Hi guys. Here is my first attempt with the Spark. Pretty nervous taking it up still, a little paranoid from reading some of the Fly Away stories, but I didn't buy it to sit in a box :-) So I spent most my time paying attention to GPS, compass, battery etc rather than concentrate too much on composition and framing. Learnt alot from this attempt, primarily that I need another 2 batteries. One thing that has frustrated me is that the footage seems a bit shaky or jumpy espically on the vertical climb up the tower in the first part. It seems much better when I just play the footage on the laptop straight from the file. But when I import it into FCP it gets skippy. I thought it was just FCP working on a proxy file and that when I rendered it in the final cut it would be fine. But it is still jumpy.
Initially I imported the file into a 24fps template by accident but I spotted that after a few minutes and created a new template with it set to take the settings of the first imported file.
When I import a Spark file it sets the fps as 29.8 - Is that strange, shouldn't it be 30fps?

Anyway, hope someone is using FCPx and has come across this and found a fix to the same problem.

Other than that, I am well impressed with what it can do. Very happy. I need to smooth out my flying style and learn how to use some of the special functions which I never got around to. In hind sight Tripod mode might have helped a bit. But I was just happy to get it up and down without incident. Might take it a bit higher next time.

Nice place.

Mariano500 Posted at 2018-1-11 15:33
Nice place.

Yehh. Its only a 10 minute drive from my house and a 15 minute walk through the woods. Usually no one around as well, so not too disruptive to anyone as I get the hang of it. Think I'll be going back regularly to hone my skills a bit. Been a using a big field for the first few flights but I needed something to focus on.

do not be nervous!
you controlled it so well!
as for some tips you can search on forum!

I just made my first video today. Read while learning FCPX 29.98 causes these issues. i just opened a new project and it let me set the FPS  so i set it to 30 and i thought it came out smooth.

There are people who also set it to 60 FPS 50MBPS bitrate

Really beautiful footage Alan and well composed! Thank you. But I agree there is an issue with the video, it's not running smooth. But this is not so in the original video I am sure, it must have happened during rendering.

Thanks guys. Will try some of those options with a small bit of the footage and see what the results are. Just strange that FCP has option to adjust the Frame Rate to whatever the first clip thats dropped into the project is, yet it doesn't seem to be adjusting to the correct rate. Will try manual 30 and 60.

Nice video, indeed some jumps here and there.

AlanIRL Posted at 2018-1-12 03:34
Thanks guys. Will try some of those options with a small bit of the footage and see what the results are. Just strange that FCP has option to adjust the Frame Rate to whatever the first clip thats dropped into the project is, yet it doesn't seem to be adjusting to the correct rate. Will try manual 30 and 60.

You did a great job. Please shoot more videos and have fun with your new spark.

Very nice footage that will only improve with practice. Well done!

Use this as the search in YouTube - "DJI Spark fcpx" and you'll see at least three videos discussing this issue.

Pappy3 Posted at 2018-1-14 01:26
Use this as the search in YouTube - "DJI Spark fcpx" and you'll see at least three videos discussing this issue.

Yehh after some searching and some recommendations here I think I found a fix. I edited some of the footage again in a 30fps template and the results are here: