Which ND filters?

Harrissment · May 16, 2020

Hi all,

Dji have 2 sets of the above which would be better for just normal movies I live in the U.K. so have a mixture of weather.

Thanks

slup · May 16, 2020

Harrissment said:
Hi all,

Dji have 2 sets of the above which would be better for just normal movies I live in the U.K. so have a mixture of weather.

Thanks

This is approx recommendation when trying to film according to the 180 degree rule (introduce natural motion blur) ... create a good exposure with camera settings like FPS = 2 x shutter --> for instance 25fps gives shutter 1/50sec. Above approx 30m height motion blur isn't visible anymore so ND's can be left off.

Harrissment · May 16, 2020

slup said:
This is approx recommendation when trying to film according to the 180 degree rule (introduce natural motion blur) ... create a good exposure with camera settings like FPS = 2 x shutter --> for instance 25fps gives shutter 1/50sec. Above approx 30m height motion blur isn't visible anymore so ND's can be left off.

View attachment 101513

Thank you [emoji108]

Kcmusa · May 16, 2020

And this comes with the fly more pack. 16, 64, 256

Harrissment · May 16, 2020

Kcmusa said:
And this comes with the fly more pack. 16, 64, 256

One of the reasons I didn’t get a fly more.

Prismatic · May 16, 2020

slup said:
... Above approx 30m height motion blur isn't visible anymore so ND's can be left off. ...

I think motion blur is more complicated than that.

You may be right, if you're only talking about objects that move relative to the camera, e.g., cars, hikers, bicycles and so on. However, when the camera itself moves--say you pan the camera left--then everything in the frame moves. The church steeple, as it swings through the frame, needs motion blur to make its transit smooth. But so does everything else.
The whole subject of motion blur is, in large measure, very subjective. Some people just don't really notice it, and would be happy with a video of flying birds taken at a 1/1000th shutter. That would drive me crazy. I can't stand the "visual buzzing" when objects in the frame change position but are not proportionately blurred. And often that includes everything in the frame, as I said.

As a corollary to the last point, the 180°-rule is the "accepted wisdom" because it results in video that seems smooth to a large majority of people. Special circumstances may demand an even slower (or permit a faster) shutter, but most of the time the 180°-rule is fine.

The main point is that you need motion blur for video, regardless of altitude.

slup · May 16, 2020

Yep ... motion blur is a personal thing, never the less the need of it will diminish higher up & at a certain height the small effect it may possibly give will not be worth the extra fiddling with the filter.

When it comes to camera movements like AC yawing & gimbal pitching they should follow the rule of thumb to pan no faster than a full image width every seven seconds, otherwise judder will become too detrimental ... (https://www.red.com/red-101/camera-panning-speed) with this in mind for a judder free & cinematic look movement wise, those camera movements are really slow considering the distance to stationary objects 30m up or higher.

It's also very easy to add some motion blur in post if you up on those heights anyway feel that some of it can benefit the scene.

Shared this in another similar thread today ...

flyhigh2 · May 16, 2020

Do any of you guys use ND filters when shooting just stills?
Trying to see if ND filters are necessary for shooting stills when its during the middle of the day to decrease the amount of light that goes into the lens. Dont have my drone yet to try it out..

slup · May 17, 2020

flyhigh2 said:
Do any of you guys use ND filters when shooting just stills?
Trying to see if ND filters are necessary for shooting stills when its during the middle of the day to decrease the amount of light that goes into the lens. Dont have my drone yet to try it out..

If you want to decrease the light going into the camera you should have a specific purpose with it ... just doing it for no reason will not improve the quality of your stills as the shutter will be slower, the risk of blur will increase due to either movement of the camera or objects in the pic.

-If it's so bright that your shutter can't be any faster (usually max out at 1/8000sec) then your pic will overexposed ... in these cases it's valid to use ND's.

-If you want to apply "stop motion" during daylight conditions to moving objects in the pic. due to artistic reasons (make streaming water smooth, moving cars become streaks or get a feeling in a pic. that objects are moving) ... then it's also valid to use ND's. But to create those effects in daylight you need to have a shutter of 1-4sec ... meaning a ND of 1000 & above is required.