RichJ53 Posted at 2015-5-26 02:05
Thank you Jim, you are right on as always.

I was playing around with it today and should post som ...

Please do, would love to see it!

jimhare Posted at 2015-5-26 09:44
Please do, would love to see it!

The video is not finished and looks bad to me. The sun was in the wrong spot for get the rock face, but the weather was finally ok with about 10- 15 mph winds.

I have a lot to learn and will keep trying   I will post a video once I have something to share that I am proud of.

before                                                                  

jimhare Posted at 2015-5-7 03:59
Hi, I'm the IOS app there is a histogram and overexposure warning.  Use them to get the exposure c ...

Hello Jim. Sorry to bother you! But I see you like to help.

I was wonder what would your recommend for manual setting for taking video on the I1 in this two dif location.
ISO, Exposure, Shutter speed, etc
•Filming houses and architectural designs.
•Filming landscape on a cloudy day.

thanks in advances.




cheers

SAFAERIALS Posted at 2015-5-27 02:41
Hello Jim. Sorry to bother you! But I see you like to help.

I was wonder what would your recommen ...

Hi Safaeriels, no bother at all, happy to lend my advice, though no one should take it as gospel, just what I would do in a situation.  

I tend to leave my general settings (white balance, ISO, frame rate etc.)   the same for most situations and only adjust the shutter speed to control exposure.

The great thing about LOG and the specific settings is it basically protects all of the information and gives you the most control in post production, which is where you want to dial in the specifics of the look you're after.

So for me it's:

ISO - 100
Color - LOG
Saturation - 2
Contrast - 2
Sharpness - 0
White Balance - AUTO
Histogram - ON
Overexposure Warning - ON
ND - 0, 4 or 8 (Renaat's custom ND) depending on amount of light

Shutter Speed - This is what I alter for every shot.  Even the same location can differ greatly depending on which direction and camera orientation.

Use the Overexposure Warning and keep dialling up the Shutter Speed until you only have a couple of spots remaining, preferably a specular highlight, part of a cloud, sun or other very bright object.   Even with these it's best to only have a section of it overexposed as you want to see the definition within the whites, but it's a great way to know you have your exposure as bright as it can be without clipping.

So no matter what I'm shooting that's literally all I do.  Make sure my settings haven't changed, choose the right ND to bring my shutter somewhere around double my frame rate, dial in my Shutter Speed and I'm shooting.

Hope this helps.

Jim

RichJ53 Posted at 2015-5-26 12:01
The video is not finished and looks bad to me. The sun was in the wrong spot for get the rock face, ...

Sounds good Rich.  I like what I'm seeing so far, interesting landscape!  

In the end, interesting clips are more about the editing than the color correction so don't worry too much.  

Just make sure you aren't asking your audience to watch additional bits of clips that really don't deserve to be there.     For me I seek out the few seconds of magic and let the rest melt away.   

Once you have your cut down to 100% gold then you'll know what to do with the color correction.   

Sometimes less than perfect lighting can be a blessing as it forces you to play with the image to try to pull some beauty from it.   Try different LUTs or pull the colors towards golden hues and see what happens.

Have fun!

jimhare Posted at 2015-5-27 08:14
Sounds good Rich.  I like what I'm seeing so far, interesting landscape!  

In the end, interestin ...

Jim, your comments mean the world to me...

I am just a beginner and learning all the video camera stuff.   I have been flying a long time though. This shot is one of our two land marks locally, called the Table Rocks in Southern Oregon.

Crater Lake National Park is only sixty miles away and I am sure you have heard of that one. So, there is a lot of things to shoot and most these are at high altitude.

I noticed that DaVinci Resolve 11 does not like to change formats from .mp4 to .mov, while rendering the video. When mine finished it was jumpy and some shots were out of focus milky..

Rich

RichJ53 Posted at 2015-5-27 09:17
Jim, your comments mean the world to me...

I am just a beginner and learning all the video camer ...

"Crater Lake National Park is only sixty miles away and I am sure you have heard of that one. "

I sure have!  Would you believe I used to own a house is Oregon City before I moved to Australia?   

Not sure what you mean about DaVinci.   For best results feed it .MOV and make sure you are manually selecting the output format and settings.

Jim

jimhare Posted at 2015-5-27 09:25
"Crater Lake National Park is only sixty miles away and I am sure you have heard of that one. "

I ...

Its a small world... I know Oregon city well.

jimhare Posted at 2015-5-27 08:10
Hi Safaeriels, no bother at all, happy to lend my advice, though no one should take it as gospel,  ...

Thank you very much Jim.

Hopefully I'll try it the weekend on a new location im traveling if the weather is with me and theres no rain.

I'll let you know.

Best

Simon

thank you jim for doing these tutorials

vishaltale Posted at 2015-5-28 03:44
thank you jim for doing these tutorials

My pleasure vishatale, I have learned a lot about flying on this forum and happy to share a bit of info on filming!

Jim, I will add my thanks to your support of the community for photographic and video graphic use.  I am not a photographer or videographer.  Your assistance helps me as well.

Tahoe_Ed Posted at 2015-6-1 00:05
Jim, I will add my thanks to your support of the community for photographic and video graphic use.   ...

Thanks Ed!  I think without you the Inspire community would be frustrated and confused so thanks to you for being such a great advocate and friend to us owners!

jimhare Posted at 2015-5-27 08:10
Hi Safaeriels, no bother at all, happy to lend my advice, though no one should take it as gospel,  ...

Hello Jim,

So as I told you this weekend I got to try out your suggestions, I think the only mistake I made is that I didnt change th ND Filter so its a little dark.

Here is the video I made, did't edit any color or effects on the footage. I think it turn out really good.



Hope you like it..

Best  

Simon

SAFAERIALS Posted at 2015-6-2 04:26
Hello Jim,

So as I told you this weekend I got to try out your suggestions, I think the only mis ...

Hey Simon, great job!   Starting to approach it like an editor, great to see!

Couple of suggestions:

1. Be careful not to cut to something that is essentially the same shot you are leaving.  I noticed one cut where you basically cross faded to another part of the same clip.  This can be a good technique but only if it's used throughout the edit and also used to punctuate really interesting parts.  In this edit it stood out, which is not what you want.

2.  To bring your edits to the next level, come out of the sky and add detail footage.  In other words, the high aerial stuff is dramatic and great for establishing shots, but the magic happens in the detail.   If you fly over a barn, then come down and explore the beauty of it.   Slow pans or arcs across the front, rises, interesting details or dilapidation.    The next phase is to tell a story in your video.

Again great job, it's an exciting time for all of us and the Inspire is an amazing tool!

Jim

I am by far a pro cinematographer, but I was wondering if you could tell me some good settings for my inspire, I mainly do houses and try to fly when it is nice out as far as sunlight, I do have all the ND filters, it just seems my video comes out too grainy or to sharp I have tried 1080/60 and 4k/30 I am in US so I do not use pal. please help, and what ND filter to use in what condition please, I have the ND filters from Renaat
the ND8, ND16,ND32,ND64.

tk2004hm@netzer Posted at 2015-6-3 23:49
I am by far a pro cinematographer, but I was wondering if you could tell me some good settings for m ...

Hey tk,

You could try a sharpness setting of -1 and see if it helps.     My tutorials at the start of this thread show the settings I like to use as well as the post process.

For the best exposure you need to use an IOS device.    This is because the Android app doesn't have the overexposure meter, which is by far the most important tool to reduce grain and get the most information.   I hope they implement it soon as it would help a great number of people.

To choose the correct ND you need to first check the lighting conditions of your shot.   With no ND filter, point the Inspire camera at your subject, set the ISO to 100 and check your shutter speed.   Each time you put a stronger ND filter your shutter speed will roughly cut in half.   Your goal is to get your shutter speed about twice the speed of your frames per second.   So if you are shooting 30FPS your shutter speed should be around 60.

