Is early morning or evening best for cinematography?
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michaelfinney_h
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I have been flying my P3S in the morning (7am) and early evening 7-pm) to see what angle of lght/colour temp gives the best contrast and colour. One thing I notice is that the wind is very often absent in the early morning resulting in a much longer flight time from the battery. Posibly more important is for low level flight not having any wind at all for stable flights where the bird is only about 5 feet above groubd level.

See what you think of this early morning flight today over my local Golden Fields. Have your sound turned on. Best viewed on a big Smart TV (50 inch)
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2016-5-22
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P3_Nutz
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Lovely footage - Got to get out myself and get some of the local golden fields. Best time to fly early morning like you said usually no wind, lovely light conditions and hardly anyone around
2016-5-22
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Not A Speck Of
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Good points about the low wind and dawn / sunup. I hadn't thought of that in respect to having a stable UAV.

Nice look to the video! Did you do any color grading in post processing?

For those new to photography, you can take advantage of the golden light of the early and late hours of a day for a warmer look and richer colors naturally. It's an old rule and is just as always very true. Those hours have that warmer light and other aspects that make for better shots.

However, it is just a general rule. You shouldn't refrain from taking shots if you're out there. And in fact, there are good reasons for specifically waiting for the middle of the day for some kinds of photography, such as landscape shots where you don't want a lot of shade (valleys are in shadow when the sun is closer to the horizon, etc.).

Chris
2016-5-22
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Oleksiy
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I would recommend to watch this video: Aviation Weather - Ground School. It makes it clear why the air is calm in the morning and bumpy at noon.
2016-5-22
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michaelfinney_h
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Not A Speck Of  Posted at 2016-5-22 16:35
Good points about the low wind and dawn / sunup. I hadn't thought of that in respect to having a sta ...

Hi Yes I did some additional colour grading. This was mainly due to the flight toward the sun made the flowers more Green in comparison to having the sun behind the bird enhancing the Yellow. I used the grading to help balance the two colour tones
2016-5-22
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Not A Speck Of
lvl.4
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michaelfinney_h Posted at 2016-5-23 01:41
Hi Yes I did some additional colour grading. This was mainly due to the flight toward the sun made ...

Cool. No need to apologize, as I think that color grading is a common tool for today's cinematography.

Which tool did you do the grading in? I ask because I'm researching new video editing tools for my workflow.

Thanks,
Chris
2016-5-22
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michaelfinney_h
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Not A Speck Of  Posted at 2016-5-22 19:37
Cool. No need to apologize, as I think that color grading is a common tool for today's cinematogra ...

Hello Chris. I didn't normally use a specialist grading software. Power Director has an inbuilt simple colour adjustment facility. It has a special colour grading tool also ,but I rarely use it. Most of the time I just click on the "video enhancement" tool and it's more then good enough to make the D-Log clip look good. Hope this helps.
2016-5-22
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Not A Speck Of
lvl.4
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Cool, thanks.
2016-5-22
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RedHotPoker
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Yes, we used to use a general rule, to try not to photograph between the hours of 10:00am ~ 2:00pm.
Of coarse this harkens back to them days of old, when regular 35mm film was still boss. But that grand rule still seems to hold value.

RedHotPoker
2016-5-22
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endotherm
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2016 in roman numerals is MMXVI (not ending with a 1).
2016-5-22
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RedHotPoker
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It's going to be ok. Just take two blue pills and maybe no green and yellow capsules... ;-)1

RedHotPoker
2016-5-22
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Ricardo
Second Officer
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I also like to go out early morning and towards evening. Lighting is incredible. I am not a photo guy at all, but I have played around with the camera settings even at night and got some cool pictures by changing the shutter speeds, etc. It seems to me that the default settings work really well for me though most of the time. I want to purchase some filters at some point and give them a try. Still learning a lot. Here are a couple of pictures I took early morning or late evening and I was very happy with them. I am not saying they a professional quality, but not too bad for a novice. Also at these time the wind is also much less.
barge-1.jpg
locks-5-5-16-2.jpg
Temple-1.JPG
2016-5-23
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quanthonytrang
Second Officer
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Australia
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Photographers call this the golden hour. Just don't get that mistaken with a German fetish.
2016-5-23
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michaelfinney_h
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Ricardo Posted at 2016-5-23 13:30
I also like to go out early morning and towards evening. Lighting is incredible. I am not a photo gu ...

Lovey shots. Where is the Temple?
2016-5-23
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Ricardo
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michaelfinney_h Posted at 2016-5-23 23:31
Lovey shots. Where is the Temple?

The temple is a "Mormon-Temple" that was built in Nauvoo, Illinois. It sits overlooking the Mississippi river.
I took this shot travelling from the Iowa shore, and the river is 1 1/2 miles wide at this point. So, I was taking this at just over 2-miles away and it was around 6:15 in the morning.
2016-5-23
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nigelw
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I prefer sunrise for many reasons, but the most important decision for me is the direction of the light.  If you want to film from the west looking east, you'll potentially get flare from the sun & subjects will be in shadow.  If that's not what you want you need to fly at sunset instead.  It just depends on the effect you're after.
2016-5-23
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Ricardo
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nigelw Posted at 2016-5-23 16:32
I prefer sunrise for many reasons, but the most important decision for me is the direction of the li ...

I agree 100% with you nigelw! Just depends on what you are looking for.
2016-5-23
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