I recently upgraded my Inspire 1 with the Zenmuse X5 and did my first shoot for a client with it this past weekend. After sending over the raw footage, the client is complaining that many of the clips have flickering/choppiness to them at certain points. I didn't notice it at first, but ever since they brought it to my attention it's been driving me nuts. I uploaded one of the clips, you can see it if you look at the train tracks right when they reach the middle of the shot. If anyone knows how to fix this with camera settings/post production please let me know! Also, the clip was stabilized but that didnt seem to help the issue.

This is happening for filming at 24fps?

where was the sun relative to the lens?

You need to set the exposure yourself and shoot in manual mode.


Dave

Your shutter speed is too fast, you need to slow it down more to get motion blur. As it is right now, you are getting too much movement between frames to where the eye can pick it up. Your best bet is to shoot in manual mode (as noted above) to get the desired shutter speed.

Yea that looks like a rolling shutter issue.  Are you running a shutter speed twice your frame rate?

Thanks guys, I did have it in auto due to the weather and only having 1 operator. I regret not shooting in manual but i definitely will next time. Is there suggested way to fix this in either premiere or after effects?

evanbrightfield Posted at 2016-1-14 17:41
Thanks guys, I did have it in auto due to the weather and only having 1 operator. I regret not shoot ...

Unfortunately there is not really a good way to fix that. Not that I know of.

Dave

I've noticed that this happens when the clip is in 4k but is played at a lower resolution and its also happened to me when the clip is streamed from phone to TV

You can try rendering frames in between; I don't know what it's called but essentially it calculates frames in between which works really well for panning shots. I don't know what the feature is called in Premiere, but in Final Cut it's called Optical Flow.

evanbrightfield Posted at 2016-1-15 12:41
Thanks guys, I did have it in auto due to the weather and only having 1 operator. I regret not shoot ...

I know there are programs to create interlaced footage from progressive material which interpolate new frames.   This is different than the optical flow mentioned above, which is more for doing the best possible job when retiming footage.

Do some searches on creating interlaced footage using interpolation as a head start.

evanbrightfield Posted at 2016-1-15 12:41
Thanks guys, I did have it in auto due to the weather and only having 1 operator. I regret not shoot ...

I only shoot single operator and it's very easy to control all the parameters in real time by yourself.   Keep the shutter speed on the left rear wheel of the remote, use the overexposure meter and historgram and use the wheel to keep exposure right all the time.  

jimhare Posted at 2016-1-16 07:19
I only shoot single operator and it's very easy to control all the parameters in real time by your ...

Hey Jim

Curious, if you're using the left wheel for exposure control what's your technique for controling gimbal pitch?

jones5r Posted at 2016-1-16 14:33
Hey Jim

Curious, if you're using the left wheel for exposure control what's your technique for con ...

Hey Jones5r.  I have the C1 button toggle it between gimbal pitch and exposure.   C2 recenters the camera.  

jimhare Posted at 2016-1-16 08:52
Hey Jones5r.  I have the C1 button toggle it between gimbal pitch and exposure.   C2 recenters the ...

Imma have to give that a try.

jones5r Posted at 2016-1-17 02:07
Imma have to give that a try.

Yeah, works well.  There are a couple of configs I use.  Another is to C1 toggle between pitch and yaw on the gimbal and control shutter speed with the right wheel.  

jimhare Posted at 2016-1-16 00:19
I only shoot single operator and it's very easy to control all the parameters in real time by your ...

you change shutterspeed but not framerate, wouldn't that mess up the footage?
I thought you should always have twice shutterspeed vs framerate. I can't figure out get good footage in 4k, i get the flikkering every time, only if i fly very slow  and stright Ahead ( meaning no turn) i get usefull footage.
In 1980x1080 the footage mostly gets ok.   got x3 gimbal
thanks

kvamens Posted at 2016-1-18 07:23
you change shutterspeed but not framerate, wouldn't that mess up the footage?
I thought you should ...

Hi kvamens,

Not at all.  Your shutter speed doesn't need to be a certain fraction of your shutter speed unless there are other factors, such as the refresh rate of internal lighting etc.

The reason for double the framerate, known as a 180° shutter, is aesthetic.  It is what feature films use and is perfect balance of motion blur and light control.   Anywhere around this figure gives the same effect so even if your frame rate is 30 and your shutter speed is 80, it will still look right.  

As I said, if you were indoors it would be more important to hit a specific number.  This is because most lighting works on a refresh rate based on the power system.  For example I live in a country where the power works on 50hz so it's important that I keep my shutter speed at a multiple of 25 to avoid making the light source flicker.   In a 60hz country like the US this would be a multiple of 30.  But outside, since the sun doesn't illuminate at any frequency this is not required so you can use shutter speed to control the amount of motion blur and light.

kvamens Posted at 2016-1-18 07:23
you change shutterspeed but not framerate, wouldn't that mess up the footage?
I thought you should ...

Further to my last post, the reason you are getting flicker isn't the shutter speed, it's the framerate itself.  

24, 25, or 30FPS isn't enough to capture fast motion.  Watch feature films and you will see "flicker" as well.  It isn't actually flicker, it's more the staccato articulation of splitting the action into 24 segments.  In other words it's completely normal and something we've learned to tune out.

If you do want smooth motion try shooting at 60fps or higher.  You will lose the cinematic quality of your footage but the smoothness is very nice.  

The audience is split between those wanting smooth motion, which first became common in video games but the aesthetic has spread to video, and those (like me) who much prefer the cinematic quality and escapism of 24fps, where fast motion is more staccato but the image has a beautiful depth to it.

jimhare Posted at 2016-1-17 21:55
Further to my last post, the reason you are getting flicker isn't the shutter speed, it's the fram ...

thanks Mr. Hare
Your answer enlightnig me much, thanks very much

kvamens Posted at 2016-1-18 08:19
thanks Mr. Hare
Your answer enlightnig me much, thanks very much

My pleasure!  I also posted more information this morning in my X5 tutorial -

http://forum.dji.com/forum.php?m ... 8&fromuid=21263

jimhare Posted at 2016-1-17 23:04
My pleasure!  I also posted more information this morning in my X5 tutorial -

http://forum.dji.co ...

Yes, another great lesson

kvamens Posted at 2016-1-19 09:22
Yes, another great lesson

Cheers!