Watercolour no more.

[Ziggy01]

Like many Mavic owners, I've scoured the net and usergroups attempting to find "the best" setup and settings for shooting video with this thing. Tons of advice from many, many users, some of it categorical.
I'd been shooting d-log with the sharpness at -1 and most other settings dampened to varying degrees. Looking back at the footage in Davinci was always a disappointment. Despite my rigorous attention to focus and exposure the footage has been consistently blotchy with some scene elements in focus but zero fine detail elsewhere and entire sections of the scene little more than ugly blotches.

Via this forum I stumbled across the "Film Poets" tutorial and an exchange between them and Blue House FX which convinced me to bin my current approach and try their settings. I sent the Mavic up this morning with the new settings and sent it out over a local marina with much greenery and complicated detail, put the footage up RAW and behold - clear, clean, crisp, detailed images!

I'm now shooting @ 2.7, 25fps PAL with sharpness set to +1 (!! - reasons for which are explained in this guys video), contrast -1 and saturation 0 or -1. I'm also using the excellent PP ND cinematic filter set.

Yes, there is artifacting and the sharpness is a bit disconcerting but the detail is now more or less there given the limitations of such a small sensor, and subsequently can be wound back in post. I'm probably a bit late to the party here and I know it's been posted here before but for anyone who missed it and is having the same watercolour issues I was suffering, check it out and give it a whirl.

 

[BD0G]

PAL!
Interesting,
I always thought NTSC was a MUST.

 

[Former Member]

Good information. Thanks for taking the time to make the video.

 

[Ziggy01]

PAL!
Interesting,
I always thought NTSC was a MUST.

Yes, I don't believe PAL is the answer here. It's just a habit I have due to being Australian. I'll probably switch over to NTSC 30fps. I don't believe this has any noticeable affect upon the watercolour issue.

 

[BD0G]

Good information. Thanks for taking the time to make the video.

Film Poets made the video posted and Ziggy01 just reposted to reiterate that these settings are indeed very helpful.

 

[BD0G]

Yes, I don't believe PAL is the answer here. It's just a habit I have due to being Australian. I'll probably switch over to NTSC 30fps. I don't believe this has any noticeable affect upon the watercolour issue.

Thanks for the clarification. I was about to switch over to PAL to see if that had some positive effects. I'll stick with NTSC.

 

[Ziggy01]

Film Poets made the video posted and Ziggy01 just reposted to reiterate that these settings are indeed very helpful.

Indeed. Lol.

...as much as I'd like to take the credit..

 

[Eric17]

Nice video ziggy, will definitely try +1 sharpening.

 

[MrMavic]

Ziggy is right, and I stumbled on that same thing, tried it and it works. Setting sharpness anywhere below the +1 setting will ruin your videos. 0 is where the Mavis's Noise Filter kicks in, and that's where the mushy trees and foliage come in. SET YOUR SHARPNESS TO +1 and try it. The saturation and Contrast you can dial in where you like it.

 

[Eric17]

Thats exactly my problem, was taking pics in the mountains and the trees with moss all looked weird. Like way out of focus and soft.

 

[Cerberus]

Why don't we share our settings here?

and yes, I switched to +1 sharpness and blurry look on trees is a gone issue..

I use D-Cinelike, +1, -2, -1..

With post editing, the vid is amazing... to me at least.

 

[4wding]

I also read on this site somewhere something that really seemed to change things for me.

I shoot in PAL being in Australia, but switching to NTSC and then back to PAL has some sort of a reset effect on the camera. After I did this images were back to amazing sharpness again. Its now one of my regular settings checks before recording. I assume the same goes for NTSC shooters, switch to PAL and back again.

 

[Ziggy01]

Thats exactly my problem, was taking pics in the mountains and the trees with moss all looked weird. Like way out of focus and soft.

Yeah, like the kind of video

Why don't we share our settings here?

and yes, I switched to +1 sharpness and blurry look on trees is a gone issue..

I use D-Cinelike, +1, -2, -1..

With post editing, the vid is amazing... to me at least.

Are you shooting 1080, 2.7 or 4k?

I'm told that 2.7 yields a more "cinematic" look than 4k in this instance.

 

[raybanner]

I am shooting 2.7k with 30fps and sharpness on +1 for weeks now. I was telling people the same things over and over again, but its hard when the comments were like -3 to -1 on sharpness first. Does not work for the mavic!
2.7k gives me the best results, especially with sharpness +1. does not look so grainy and noisy as 4k with with sharpness on +1. You may loose just a little bit of that 4k sharpness. In the end 2.7k gives you more cinematic footage. It is morenpleasing to the eye.

 

[Kestrel]

Im surprised you all haven't figured this out sooner, blindly following youtubers recommendations sometimes isnt good. I never had any watercolor issue but i never followed others recommendations.

 

[Ziggy01]

Im surprised you all haven't figured this out sooner, blindly following youtubers recommendations sometimes isnt good. I never had any watercolor issue but i never followed others recommendations.

Well, it's not easy being dumb.

I can only imagine it's not easy being an unapologetically self-righteous mavic maverick either.

 

[Alex_S]

Yes, I don't believe PAL is the answer here. It's just a habit I have due to being Australian. I'll probably switch over to NTSC 30fps. I don't believe this has any noticeable affect upon the watercolour issue.

PAL is a superior video standard originating from Europe. PAL has 625 lines @ 25 fps and NTSC has 525 lines @ 30fps. The resolution of a PAL frame is better.
NTSC is also called Never The Same Color . Its not as good in color reproduction than PAL.
If you have the option why not shoot in the better video format .

 

[grorr76]

I to had the water colour issue. I spoke to DJI online they told me to do a full factory reset in the DJI assistant desktop app with the drone connected. I was very sceptical to say the least.
I took it out for a test yesterday bought the footage home and to absolute amazement the problem was completely gone. Just to be absolute sure I reset everything on the app to. Camera gimble the works. My footage has never looked so good. I did 3 flights and it was consistently good across the board.
before reset

after reset

 

[Ziggy01]

PAL is a superior video standard originating from Europe. PAL has 625 lines @ 25 fps and NTSC has 525 lines @ 30fps. The resolution of a PAL frame is better.
NTSC is also called Never The Same Color . Its not as good in color reproduction than PAL.
If you have the option why not shoot in the better video format .

Indeed.

My point was that I don't believe that it was the format per se that was causing the watercolour issues.

 

[Ziggy01]

I to had the water colour issue. I spoke to DJI online they told me to do a full factory reset in the DJI assistant desktop app with the drone connected. I was very sceptical to say the least.
I took it out for a test yesterday bought the footage home and to absolute amazement the problem was completely gone. Just to be absolute sure I reset everything on the app to. Camera gimble the works. My footage has never looked so good. I did 3 flights and it was consistently good across the board.

Interesting and something to definitely take note of.

Out of interest, precisely what kind of issues were you experiencing that were solved by a reset?