Superb shot!   Mini 3 Pro is really producing some nice details in that shot.

DowntownRDB Posted at 11-6 13:30
Superb shot!   Mini 3 Pro is really producing some nice details in that shot.

Thank you. Had to use an ND filter, there is a lot of distortion as it is a small lens, but all in all its impressed me.

Shifty007UK Posted at 11-6 14:10
Thank you. Had to use an ND filter, there is a lot of distortion as it is a small lens, but all in all its impressed me.

My pleasure.  Using the ND filter turned out quite useful on this shot then.

I like it a lot!
PS, why did you use an ND filter?
You did not need motion blur right?

Montfrooij Posted at 11-6 23:43
I like it a lot!
PS, why did you use an ND filter?
You did not need motion blur right?

The lens is ultra fast and that means even in low light the photos are over exposed. This ND use allows for the deeper exposure of the rich colours in the sky by providing the longer exposure onto the sensor. As i shoot raw this means that all of the rich colours captured can be pulled out in the editing software from the darkness.

Shifty007UK Posted at 11-6 23:51
The lens is ultra fast and that means even in low light the photos are over exposed. This ND use allows for the deeper exposure of the rich colours in the sky by providing the longer exposure onto the sensor. As i shoot raw this means that all of the rich colours captured can be pulled out in the editing software from the darkness.

Ok, I so far never needed to have ND filters because of a faster lens.
The shutterspeed is fast enough to make sure this works (at base ISO of course)
If I recall correctly, the shutterspeed goes up to 1/8000s, which should be sufficient for almost everything (maybe not snow + sun)

The only time I use ND filters is for long exposure shots (not on the drone, but on my Pocket 2 or DSLR)
And for video of course.

Yea I am really just short cutting the need to amend the EV or shutter speed manually which takes up a bit of flight time on each shot as the camera over exposes the light sky even in an early dawn shot. I look at the light and sky exposure and get a good Idea on the ND required and gives me more time to compose the shot. In bright day light the ND filters are a must really for this lens.

Shifty007UK Posted at 11-7 00:34
Yea I am really just short cutting the need to amend the EV or shutter speed manually which takes up a bit of flight time on each shot as the camera over exposes the light sky even in an early dawn shot. I look at the light and sky exposure and get a good Idea on the ND required and gives me more time to compose the shot. In bright day light the ND filters are a must really for this lens.

I don't get it.
1/8000s shutterspeed is more than fast enough to handle this kind of situations.
I don't fly with ND filters and never have needed a faster shutterspeed.

Remember this lens is not a true Full Frame 1.7 aperture.
The lens opening is much smaller because the sensor is smaller. It won't let in that much light.
For my Full Frame DSLR, things are different. That aperture is HUGE at 1.4
But not on our tiny drone cameras

An ND filter won't help in high contrast situations, as it just lowers the overall amount of light hitting the sensor (and the difference between light and dark stays the same).
I'm sure you could have taken the exact same capture with a faster shutterspeed.

Shifty007UK Posted at 11-7 00:34
Yea I am really just short cutting the need to amend the EV or shutter speed manually which takes up a bit of flight time on each shot as the camera over exposes the light sky even in an early dawn shot. I look at the light and sky exposure and get a good Idea on the ND required and gives me more time to compose the shot. In bright day light the ND filters are a must really for this lens.

Ps, there is a common misconception about ND filters.
I'm not sure if you also believe this, but a lot of drone pilots (or camera operators in general) believe that ND filters help to overcome high a high contrast situation.
They don't.
The only thing they do is lower the amount of light that hits the sensor, which is needed when you want to use a slower shutterspeed.
Mainly usable for videography OR long shutterspeeds (with motion blur).
Other than that there is not much the ND filter will do, apart from add an extra layer of dark glass over your lens.
For everything but snow + sunlight, a 1/8000 shutterspeed should be sufficient.
Unless you want to expose for the sun, but you probably don't want that, since the rest of the image will be pitch black. (with or without ND filters)

I get what you are saying totally. I just prefer to use an ND and save faffing about with the exposure triangle with the Drone in the air as the lens is too fast in daylight and over exposes in the auto settings,  I have found ND's good personally as they save me time on the manual settings, they are perfect for it actually although ND grads are better but I don't have one for this. So when I use an ND and expose for the sky I will get obviously a very dark ground and a more natural sky having removed a lot of bright white from the sky when in broad daylight, but without having to go into manual settings and adjust the EV or shutter speed (yes I prefer a low ISO like most would). This means in post production I can pull the colours back out of the dark ground in the Raw file it works much better for me than just under exposing for the sky a stop without a filter or adjusting the shutter speed and messing about with the shot when the drone is in the air losing valuable time. I do it to save time as the cameras auto setting is way to bright for exposure in daylight, you can see so many pictures people have taken in daylight on auto and they are washed out. Yea of course you can change any of the exposure triangle whilst you are in the air to get the same effect, but I am just saving a little time in the air. But yea the lens is fast and as you know bringing the shutter speed down to 1/1000 on a moving car from above is unlikely to cause any motion blur anyway.

