Hello everyone, I'm new to photograpy and am wondering if anybody can give me recomendations on what filters to buy for my phantom 3 advanced?

If you are new to photography let me suggest you start with something more basic than filters. You should concentrate on things like understanding proper exposure, shutter speeds, frame rates and iso. You cannot take a good photo or video without knowing these things no matter how many filters you have. Learn what makes a good composition. Learning how to properly edit either a photo or a video is equally important too. Garbage in garbage out.

There are a lot of good videos and photos posted here and on skypixel.com as well as vimeo and youtube. There are plenty more awful, boring video and photos as well. Decide what you like and try to repeat it. Decide what you don't like and avoid doing that.

There really is a lot going on when flying a Phantom and trying to get good shots while racing against the battery clock. Adding filters is just one more complication you do not need until you gain some confidence and experience.
This is a creative process. Find out your style and develop it. You don't need extra stuff to do that....yet.

Good luck and have fun.

However, to satisfy your curiosity, people use Neutral Denisty (ND) filters to let in less light since the camera aperture is fixed to achieve a cinematic motion blur effect by shooting at a shutter speed that is twice the frame rate. You do not need a circular polarizing filter ever on a moving drone.

aopisa Posted at 2016-1-27 20:59
If you are new to photography let me suggest you start with something more basic than filters. You s ...

Thanks for the reply. I've flown quad copters as well as rc planes and jets for a number of years, that's not the problem. I'm just looking  for some basic advice on filters to use in different situations, like cloudy skies,  snowy backgrounds  bright sun light etc......

tinner21 Posted at 2016-1-27 23:08
Thanks for the reply. I've flown quad copters as well as rc planes and jets for a number of years, ...

I figured you might be already good at flying and that helps a lot. Smoothness goes a long way in making a great video.

Still, I contend if you have not flown and photographed it is a different ball game. At least if you aim to make something interesting to watch. Taking stills is easier than flying and filming.

Like I said the ND filter are primarily used for getting the proper shutter speed in video. They can have some use in super bright conditions, but a lot can be controlled through the camera.

Those are abut the only filters available for the Phantom. There are some graduated ND filters out there too, but those can only be used in specific circumstances.

Plenty of information already here on where to get ND filters and how to use them if you think you need them.

aopisa Posted at 2016-1-27 22:17
I figured you might be already good at flying and that helps a lot. Smoothness goes a long way in m ...

As aopisa said, if you're taking photos, filters are mostly useless as you can compensate with shutter speeds to get the correct exposure unless you're shooting directly into the sun. Some people will tell  you a polarizer is useful, but I don't find them useful on UAVs as you can't rotate them easily to fully utilize their effects.

ND filters are extremely useful for video. If you're shooting video and don't want to get that highly digitized look due to extremely high shutter speeds, they're pretty much a requirement. The most popular seem to be the DJI filters and Polar Pros, both of which don't seem to have much in the way of color tints to them (a good thing). Note that DJI does not have any ND32 filters, which you may need if it's extremely bright out. Polar Pro has one but it's polarized, which isn't optimal. Neweer does make a straight ND32 filter that seems ok, but I haven't used it much yet.

If you're not familiar, shutter speed stops go 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/2000. Filter nomenclature is for ND2 to reduce exposure by one stop, ND4 to reduce by two stops, ND8 to reduce by 3 stops, ND16 to reduce by 4 stops, and ND32 by 5 stops. If you want a 1/60 or 1/50 shutter speed on a snow filled sunny scene where proper exposure is at 1/2000, you're going to need the ND32. A cloudy day would be around 1/250 or maybe 1/500, so you'd need a ND2 or ND4. Snowy backgrounds on cloudy days are usually still pretty bright, around 1/1000, so you're going to need an ND16. Etc etc; all situations are different. You have to meter the scene and apply the right filter.

lido_bmt Posted at 2016-1-27 21:36
As aopisa said, if you're taking photos, filters are mostly useless as you can compensate with shu ...

Thanks for your help, this is very helpful. I didn't make myself very clear with my question. with my pictures i just use the shutter wheel on my remote control to adjust the photo. I should have been more clear, I'm shooting video. I video mainly in cloudy snowy situations(we don't get much sun). I see on the market there are sets of 3 filters that i can buy. would the 2,4, and 8 or the 4,8 and 16 be best?

tinner21 Posted at 2016-1-27 23:17
Thanks for your help, this is very helpful. I didn't make myself very clear with my question. with ...

I'd go with the 4 / 8 / 16. The ND2 is sort of handy, but but you can compensate by using an ND4 and raising the ISO. Example: if no filter resulted in a proper exposure at ISO 100 and shutter speed of 1/125, the ND2 could come in handy for dropping the shutter speed to 1/60 and maintaining ISO 100.

But you could get around that with the ND4: putting it on would drop the shutter speed to 1/30 (too slow), but you could then raise the ISO to 200, and the shutter speed would also go up to 1/60. The difference in noise between ISO 100 and 200 is pretty much zero, so you're not really losing anything image quality-wise. On the other hand you're gaining an extra stop of light filtering by getting the ND16. That's definitely useful as there are plenty of situations where an ND8 will still not cut light enough.

lido_bmt Posted at 2016-1-27 22:29
I'd go with the 4 / 8 / 16. The ND2 is sort of handy, but but you can compensate by using an ND4 a ...

Thanks for the advice, I'll take it. Sounds like i need to do some studying as well. Like you mentioned earlier i just want to get rid of the digital look of my video, give it more depth. your advice was extremely helpful!!!

I'd suggest a set of ND filters, so you can change them depending on the flight environment and weather

tinner21 Posted at 2016-1-28 00:41
Thanks for the advice, I'll take it. Sounds like i need to do some studying as well. Like you ment ...

Taco makes filters and they look pretty good to me. They also seem to be lighter than polar pro which I think would be easier on your gimbal.

aopisa Posted at 2016-1-28 09:58
Taco makes filters and they look pretty good to me. They also seem to be lighter than polar pro wh ...

I'm looking for a UV filter for lens protection for my Phantom 3 Standard model - no threads on the camera. Having trouble finding any online. Does anybody have a lead on where to get one?