I realise this thread is a few months old now but seeing as I work with video a lot (though I am a noob when it comes to drones) I thought I’d share some info in case it’s useful to someone else;
LOG (logarithmic gamma curve) video is, by its very nature more noisy since the black level is raised to get more shadow detail into the camera’s sensor. That sensor noise has always been there - it’s just being revealed more blatantly in LOG mode. The trick with all LOG footage is to expose it to the brightest level possible without clipping the highlights, and then bring the blacks back down in the edit. A look up table (LUT) is a useful start point as it ‘de-logs’ the footage back into a viewable range, but sometimes you get better results starting from scratch in Resolve.
If the video is excessively noisy it’s likely the shots were underexposed.
Adding noise reduction in the edit is an expected part of the workflow.
LOG video doesn’t have NR added in camera by default since it’s all about capturing the max dynamic range - and NR can reduce that.
Underexposing and overexposing your shots can also reduce the dynamic range - which defeats the point of shooting LOG in the first place. It’s a bit of a balancing act.
There are also a few other limiting factors to be aware of;
Heavy, long-GOP video compression, 4:2:0 colour sampling, (8 bit colour depth on some models) all have a negative effect on quality. I think DJI have done a fantastic job squeezing as much as they have from such a small sensor and lightweight processing array but there’s only so much it can achieve.
So the key is to play to the camera’s strengths and be aware of it’s limits - it’s never going to compare with a Red Raptor or ARRI Alexa LF, but with a bit of careful composition your shots can still look amazing.
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