS. But you shouldn't be wishing for anything Adobe, now they've proven themselves to be such awful bastards Affinity Photo FTW - NICE people who won't steal your stuff or use it to train your replacement, 79 quid once and it works forever !!!

 

[RobinM]

Dont every rely on the Zoom for a moving object , its not good enough not even on the Mavic 3
If your going to zoom in ,make sure you already have some footage without any zoom.

I am not sure why your Auto Exposure did not do a better job, but I think you already had it focused on the sky and started to record.

I have posted many times about the Quality Jump of video Footage from 1080 to 2K , this jump is the sweet spot for video, that really can be seen on the computer screen , let alone my Projector unit.

Its heartbreaking when you have a breathless moment like this and the video is so poorly captured.

None the less , what you captured is as rare as when I capture a Bolt of Lighting, and its the adventure that is priceless.

phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Mavic 3 in the Rain. Land on the Water, and Capture the Spouts.

Yes indeed, enjoying the moment you are capturing should always be the first priority i agree. Thanks for AE tip - i'll pay more attention to that next flight.

 

[Meta4]

Thanks for AE tip - i'll pay more attention to that next flight.

Didn't you say that you always use manual exposure settings ??

 

[MS Coast]

The problem has more to do with the degree of difference in the brightness levels in the scene. The cameras can't simultaneously handle the extreme ends of the range as well as what we perceive with our eyes.

As @Meta4 said, the overcooked whites are just part of the territory for ocean shots on bright days. If you want to see an extreme white blow out problem, try shooting a white boat on deep blue water

 

[SethB]

…Blown highlights in video footage. I'm in D-Log and MP4 and use manual settings ( like i do exclusively in my stills camera). I just cant find a happy medium between water and water erupting even at -3 exp.value…..i'm still an IMovie lover after 25yrs - is this to my detriment?

D-Log? Are you applying a LUT to remap the luma (brightness) values?

It’s quite possible that the highlights are not blown if you’ve not yet found a LUT to apply before further color work in editing.

 

[RobinM]

Didn't you say that you always use manual exposure settings ??

I always shoot manual on my stills camera - that's my preference. One the drone i'd prefer to shoot manual but feeling my way still with what is going to work for me. Normally the only auto setting i'd use is auto iso because of the subjects i shoot.

 

[RobinM]

D-Log? Are you applying a LUT to remap the luma (brightness) values?

It’s quite possible that the highlights are not blown if you’ve not yet found a LUT to apply before further color work in editing.

No LUTS. I know what they are but dont have them in any program - Imovie doesnt ( that i know of) . The best result I got was in IMovie was to lower the exposure in post and then pull up the shadows.

 

[RobinM]

The problem has more to do with the degree of difference in the brightness levels in the scene. The cameras can't simultaneously handle the extreme ends of the range as well as what we perceive with our eyes.

As @Meta4 said, the overcooked whites are just part of the territory for ocean shots on bright days. If you want to see an extreme white blow out problem, try shooting a white boat on deep blue water

View attachment 177562

I hear you. I'm not sure if you shoot stills with a high end camera? It's not good technique to have your histogram jammed either to the left or the right cos there's no data there. Maybe I'll just have to knock back my expectation a bit that the dynamic range of the MP3 could match that of something like the Sony A1. If I had shot a still of your boat i would have exposed for the white boat and pull up detail in the water after.

 

[Meta4]

Maybe I'll just have to knock back my expectation a bit that the dynamic range of the MP3 could match that of something like the Sony A1.

Maybe?
For $7500 you get a Sony A1 with 50 MP full frame sensor.
For $3000 you get a capable drone and three cameras.
The two telephoto cameras have tiny sensors.
How is the value of those tiny cameras going to compare the value of your Sony ??
It's not realistic to expect the dynamic range of the small sensors to be a match for your A1.

btw .. there's a link to a toy drone where you listed your A1 above.