Shifty007UK Posted at 11-7 04:11
I get what you are saying totally. I just prefer to use an ND and save faffing about with the exposure triangle with the Drone in the air as the lens is too fast in daylight and over exposes in the auto settings,  I have found ND's good personally as they save me time on the manual settings, they are perfect for it actually although ND grads are better but I don't have one for this. So when I use an ND and expose for the sky I will get obviously a very dark ground and a more natural sky having removed a lot of bright white from the sky when in broad daylight, but without having to go into manual settings and adjust the EV or shutter speed (yes I prefer a low ISO like most would). This means in post production I can pull the colours back out of the dark ground in the Raw file it works much better for me than just under exposing for the sky a stop without a filter or adjusting the shutter speed and messing about with the shot when the drone is in the air losing valuable time. I do it to save time as the cameras auto setting is way to bright for exposure in daylight, you can see so many pictures people have taken in daylight on auto and they are washed out. Yea of course you can change any of the exposure triangle whilst you are in the air to get the same effect, but I am just saving a little time in the air. But yea the lens is fast and as you know bringing the shutter speed down to 1/1000 on a moving car from above is unlikely to cause any motion blur anyway.

As long as you are happy, that is all what matters right?
You seem to have found a good usecase for them!

It is just something that triggers me as people sometimes seem to think that slapping an ND filter on their drone camera is a magic sauce for creating better endresults

Hahah, No I am just lazy on exposure settings. You know what it's like, you get used to doing things a certain way as they work for you and it works with the post production stuff that I have.
So what do you do to reduce the general daytime sky over exposure that the auto settings seem to generate?

Shifty007UK Posted at 11-7 05:20
Hahah, No I am just lazy on exposure settings. You know what it's like, you get used to doing things a certain way as they work for you and it works with the post production stuff that I have.
So what do you do to reduce the general daytime sky over exposure that the auto settings seem to generate?

I almost always shoot on auto exposure with EV to -0,7
Sometimes I have to dial in more or less compensation, but usually this works fine for me
With pano shots (manual) I set my drone to manual ('pro') and dial in my own settings, based on some test shots.

Shifty007UK Posted at 11-7 05:20
Hahah, No I am just lazy on exposure settings. You know what it's like, you get used to doing things a certain way as they work for you and it works with the post production stuff that I have.
So what do you do to reduce the general daytime sky over exposure that the auto settings seem to generate?

PS, if you reply to a post, it is best to hit that small reply link below the post instead of the big textarea at the bottom of the page.
That way you get a popup form where you can answer the specific post and the user gets a notification

Montfrooij Posted at 11-7 05:32
PS, if you reply to a post, it is best to hit that small reply link below the post instead of the big textarea at the bottom of the page.
That way you get a popup form where you can answer the specific post and the user gets a notification

Got it! Thanks for the help and yes I see what you do with the exposure and it saves you £50 quid on ND filters when all I need to really do is reduce the exposure haha.

Shifty007UK Posted at 11-7 05:40
Got it! Thanks for the help and yes I see what you do with the exposure and it saves you £50 quid on ND filters when all I need to really do is reduce the exposure haha.

Like that indeed!
Plus it also saves you the hassle from putting the 'right' ND filter on.
And funny fact, you probably won't put the right one on, since the lighting changes drastically during a flight. (depending on where you are pointing the lens at)

Nice shot from the village.

Classic English countryside,   nice.  

great shot

Shifty007UK Posted at 11-7 04:11
I get what you are saying totally. I just prefer to use an ND and save faffing about with the exposure triangle with the Drone in the air as the lens is too fast in daylight and over exposes in the auto settings,  I have found ND's good personally as they save me time on the manual settings, they are perfect for it actually although ND grads are better but I don't have one for this. So when I use an ND and expose for the sky I will get obviously a very dark ground and a more natural sky having removed a lot of bright white from the sky when in broad daylight, but without having to go into manual settings and adjust the EV or shutter speed (yes I prefer a low ISO like most would). This means in post production I can pull the colours back out of the dark ground in the Raw file it works much better for me than just under exposing for the sky a stop without a filter or adjusting the shutter speed and messing about with the shot when the drone is in the air losing valuable time. I do it to save time as the cameras auto setting is way to bright for exposure in daylight, you can see so many pictures people have taken in daylight on auto and they are washed out. Yea of course you can change any of the exposure triangle whilst you are in the air to get the same effect, but I am just saving a little time in the air. But yea the lens is fast and as you know bringing the shutter speed down to 1/1000 on a moving car from above is unlikely to cause any motion blur anyway.

Nice shot (but it feels quite HDR ish because of the exact processing method you have described by hyper lifting shadows and pulling your file about to oblivion). You are honestly, 100% using ND's wrong and your shot discipline could improve a whole lot. Don't take this the wrong way but you can improve a whole lot just by listening to my following advice. It takes less than 5 seconds to get the settings that will highly benefit your processing. You argument is nonsenical about bringing stuff out the darkness, simply shooting a bracket would do the same thing only much better.

RAW mode. Get out of auto mode. ISO 100 always. Yes always. f/1.7 aperture is fixed, so f/1.7. Then you simply set it to rotate the wheel the change shutter, until the histogram looks good. Always remember the principals of ETTR (Exposure to the right) which means you pull everything as far to the right side of the histogram as possible without clipping. If bracketing, you can clip a bit of course). Even better, just have it in 5 EV brackets. Press button. The images are taken. Using NDs is for video in drones.

https://www.stevenrobinsonpictures.com/flight

I binned the Mini 3 Pro. The camera was absolutely ...e compared to the Mavic 3 I changed it for. The lens distortion was horrible too.