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Video blurring when drone is in motion

Paco Bird

FAA Part 107 Certificated
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Hello to group:
I've had my Mavic 2 Pro with the smart controller for about 2 months. It's been a lot of fun to fly. Most of my flight time has been spent just getting experience with control of the aircraft, and I'm starting to feel reasonable confident in basic flying skills. Moving now to gaining some experience with the photography capabilities.
One issue that I've had with taking movies is that when the drone moves, or is rotaded during a hover, the video has noticible blurring. It seems to not be speed dependent.
For reference At this point my cam settings are 4K 30 fps 3840 x 160 Full FOV. All other settings are factory.
I guess the question is, is the 30 fps setting too slow and I'll need to go to a lower resolution and run at 60 fps to cure the problem.
I've linked to my youtube account for reference. Notice in forward flight I get blurring, then when the motion stops I get very clear crisp vid.
I'd appreciate suggestions and advice.
Thanks in advance.
Bob

 
Everything regarding motion blur is a function of shutter speed & how fast thing's in the frame moves. The "cinematic rule or as it's called, the 180 degree rule" is the frame rate x 2 = shutter speed i.e. 60fps gives 1/120sec. This equals to the motion blur the human eye sees.

It has also a lot to do with how close you are to the moving object ... usually flying above 30m motion blur will not be seen on ground level.

Motion isn't always coming from objects so to say ... it's also flying fast over ground/objects or yawing.

Your movements (yawing/ascending/descending) in the beginning of the clip you attached is WAY too fast to be called cinematic, the thumb rule is to move no faster then that the object take at least 7sec to pass the whole frame ... then you will have the correct speed in relation to objects & by that generate the correct amount of motion blur (if the settings mentioned above is right) & also avoid juddering/strobing.

Here something to read about panning --> PANNING SPEED BEST PRACTICES
 
One issue that I've had with taking movies is that when the drone moves, or is rotaded during a hover, the video has noticible blurring. It seems to not be speed dependent.
One issue I have with your video is all that spinning the drone and moving the camera up and down is unwatchable.
Look at any show on TV and you won't see that sort of thing.
For reference At this point my cam settings are 4K 30 fps 3840 x 160 Full FOV. All other settings are factory.
You don't mention the aperture or shutter speed.
They are the settings that matter.
What are they?
I guess the question is, is the 30 fps setting too slow and I'll need to go to a lower resolution and run at 60 fps to cure the problem.
Motion blur has nothing to do with how many frames per second (most of the tv you watch was shot at 24-30 fps).
A much more important factor is how long the shutter is opened for each frame.
Changing the resolution and shooting at 60 fps won't solve your issue.
 
Everything regarding motion blur is a function of shutter speed & how fast thing's in the frame moves. The "cinematic rule or as it's called, the 180 degree rule" is the frame rate x 2 = shutter speed i.e. 60fps gives 1/120sec. This equals to the motion blur the human eye sees.

It has also a lot to do with how close you are to the moving object ... usually flying above 30m motion blur will not be seen on ground level.

Motion isn't always coming from objects so to say ... it's also flying fast over ground/objects or yawing.

Your movements (yawing/ascending/descending) in the beginning of the clip you attached is WAY too fast to be called cinematic, the thumb rule is to move no faster then that the object take at least 7sec to pass the whole frame ... then you will have the correct speed in relation to objects & by that generate the correct amount of motion blur (if the settings mentioned above is right) & also avoid juddering/strobing.

Here something to read about panning --> PANNING SPEED BEST PRACTICES
Thanks. Yeah, speed and cam movements were faster than I normally do. Was trying to investigate the report of an illegal campfire site by the train tracks and capture something over the water before it disappeared.
I'll take it up tonight and see if the 7 second rule helps.
 
Then also pay attention to the shutter speed... start out with setting it at 2 times the fps as I wrote above. If over exposuring either close the aperture or use a ND filter. And you do all this in full manual or shutter priority of course, not auto.
 
But then, if you need sharp, non-blurred stills from your video, you want a fast shutter speed so they're not blurred.
 
