FantomDK
 lvl.4
Denmark
Offline
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If you want to slow down your footage you absolutely want to use the maximum video quality of your P3 Advanced, the 60 frames per second in 1080p. It will then be easy to play that back at 50% speed to get good clean 30 fps video in half speed slowmotion.
You could likely even do further slowmotion. Especially if your video editor (like Final Cut Pro X) allows for "Optical Flow" slow motion. If you slow your 60 fps down to quarter speed without optical flow, you will get video that plays back at 15 fps. That will look stuttery/choppy. A simple slowmotion will use "Frame Blending" where it blends a frame in between two frames. That will improve the look of the slowmotion, but not as much as "optical flow" which tries to calculate the movement between the frames and create new frames. This can - if there is a lot of motion - turn into a weird look. But it is possible to use it successfully.
My next advice is not particular for slow motion, but works for any video you will want to capture with your P3
The best advice is to use very tiny input on your sticks, don't do a lot of panning etc. Turn the "EXPO" of your sticks down so they get less sensitive. You can even extend your sticks (they screw off) length for increased precision! Also, lower your gimbal-speed so it will be possible to make slow and soft gimbal up-and-down moves.
If you want the most quality out of the P3 camera and you plan to do extensive editing, I suggest you shoot in "LOG-mode" (logaritmic). This increases the dynamic range of the footage you capture. However, word of warning - it will make the video look dull and flat and grey at first (and on your iPad/device). You might even go further and change the Custom settings to 0 sharpness (stay at default) -2 saturation -2 contrast, to make it even flatter. The benefit is that you have more control in post-production to add the saturation and contrast to your video. This is fairly advanced (!), but I figure it is nice to know what you might have to do, if you want video that looks all the way as nice as some of the nicest video you see from other people.
Make sure you have Overexposure Warning turned on (zebra-stripes). This is very useful when you shoot video. You don't want a whole lot of zebra stripes because that means that part of the image will be 100% white - with zero detail, and no chance to get any detail back. Some zebra stripes are OK - and unavoidable if looking at the sun or reflections. If you wanted to have zero zebra stripes you would have to make the image too dark.
I suggest you learn to use the Manual mode rather than the Automatic mode. Unless you turn on Manual mode (the button under the Shutter in the app) you are in Automatic mode. In Automatic the camera will adjust the lighting a lot. That might leave undesirable effects because of the light going up and down in intensity because you are moving your camera around. In Manual you set your ISO (100 is best if there is enough light, which there will be if it is during the day). And then you set your Shutter Speed to where the lighting is good (only a few zebra stripes).
That brings me to the Shutter Speed question. In fact we have a problem when filming during the day - we film at a non-optimal too high shutter speed. It will likely be around 1000th of a second in a bright day. The result of this is; no motion blur. And in video we usually want some motion blur to make the video look smooth. It is much less of an issue when shooting in 60 FPS like you will likely be doing most. When shooting in 30 it is a problem if you have a lot of movement. Just like the Slow Motion, we will get a "stuttering" or "staccato" look to the video because every frame is quite sharp. Thats one of the reasons people use ND-filters - to cut down the amount of light that comes to the sensor.
A rule of thumb is, that the shutter speed in video should be about twice the framerate. So 120 shutter speed if you shoot in 60 fps and about 60 shutter speed if you film in 30 fps. That allows for the shutter to be open to capture that desirable motion blur when there is a lot of motion in the image.
When shooting in bright areas without an ND-filter and therefore at a high shutterspeed, you should just be aware that you should aim for even less fast panning, gimbal up-down and motion in general. Smoothness is your friend for good looking video, not least from our Phantoms 
Hope some of that will be useful.  |
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lvl.1
Second Officer