Hope this helps!   Watch my tutorials for more detailed information.

jimhare Posted at 2015-6-4 05:11
Hey tk,

You could try a sharpness setting of -1 and see if it helps.     My tutorials at the star ...

Thank you very much Jim this will help a lot as I do use IOS, not to be a bother but once I get the shutter speed and over exposure setting right do I tap the AE and lock in the settings or keep adjusting as I fly

tk2004hm@netzer Posted at 2015-6-4 20:54
Thank you very much Jim this will help a lot as I do use IOS, not to be a bother but once I get th ...

In manual mode there is no lock because you are controlling the settings (nothing to lock.)

So yes, you adjust as you go, shot by shot.

Be careful not to turn manual mode off by accident.  Some push the manual settings button again, thinking that they're closing the dialog, but are actually going back to AUTO mode again.   To remove the dialog for manual settings, swipe the screen from right to left.   You can swipe left to right to get the settings dialog back.

Thank you, Jim, for all the instructions video and valuable tips you've given the Community here. I got my Inspire 1 earlier this week, but the bad weather have grounded it. While waiting for better weather I've been watching your videos and testing out FCPX and Resolve. Thank you, Jim!

robert.wiklund- Posted at 2015-6-7 14:11
Thank you, Jim, for all the instructions video and valuable tips you've given the Community here. I  ...

Thanks Robert!  Hope you can get the Inspire in the air soon, it's one of the true joys in life!

All the best,

Jim

Hi Jim....thanks so much for your tutorials..they are very helpful.
I have lots of experience with digital still photography but I  am new to video processing.
I have some questions if you don't mind.
After considerable research I have decided to use Davinci Resolve Lite as my editor.
Are there any special settings for the inspire camera?
Am I correct that Davinci will handle 4K video raw files?
What settings or preferences need to be set for the camera and colour space to process for Inspire 4K?

I'm going to have to buy a new laptop for this...the one I am looking at has the following specs;

intel i7 processor...2.5 ghz
16 GB ram
! TB HDD
1080p display
NVidia 840M graphics with 2GB set aside for video processing

Do you think the above computer will do the job?

Sorry for all the questions...I'm trying to minimize errors and make the right decisions about the editor and computer.
Is there any way we can email directly.
Thanks for your help...any thoughts are most welcome

Elliot

ElliotTeskey Posted at 2015-6-7 22:22
Hi Jim....thanks so much for your tutorials..they are very helpful.
I have lots of experience with d ...

Hi Elliot,

You'll find all the Inspire settings I use for DaVinci in my video tutorials at the start of this thread.

Make sure you use MOV and not MP4 as DaVinci won't like it.

Best to speak here on the forum so others can benefit from the information.

That laptop sounds fine.  With DaVinci, any computer will work in the end and give the same results.  The only difference is how close to realtime it will play back, which isn't a big issue for grading.   If you do intend to use DaVinci for editing you may find this a bit frustrating.  

DaVinci relies heavily on the GPU so make sure you get the best video capabilities you can as this will have the biggest effect on performance.

Hope this helps.

Jim

jimhare Posted at 2015-6-8 05:48
Hi Elliot,

You'll find all the Inspire settings I use for DaVinci in my video tutorials at the st ...

Hello Jim,

absolutely amazing content congratulations on all the hard work done here.

i wanted to ask you about workflow.

i have some questions i always struggle with, i edit in FCPX could you talk about roundtrip workflow from edit to davinci and back to edit?

also do you work in pure 4k? i work on an MBP 16gb of ram but i found that FCPX and davinci specially are struggling a lot with the 4k content whats the best workflow for creating proxies to work with?

luismmorales@gm Posted at 2015-6-8 22:45
Hello Jim,

absolutely amazing content congratulations on all the hard work done here.

Thanks for that!  

