fans193195a1
lvl.1
Australia
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I think I see what you are asking. StigNygaard is correct but let's consolidate your questions.
Hyperfocal: It seems that what I have read on the net and my own calculations put the hyperfocal distance around 12m for the mavic. Fly up 12m high, tilt camera to ground, lock focus and then point your camera wherever you want and you will have everything in focus from about 5m to infinity. This is helpful if you simply are busy flying and forget to hit the auto focus reticule on your device - or the mavic got focus lock on some grass just in front of it as it was sitting on the ground before take-off and you forgot to re-focus.
Setting to hyperfocal also means as you fly and are capturing video you aren't getting focus shift as the mavic tries to get focus lock on different objects OR as you hit the focus reticule.
BUT, having said that - and you kind of hinted at this in a comment above - because everything is in focus from 5m to infinity, you are sacrificing some ARTISTIC control over your footage. You may be 100m away from your subject and want to focus on that and have the foreground a bit blurry to really draw attention to the subject. Hyperfocal won't give you that effect because everything is sharp. In this case you would lock focus on the subject 100m away and thus the stuff in front and behind will fall off from/to blur. (Note - you are dealing with a very small lens so the effect isn't as dramatic compared to a big zoom lens or prime lens - but still, you work with what you have got).
So there is a place for hyperfocal - just want to fly and not worry about focussing all the time OR you are shooting a landscape style pic and want as much as possible to be in focus - foreground to background.
There is a place for constantly re-focussing or auto focussing - to draw attention to a subject by focussing just on it and using the artistic blur (as much as the lens allows) to draw your eye to it.
CP and ND filters: Let's talk ND (neutral density) side first - the filter will reduce the amount of light hitting the sensor which means you can use a slower shutter speed to get that cinematic feel. In short, a slower shutter speed allows fast movement to have a bit of motion blur which gives that nice cinemagraphic feel. Simply dial in the iso you want to use on the mavic, slap on one of your ND (cp) filters and see what shutter speed it gives you. If the shutter speed is too high for your liking then put on a darker ND until you get it right (or lower the ISO) - you get the idea.
Beware: if you put on a very dark ND or CP you may find your shutter speed drops to 1/24s and your footage looks blurry - this is because the movement in your shots is too fast or you're flying too fast so the 1/24s was too slow. Either crank up the iso or land and put on a more suitable ND until you get the right shutter speed going on.
BTW - I am assuming you are filming in manual mode and not auto (where the camera chooses the iso, shutterspeed etc).
Now Polarising Filters
Polarising filters cut the glare - but that depends on the ANGLE the light is hitting the subject relative to the direction your drone is facing. This bit is very important. (polarisers also cut a bit of light and some filters have ND and Polarising in them but we're just dealing with polarisers).
In STILL photography, you put your camera on the tripod, frame your shot, then rotate the polariser until the glare is gone. Then take the shot. If you find there is still glare you either move the light source or move your camera.
On the Mavic: Here's my workflow - I have CP that are also ND so I dial in my ISO, then put try different filters until I get the good combination of ND and shutterspeed. Then I take my polarised ND off the mavic and bring it up to my eye. I then face the direction that I intend to do most of my filming and rotate the filter in front of my eye until I see the polarising effect kick in - I then hold the filter with my index on the top and then put it on the mavic exactly the same way/orientation. So my index is on the top of the filter when I take it from my eye and my index finger will be on the top when I put it on the mavic.
Take off, and shoot my subject and let the ND and Polariser do their magic.
You will notice as you turn the mavic in different directions the polarising effect will diminish, return, diminish etc as you move around. This is because the polariser needs to be set for the direction and light source you are shooting.
Generally a polariser works best with light hitting your subject at an angle but you do have to rotate the filter to get the maximum effect - if your light direction changes or your shooting position changes then you may have to re-adjust the filter. Easy to do on the ground, hard to do in the air.
There are good youtube videos on how to use polarises etc. that will make more sense.
In short, experiment. I took some great footage of a boat with my polarised ND one day and the footage was awful because my ND was too strong and my shutter speed was too slow plus I forgot to set my polariser filter for the direction I was shooting - in short, I rushed to get the shot and the drone in the air and totally screwed the pooch.
This wouldn't have happened in my regular photography because everything is right in front of me and I'm used to using my camera gear - practice makes perfect.
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