Slup: Approaching problem changing one variable at a time. Did a run out to the point this evening and did a few pans left and right, forward and back and still experienced jitter.
Elevation about 50- 60 ft above water.
4K FOV frame at 30; Shutter is 1/30, (should be 2xframe= 60); all settings on auto at this point; aperture 2.8 and iso is 860. These numbers come from whats shown in the photo settings on the controller and I'm assuming they also transfer over to the movies. Memory card is card is high performance U3 and capture is on drone.
The vid is up on the youtube page if you're interested. No longer providing links due to unwanted comments.
Tomorrow will make adjustment in the shutter speed and see results.
Whats frustrating is that I've never experienced this problem with simple digital cameras. I'm wondering if the Mavic camera system simply doesnt have the horsepower to process these high resolution videos/
 
I'm wondering if the Mavic camera system simply doesnt have the horsepower to process these high resolution videos/
The camera is not part of this problem.
It's capable of high quality results.
 
... I'm wondering if the Mavic camera system simply doesnt have the horsepower to process these high resolution videos
Don't believe that the camera lacks "horsepower" ... but the device you try to play the clip with might, what are you using to show the clip?
 
Slup: Approaching problem changing one variable at a time. Did a run out to the point this evening and did a few pans left and right, forward and back and still experienced jitter.
Elevation about 50- 60 ft above water.
4K FOV frame at 30; Shutter is 1/30, (should be 2xframe= 60); all settings on auto at this point; aperture 2.8 and iso is 860. These numbers come from whats shown in the photo settings on the controller and I'm assuming they also transfer over to the movies. Memory card is card is high performance U3 and capture is on drone.
The vid is up on the youtube page if you're interested. No longer providing links due to unwanted comments.
Tomorrow will make adjustment in the shutter speed and see results.
Whats frustrating is that I've never experienced this problem with simple digital cameras. I'm wondering if the Mavic camera system simply doesnt have the horsepower to process these high resolution videos/
Take look at some pro videos on YouTube. They will be your benchmark on visual quality. Your drone is very capable of taking some excellent imagery. Patience .... and practice ????
 
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When learning to video well - first put RC into tripod mode. Slows aircraft movements down a fair amount versus trying to video in normal or sport mode. In your settings, you can also adjust the YAW movements under Gimbal Settings. Slow those way down and it keeps the aircraft far more steady making turns, pivots, and such. Also have to get way slower on the gimbal up / down wheel as well. Requires a ton of practice to get nice smooth video. 99.99999% of bad video's are like crashes - PILOT ERROR.

I have shaky hands (old guy) and not a gamer type that is used to a controller / joystick in my hands nearly 24 hours a day, so it takes great skill and TIME to get all the basics down to where you have good usable video.

When asking for help. you have to take what is given and try it out - practice, practice, practice to get a handle on it.
 
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I didnt read all of the responses, so I am not sure if anybody already asked this but are you looking at the videos off of the sd card or your phone. The videos off of the phone always get fuzzy and nasty when you watch them. I have never used a mavic 2 pro but my mavic air 2 is almost impossible to actually get "fuzzy" video when moving fast and abruptly, and as far as I know the 2 pro has a better camera. 30 fps is plenty as long as your shutter speed is at least 50 or 60. I hope you get it figgured out.:)
 
Reminder....to use tripod mode, you have to take off in program mode and then switch to tripod mode.
I take off in "tripod mode" most of the time, as I don't want fast movements in the area I'm flying in. So, I don't switch the selector switch on the RC at all.

What you state may be required on a Mavic 2 and SC - but not on Air2 with standard RC.
 
Thanks for all the positive responses. I did a couple of test runs at 1/60 and 1/120 shutter speeds. I did a series of slow and fast yaw and same with the camera gimble over a water site next door. Compared the result to linked test run and much better results.

- It looked like setting the shutter at 1/120 (over the 1/30 as preset in auto mode, why did they set 1/30 with a frame rate of 30?)) was the 'best' in bright sun. I will continue to experiment with faster shutter speeds.
-7 second rule and link to 'panning speeds' as suggested by one of the members was very helpful
- Will be checking tripod tutorials on YouTube.
Thanks for the help

Bob
 
I take off in "tripod mode" most of the time, as I don't want fast movements in the area I'm flying in. So, I don't switch the selector switch on the RC at all.

What you state may be required on a Mavic 2 and SC - but not on Air2 with standard RC.
You are correct...with my M2P and SC I do have to take off in program mode and then switch to tripod mode. I had incorrectly assumed the other DJI AC are the same. Thx.
 
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