Mavic mini with Skyreat ND's over Bolton

After I got some lovely feedback from you guys with my Scotland video, I thought I would have a go at a local one, using the ND filters i recently acquired to try and get that cinematic feel.

Comments and advice welcome as always.

Cheers

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Nowt wrong wi’that fettler. Watched it to the end, so you got my interest.

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Blimey, watched to the end! Praise indeed. Cheers! :slight_smile:

Nice one @groomaline18 tad dark but otherwise fab video :+1:

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Good Video @groomaline18 As @Mungmeister said it was slightly on the dark side but still kept me watching to the end. Keep up the good work.

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Thanks for taking the time to watch it guys.

Yes BB, I think I chose the wrong ND looking back, or I messed about with it too much in the editing.

Still, it’s a learning game isn’t it, and I have a long way to go :slight_smile:

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We all learn by trying sometimes it goes wrong, sometimes it opens a whole new dimension. Practice Practice Practice

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Excellent piece of work, music was good too. I haven’t got filters yet, so I have limited knowledge on the light and dark on the film. But great use of lifting while filming.

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Was it all 50th/25fps then?, as others said some parts are very dark

Good video hope mine will be as good. Just got my new mavic mini still learning.

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yes @milkmanchris, i think 90% is at 24/50. There are a couple of clips in there from a previous outing. I think the dark edit is a result of over editing with a LUT, plus the wrong ND filter. Still got the L plates on here when it comes to settings.

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Yes, watched it through. Music good, buzzes you along, and some nice synchronicity.
Not really looked into NDs - I have a mini, do we need filters?

Subjective, I’m in the no camp

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Thanks @Darter . The filters aren’t essential depending on what you are aiming to shoot. the big fuss amongst film makers is that for a cinematic feel you need to shoot at 24fps. And to get the feel of this properly, you need to have a shutter speed of twice the framerate, known as the 180 rule. So in this case shutter speed is 1/50th.

Basically it adds what is considered to be a natural amount of motion blur, similar to what your eye would see. Others say 30 or 60 fps looks too artificial.

To get a proper exposure at 1/50th on a bright day you need to add the ND filters to compensate.

On the other hand, if you want to shoot slow motion, you need to shoot in 60fps on the mini or higher on other cameras. It’s all very subjective and worth having a play about with. This is where I am at presently. I am just experimenting to see what sort of looks I can get with the different settings with and without filters. I often get it wrong, but its all good learning.

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Just to add this is due to the lack of aperture control on a lot (most) domestic use drones.

In its simplest form it’s putting sunglasses on your very open lens.

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Enjoyed that greatly, grand flying and filming. You have an interesting style of editing to cover lots of aspects, and it certainly grabs attention as to what is coming next. If the light demands a 16ND filter I would stick with it, but an 8 can be very useful - lock exposure and deal with it in post as you fly into more shaded areas. Blown out skies are far worse than having to adjust darker areas later I reckon. Its the fun of learning by experimenting in post, rather than landing the quad to remove a filter, then have to land & change again - I keep an 8 or 16 filter on all the time these days just to encourage me to learn about colour correction etc in post. Blow out them skies and there is little room for manoeuvre later is my experience.

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Thanks. I think you need to keep things moving fairly quickly to retain the modern audience. Yeah, ND and exposure is where I need to focus my attention, more so when it comes to the edit. ie. planning the exposure setting which will allow me to edit in the style I need if that makes sense.

My next question is about speeding up footage. I love a quick zoom over a field, but if you catch a person or car whilst you’re filming they look like they are moving at a ridiculous and unnatural speed.

Excellent video, some great shots and a perfectly matched soundtrack, well done.

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Well, you have certainly made me look more closely at what the mini can do now after the firmware update. Haven’t flown much. Thanks for the explanation - but, now that I can set shutter manually (to say 50th @ 24fps) will that not give me the same cinematic effect - obviously with the need to choose an ISO that gets me a good exposure? Presumably on Auto the shutter speed is always too high?
Am I understanding this right?

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Always aim for ISO 100 wherever possible.

Yes it’s called the 180 rule so you want to have your shutter speed at twice the frame rate. So if you were filming at 60fps, then a shutter speed of 1/125th would do the same trick. You are doubling the shutter speed when compared to the frame rate.

If the lighting is perfect for those settings you won’t need ND filters, but from experience, it will generally over expose without ‘sunglasses’ for your gimbal.

On Auto, the shutter speed will generally be higher than you need, but also it will change as the lighting changes, but it’s never even. What I mean is, going from a dark wood to a bright sky the camera will automatically increase the exposure too far, then bring it back in to what it thinks is correct.