So I've had my inspire for a week, and I love how it drives,and it flies. But I've been disappointed with too much grain and compression onthe image quality. I knew very well, that I was buying into an amazing dronewith an ok camera. But to me the amount of grain is almost unacceptable. IMeven considering returning it or selling it. I’ve tried shooting at ISO 100 andsome color correction in FCPX and Davinci Resolve, with not much luck. DO anyof you guys have any input on this? MY main goal in getting this was travelingand getting some footage to sell stock footage online, but now I don’t know howmany people will accept this footage, but maybe I am wrong. Anyways I just wantto know if anyone has any suggestions or comments. Thanks!

How much video experience do you have?

I'm a video engineer but deal mainly with broadcast equipment gear. But I'm always learning and willing to learn.

Does anyone with any knowledge of these types of cameras (Inspire 1 camera /GoPro 4 etc) know if anything could be done to reduce the noise and make the overall image quality better,without a lot of post production with firmware in the future, or is this just a hardware thing.
Just curious

I know what you mean.  My first tests were a bit ordinary but with some tweaking and experimentation have gotten some very nice results.

The main things I do are:

1.  shoot in log to protect highlights
2.  Drop the saturation, contrast and sharpness slightly in the color settings.
3.  Use the histogram and push hard to the right without overexposing.  (Histogram isn't perfect so check how far you can push in reality.)
4.  Use a 180degree shutter (twice the frame rate)

Gives a pretty clean starting image for DaVinci.   I'm used to shooting RED so I'm not pretending the image is noise-free, but you should be able to produce some stunning shots without costing $10k for the drone and putting a $25k camera on it.  

Good compromise as far as I'm concerned!  ;-)

kelleyre@gmail. Posted at 2015-3-8 07:20
Does anyone with any knowledge of these types of cameras (Inspire 1 camera /GoPro 4 etc) know if any ...

NEAT VIDEO make a fantastic and very affordable noise reduction plug in.  Works great.

There isn't a big noise issue in my opinion if you are exposing correctly.   

I use NEAT on maybe 15% of my shots.
Here are a couple of things I shot the first couple of weeks of owning the Inspire 1:

Shaded forest shots
http://youtu.be/a_dJbaDl7F4

Open sun over water shots
http://youtu.be/QEDfLrLrJlI

Nice videos Jim. Some tight spots in that first one. I subscribed!

hello, you used the ND-4 filter in open sun at what shutter speed ?
Someone has experience with other ND-filters, problems with weight until 9 grams ?

Thranth Posted at 2015-3-8 08:34
Nice videos Jim. Some tight spots in that first one. I subscribed!

Thanks!   Yeah, a bit nerve racking in tight spaces and I did some "free Inspire pruning" to a few branches along the way, but no major incidents!

Renaat Posted at 2015-3-8 08:46
hello, you used the ND-4 filter in open sun at what shutter speed ?
Someone has experience with othe ...

I only used the ND on a couple of shots, shutter always 180 degrees (double frame rate) unless absolutely necessary, and ISO usually down to 100.

Strange, on sunny days at 100ISO and 1080p50 i have shutter speeds around 320, impossible to have less for right exposure. So looking here in China for a manufacturer that can make a -8 stops at a very light weight.

Yeah, quite a few people on the forum have spoken about needing very heavy ND.   Might just be the situations I've been shooting in.  I'm sure I'll need a stronger one at some point but so far so good!

Sorry, duplicate post.

Great stuff Jim you live in paradise I see
Way to push the envelope !

I agree Jim, really nice footage. As good as my eyes can see.

Thanks Jim I'll try those settings great videos btw!

Thanks all.  Might just be the time of day that I haven't needed high shutter.  I tend to shoot in the morning and often under some cover.   I'm guessing if I shot on the beach at lunchtime it would be very different.

jimhare Posted at 2015-3-8 07:20
I know what you mean.  My first tests were a bit ordinary but with some tweaking and experimentation ...

Hi Jim what do you mean by a 180 twist

I was getting very grainy video's but when I used my wife's computer to play them it was like day and night.  you might try a different screen.  I have a newer computer but hers performs better as a video platform.

Arrow1969 Posted at 2015-3-10 05:36
Hi Jim what do you mean by a 180 twist

4.  Use a 180degree shutter (twice the frame rate)

This refers to the shutter speed.   In film and digital cinema cameras shutter speed is read both in time (1/60th of the second) and in degrees.  A 180 degree shutter means the shutter speed is double the frame rate, so if you are shooting 30FPS, your shutter would be 1/60.   If you are shooting 24FPS then it would be 1/48 and so on.

jimhare Posted at 2015-3-10 10:01
4.  Use a 180degree shutter (twice the frame rate)

This refers to the shutter speed.   In film an ...

Thanks Jim for that

Jim, what do you do to adjust The ( degree ) of shutter?

Dangair Posted at 2015-3-10 13:46
Jim, what do you do to adjust The ( degree ) of shutter?

It's just terminology so another way to measure shutter speed.   It refers to the degrees of a circle.

When you speak in degrees you are changing the shutter "angle."    The higher the shutter angle (degrees) the lower the shutter speed.

360 degrees = same shutter speed as framerate.   180 degrees = double frame rate, 90 degrees = 4 times the frame rate and so on.

But don't let it confuse you, it is simply just another way to talk about the number in the shutter setting on the Inspire.   The difference is it is always measured against the frame rate.

So to change the speed is that the number ie 20 or 50 below the 1080p ? Or is there another way to change this?

You change it in the custom settings when you turn auto mode off, same place you set the custom ISO.
I show how to change it in this tutorial I made today:

http://youtu.be/S7PxuY9cqZE

Very nice! So does DaVinci free version have the same capability to do what you did there or do you have to up the ante on that?

also,  for your computer, how much ram do you need and what graphics card is acceptable? I suspect my system memory might suffer some running that.

I will likely run a pc but depending on the upgrade costs I might just swap over to a Mac. I do like Mac's stability buy PC seems to be the champ when it comes to upgrading. Any thoughts on this?

jimhare Posted at 2015-3-8 07:22
NEAT VIDEO make a fantastic and very affordable noise reduction plug in.  Works great.

There isn' ...

Nice work Jim and thanks for sharing your camera setup and post process.

Thank you for sharing.