As a follow-up to the photo series from this week-ends winter flight, I created a short video with the highlights from that day.

This is my first attempt at video editing, cutting down about 14 minutes of fotage into a 1:43 long music clip, with audio track dictating the scene timings. Davinci Resolve 14 was used for this (still learning the tool). I did not do any color correction, so the image is as Mavic Pro recorded it in D-Cinelike profile.

Music is the fittingly-named Marillion's ''Winter Trees'' from the ''Brave'' bonus disc.

I've uploaded the video to SkyPixel, which, alas, downscales it to 1080p and loses quite a lot of quality in the process.
An attempt at uploading a 4K version to Vimeo failed. I created an account there today; encoded a sub-500MB video clip with good quality (to meet Vimeo free limits); uploaded it to Vimeo; got a confirmation email, saying that it's available for sharing that that I am close to the limit, suggesting to buy an upgrade. However, while I was doing the last description tunings, I noticed that I could no longer save changes - turns I became logged out. However, when trying to log in, I got met with the doomsday message ''It looks like your account has been disabled due to a violation of Vimeo's Terms of Service and/or Guidelines. Specifically, Vimeo does not allow spam.'' No idea what Vimeo is on about, but for now they join YouTube as a hopeless place to avoid. I've filed a support ticket with them, asking for an explanation.

Enjoy the cold experience of the wintry day in Norway, and tell me what you think. Suggestions and pointers are welcome!

EDIT: The answer from Vimeo came 6 days later, saying it was a technical glitch and apologising. Here is the flight over Frozen Land in glorious 4K:



The SkyPixel version, which I initially referenced in this post, is here: https://www.skypixel.com/videos/frozen-land

Awesome footage. Well done

Very nice video. Video looks almost like it was shot in Black and White, but with colour.

Love the tones you get flying in the snow. Nicely done

Great video

Awesome video

Charissa Posted at 12-11 22:24
Very nice video. Video looks almost like it was shot in Black and White, but with colour.

Thank you, Charissa.
The colours were, indeed, very subdued on that day that. A thin icy cloudcover acted as a gigantic softbox, with an occasional blue of the sky and pink of the setting midday sun (this was shot about 2 hours before the sunset) getting through to to give a tint to the water and snow.
In the picture thread, I greyscaled the image of the iced over bay to accentuate the pattern in the ice. The video, however, worked best as it is. Desaturating it lost the feeling of coldness, while adding vibrancy/saturation made it look artificial.

4WDaus Posted at 12-12 00:45
Love the tones you get flying in the snow. Nicely done

Thank you! Only wish it could be done more often. So much has to fall into place on a week-end - snowcover, light, temperature, wind... I count myself lucky if there's a couple of such days during a winter.

Beautiful footage!
Love to see these sights.

One minor comment from my side.
Some of the motion was a bit too 'fast' for my likes.
For example the pan starting around 0:20.
If you make these kind of movements I always like to make them a bit more slow.

And a suggestion: try multiple direction movements (forward + pan, up + gimbal up, left + forward etc. etc. ).
If done in one slow continuous motion they usually work out great.
(I usually have to make several tries before I'm happy with the shots)

For example this video.


Where every movement has (at least) 2 directions.
(I had to make all the shots at lest 3 times before I was happy with the outcome)

I really enjoyed this video.  Not too long which is good and the scenery is interesting.  A few pans that were either a little quick or not smooth but overall I would say an excellent video.

Montfrooij Posted at 12-12 04:10
Beautiful footage!
Love to see these sights.

Thank you for the feed-back. And here I thought that the pan at 0:20 was pretty slow. I checked the data in the app flight log, and the stick input there was at a constant 30%. I'll try to be more aware of the pan speed. My guess is that 24fps frame rate, which the 4K footage on MP is limited to, does not help matters. Plus I see some stuttering, where it was not present in the original footage

The pan at 0:40 was a slow coordinated turn at about 20kmph, with three stick inputs - forward yaw left and bank left.

The multiple directions suggestion is valid, I should try more of it. This video has two such combinations: at 0:51 I am flying forward while slowly tilting the camera gimbal down; and at 1:19 I am flying in an arch (POI-style) - sideways while yawing left to keep the centre of the strait in the middle of the frame.

The end video result has usually not been at the top of my head when flying, as I am more concentrated on the flight itself or on framing a photo shot. This something that I definitely need to be more aware of and experiment more with.

On this specific flight I had one more limiting factor - temperature - the battery power indicator was going down faster, than what I am accustomed to.

And a fun behind-the-scenes: the two scenes at  0:58 were filmed as one sequence in Tripod mode, where I first flew straight down from 25m to 1.5m along the pine trees, and then forward under the branches of the pine grove. I was standing right behind the Mavic, so I could see a perfect flight path between the trunks.

Far_North Posted at 12-12 07:24
I really enjoyed this video.  Not too long which is good and the scenery is interesting.  A few pans that were either a little quick or not smooth but overall I would say an excellent video.

Thank you. Glad you liked it.
I tried to create a story, where the scenes are connected and progress out towards the open sea...

Awesome movie. I like those winter landscapes. Thanks for sharing

Hi and good day BumblerBee. Thank you for sharing this cool video. Great work and thank you for your support.

Great footage!

BumblerBee Posted at 12-12 09:28
Thank you for the feed-back. And here I thought that the pan at 0:20 was pretty slow. I checked the data in the app flight log, and the stick input there was at a constant 30%. I'll try to be more aware of the pan speed. My guess is that 24fps frame rate, which the 4K footage on MP is limited to, does not help matters. Plus I see some stuttering, where it was not present in the original footage

The pan at 0:40 was a slow coordinated turn at about 20kmph, with three stick inputs - forward yaw left and bank left.

Yeah, I noticed those combined ones.
That instantly works better.
And I totally know how occupied I get when I'm in the air. Trying to make sure everything is going as planned.
It might also be the first pan is 'just' a pan. I have thought about it and seldom make 'just' pans.
Most of the time I include forward motion as well, to make it a bit more interesting I guess.

Very good flying on that scene indeed. I never have tried tripod mode so far. I tell myself I need to try those flight modes more hahahahahaha.

Nice footage.

DJI Panda Posted at 12-14 00:34
Nice footage.

Thank you!

Montfrooij Posted at 12-12 23:11
Yeah, I noticed those combined ones.
That instantly works better.
And I totally know how occupied I get when I'm in the air. Trying to make sure everything is going as planned.

Tripod mode is really handy. Especially, when flying a path with little room for manoeuvre. The other mode that I've used a bit is the course lock, which frees up one directional control - quite handy when filming a "fly-by".

And an update - Vimeo restored my newly-created account, citing a system glitch. I have updated the OP with the 4K video!

BumblerBee Posted at 12-17 14:23
Tripod mode is really handy. Especially, when flying a path with little room for manoeuvre. The other mode that I've used a bit is the course lock, which frees up one directional control - quite handy when filming a "fly-by".

Yes, I tried course lock, but so far mostly flew manually

Montfrooij Posted at 12-17 23:04
Yes, I tried course lock, but so far mostly flew manually

Pretty awesome footage, thanks for sharing

ShermanFlyer Posted at 12-21 05:48
Pretty awesome footage, thanks for sharing

Thanks a lot!

Nicely done - thanks again for sharing!