Yet another enquiry about filters!

[JFangs]

Hello Mav Pilots. Long time lurker, first time posting. I had a question about Filters. Don't worry, I already did the search and read pretty much every thread on the topic. In fact, I did the same about 3 months ago and somehow settled on ND16 or ND32 but cannot recall as it's been some time since then lol I'm not a professional photographer, I live in SF Bay area with 3 international airports and 4 smaller airports in the vicinity which allow me zero opportunity to take my Zoom for a flight at work or at home.

MP2 Zoom is my first drone and so far I've had about 30 flights. As a hobby, I work with a friend who is DJ, which allows me to attend gigs out of area and get paid to play with the drone. So, with the limited experience I have with the Zoom, I know that I will need to use ND/P filters for a vacation I have coming up in the the South Pacific. I'm going to Tahiti for about 10 days starting this weekend. I'm assuming there will be a lot of glare from the shallow water and I intend to make small video clips. It seems that I cannot switch directions if I intend to use a P filter. Should I even bother getting PolarPro filters or just wing it? I mostly plan on taking pictures from multiple angles but having a few short vids would be nice.

This isn't a paid gig for a client so I don't really have any pressure to get it right but want to make it worth the effort of transporting a drone & accessories overseas. Thank you in advance for your help/suggestions.

 

[Thomas B]

You’ll likely be fine at certain angles, but for best results over water you may want to add the polarized counterparts of your current filters.

 

[GadgetGuy]

A GND (graduated neutral-density) filter will also come in very handy, as it works from every angle, and will darken the sky to lower the dynamic range of the scene.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Pain in the rear with anything other than plain ND filters.
Usually you can get some decent footage with these and water surfaces, but occasionally glare will come up at various angles.

Trouble with PL variations, is you have to have them set, virtually for every direction of flight.
It's ok to plan a flight and shoot something, like a wreck of a ship, reef, etc, and then fit and fine tune the filter to get the best effect.
This requires flying back and forth to bring in for adjustment to get it right, or close enough.

It's a real pain if your filter needs removing and refitting, you usually have to turn off the aircraft, fit gimbal clamp, turn filter a little, remove clamp, start up again . . . repeat as needed.
If you have PL filters than turn, you can probably do it ok quickly while the filter is still fitted, and the aircraft motors stopped but aircraft not totally shutdown.

GND are good for getting sky less overexposed if the ground (being dark) and set to a nice exposure, but you have to have the horizon about middle of screen.
You can't pan down too much or you'll darken the top part of the ground view being filmed.

 

[GadgetGuy]

GND are good for getting sky less overexposed if the ground (being dark) and set to a nice exposure, but you have to have the horizon about middle of screen.
You can't pan down too much or you'll darken the top part of the ground view being filmed.

No need to fly with the horizon in the middle. The graduated part of the GND filter starts at 0 in the middle of the frame, with only an ND4 extreme at the very top, and I fly with the horizon very near the top, leaving only a small portion of sky above to outline the ground, against it. Works perfectly for 4K video, using Auto Exposure on the P4P and M2P (with occasional exposure compensation) because of the incredible dynamic range of the 1” sensors still recovers the darkened portion of the top of the ground. At dusk or night, however, I remove it to keep the ISO down.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

No need to fly with the horizon in the middle. The graduated part of the GND filter starts at 0 in the middle of the frame, with only an ND4 extreme at the very top, and I fly with the horizon very near the top, leaving only a small portion of sky above to outline the ground, against it. Works perfectly for 4K video, using Auto Exposure on the P4P and M2P (with occasional exposure compensation) because of the incredible dynamic range of the 1” sensors still recovers the darkened portion of the top of the ground. At dusk or night, however, I remove it to keep the ISO down.

M2P sensor would make a difference for sure.
What about the M2Z like the OP has ?

 

[GadgetGuy]

M2P sensor would make a difference for sure.
What about the M2Z like the OP has ?

Good question. Not quite as practical, because the GND filter screws on, unlike the M2P, and you need to make sure to keep the gradient line horizontal. However, I have used a GND filter on it with great success as well, and it is actually even more important in bright sunlight because the M2Z greatly benefits from the lowered dynamic range of the scene, because of its smaller sensor. At dusk, if you intend to use the 2x zoom, you will lose an entire stop of exposure on the M2Z, so you need all the light you can get, so I remove it.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

At dusk, if you intend to use the 2x zoom, you will lose an entire stop of exposure on the M2Z, so you need all the light you can get, so I remove it.

Good to know that, but also a pain as you need to consider this when planning your subject and how you'll tackle it with / without zoom.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Good to know that, but also a pain as you need to consider this when planning your subject and how you'll tackle it with / without zoom.

Indeed. Variable aperture zoom lenses are a pain, which is why all my other DSLR photography zoom lenses are fixed aperture, but they are much heavier, too, which is why they aren't practical on a drone! Variable aperture screws up flash output, too! With the M2Z, once you reach 3200 ISO at 24mm, zooming to 2x at 48mm just makes everything darker! At least on the M2P, when switching from FOV to HQ, your aperture doesn't also change! Besides, the M2P inherently has at least another stop of dynamic range over the M2Z sensor. M2P for the win at night!

 

[JFangs]

Thanks for your input guys. I bought a 4pack of filters before leaving but ended up not using any filters at all. The weather was tricky, rained almost daily with few brief gloomy, sometimes sunny breaks. We were on the island of Moorea, our hotel was right next to the airport so I had to travel further out to take-off.

I rushed pretty much every time I took off due to unpredictability of sudden rain, also very strong winds. Even managed to crashed land my drone one evening from not too high. For some reason it began to drift away & not respond to my controller inputs. Only thing that worked was down so I ended up landing in some sort of very soft plant that resembled Aloe. Wiped the green residue off propeller blades & flew from a different spot, everything was fine from then on.

All the training/flight planning/tips & tricks I had learned and hoped to utilize just went out the window because I was paranoid of rain & kept getting wind warning. I made maybe 3 or 4 short video clips, mostly snapped quick pictures. I have only had the time to transfer files from SD card to HD so here's an untouched pic that I liked a lot.

 

[ff22]

Thanks for your input guys. I bought a 4pack of filters before leaving but ended up not using any filters at all. The weather was tricky, rained almost daily with few brief gloomy, sometimes sunny breaks. We were on the island of Moorea, our hotel was right next to the airport so I had to travel further out to take-off.

I rushed pretty much every time I took off due to unpredictability of sudden rain, also very strong winds. Even managed to crashed land my drone one evening from not too high. For some reason it began to drift away & not respond to my controller inputs. Only thing that worked was down so I ended up landing in some sort of very soft plant that resembled Aloe. Wiped the green residue off propeller blades & flew from a different spot, everything was fine from then on.

All the training/flight planning/tips & tricks I had learned and hoped to utilize just went out the window because I was paranoid of rain & kept getting wind warning. I made maybe 3 or 4 short video clips, mostly snapped quick pictures. I have only had the time to transfer files from SD card to HD so here's an untouched pic that I liked a lot.

There can't be such BLUE seas - amazing. (g)