I'm wondering how to best shoot a sunset with 60fps using the Air 2? I want to record at 60fps so I can slow down those waves and have it still look smooth. Since I'm recording at 60fps, I can't select HDR which I think would otherwise help. In this experiment, I did not use D-cinelike but I'm going to try to re-shoot this using D-cinelike and color-grade in post. I didn't want to use an ND filter because I was concerned that contrast was too high between the sun and the dark foreground of the beach, and the details of the beach would get lost. As a result, I didn't get as much motion blur as I'd like.
How can I make this look more cinematic?

Here's a 1:11 video slowly flying over a beach towards the setting sun. I slow down the 60fpx by 2x at 12 seconds in.

The video is exported at 4K60 into Youtube - will that give me the best quality?

Although very tempting for obvious reasons, sunsets and sunrises are extremely difficult to capture, particularly with digital camera of Mavic class. A full blast of sun light will render the image of ... well, a hydrogen bomb blast 100 miles away. This is exactly what you see here. You can control this blast to a degree with aperture, shutter speed or even a help of ND filter, but anything else in the frame will be a silhouette with no information whatsoever. Motion blur in straight ahead drone movement is a least of your worries, while 60 fps will definitely help to minimize stuttering effect when sideway filming or panning.

That said, you'll get much more palatable cinematic effect, filming the landscape just minutes after sunset or before sunrise. It's a matter of hunting for this magic moment and weather conditions, when sun dish is - say - filtered by a fog layer, smoke or even behind a cloud. In this situation you'll be able to capture more information in shadowed parts of the frame, 60 fps or not. You have a 10 minute window to do it right ...

Hello there Dangerly. Thank you for reaching out and for posting these information here at DJI Forum. I hope that our fellow DJI co pilots can give out there recommendation with regards to this matter. In addition I will post a DJI link on 4 Aerial Photography Tips for Shooting in Sunrise and Sunset ( https://store.dji.com/guides/4-a ... ing-sunrise-sunset/ ). Thank you.

Thanks for sharing

The sun is just too bright for the shutterspeed to compensate.
You need D-cinelike (flat profile) and an ND filter to get a darker exposure and be able to pull back the dark areas in post.

Looks good to me.  Vimeo would give you better quality than YouTube.

Looks good enough to me

I find it very hard for shutter speed to compensate for the super brightness of the sun.  I think the sun is just way too bright for the shutter speed to compensate properly.  An ND filter will probably help some.  Sunsets and sunrises usually take longer to work with in post but are doable.

Still, the sunset footage looks good to me.   Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for sharing!

A ND filter will affect all areas equally, so it doesn't increase contrast. It merely reduces the light reaching the sensor and requires a change in exposure to compensate. It's used to allow slower shutter speeds and get some motion blur.

If you're shooting into the sun, I would still use a ND filter, especially since you're planning on slowing down the video in post. Without the ND filter the camera will use a fast shutter speed and the image will be jumpy even when slowed down.

Firstly, this is not a sunset as the sun is still away too high yet. The sun as it gets about half way set will dim a good bit and take on a more Orange glow. In doing that it will be over a stop less bright, maybe 2, and that will help. If there were clouds in the immediate sky or way off in the horizon you would get some lovely rays and changes of color tone and reflections. A rule of thumb in shootings stills for printing was to start shooting about 5 minutes before the sun set, and continue shooting for an additional 20 minutes. The colors are those we can't see with the eye, but long shutter speed will capture them.

I'm an old retired commercial photographer that started in 5x7 film days and finished with Canon bodies and some big white lenses doing large weddings digitally.  I will take delivery of my 4th DJI Drone, A Mavc 2 air package this Saturday. At almost 83, I'm like a kid again looking forward to a new toy.

Thomas Connell, M.Photog.Cr.