I find round-tripping in FCPx and DaVinci to be very easy.   After doing the initial edit on the Inspire .MOV files I export an XML.   If you're using the latest versions of FCP/DaVinci export as XML type 1.4.

This comes into DaVinci perfectly and is ready for grading.

When finished I usually export as a single flattened file and drop it on top of the FCPx timeline to export with music etc., but of course you could export as an FCP XML and bring the individual edits back in.

I don't have a step-by-step tutorial or process on this at the moment but it definitely works seamlessly and didn't give me any particular trouble.

I usually work in 1080P and sometimes 720P.     I like to shoot 4k for oversampling and potential reframing, but don't personally have any interest in 4k delivery at the moment.   Like you my system struggles with it sometimes but between using proxies for editing and sometimes pre-grading my work and outputting 1080P files for the initial edit, I have worked out a process for every scenario.

Hope this helps!

Jim

jimhare Posted at 2015-6-9 05:22
Thanks for that!  

I find round-tripping in FCPx and DaVinci to be very easy.   After doing the i ...

thanks jim, i did some testing today and got it to work, i think and basic edit timeline is needed as i first tried with a more finish project with effects, transitions grouped clips and some other things that when i tried to import in davinci it crashed.

luismmorales@gm Posted at 2015-6-9 17:28
thanks jim, i did some testing today and got it to work, i think and basic edit timeline is needed ...

Yeah, there are a lot of things that won't translate.  If you're grading it's best to keep the edit clean until after grading.  

Here's a question for you Jim and any of our colleagues... What do think the "Log" setting really is on the I1 camera?  It can't really be true Sony SLog even though it's a Sony chip?!  I paid $2,500 for our Sony A7s to get real SLog.  I'm assuming the Log setting on the I1 is simply less contrast and a little less color saturation so the footage can be adjusted in post to your liking.  Just curious.  I love the video the camera produces and our editor has been able to make it look great in post.  Thanks guys.

dave.encoremult Posted at 2015-6-11 06:00
Here's a question for you Jim and any of our colleagues... What do think the "Log" setting really is ...

Hi Dave,

Yes, I would say you're exactly right.   It's an exposure insurance policy more than  anything.     As you say, it does the trick so we're all pretty happy with it.

The real barrier to ultimate grading is of course the heavy compression.   On my RED Epic there is so much info in the RAW image grading is a true joy.   Grading h.264, when 90% of the info has already been thrown away as "redundant" the LOG-like conservative settings make it possible to do anything at all with the images.  

Hi Jim,

I've been loyal reader to this thread, and found so many lesson that I can use to increase my knowledge about aerial videography, many thanks to that. I'm still newbie on this area and recently try to recording in log mode and later use Neuman's lut on FCPX, the setting is 0, -2, -2  just like you said earlier in this thread. Can you review my clip ?

http://youtu.be/cUYEu74JFZE

Really need someone expert in this area for my improvement....many thanks

best regards
weigi

weigi.hartanto@ Posted at 2015-6-11 10:39
Hi Jim,

I've been loyal reader to this thread, and found so many lesson that I can use to increase  ...

Hi Weigi, great to hear from you!

I watched your clip.  It's lovely!   Your exposure is great and I really like what you did with the colours.  Very well done!

Beautiful scenery as well, a perfect place to shoot.

My only comments have to do with editing.  

The approach I use is to only use the absolute best and most magical moments of each clip.   

This accomplishes two things:

1. It shows only the best footage

2. It keeps your edits short.

Number 2 is very important.   If you aren't offering people a story to follow or even people in the shot doing interesting things you should limit your full edit to somewhere between 90-120 seconds.   

I watched the first minute of your video with great interest.  Then some of the shots started repeating themselves with very similar views, plus I still had 3 minutes to go!    I ended up skimming through the rest.

Also, mix it up a bit more.  Several minutes in you start doing some interesting things with the boats.  Get them in earlier and mix them up so there are some wide vista shots mixed in with closer, more intimate shots with people and boats.

Finally, don't think the Inspire needs to be in the sky.   Most of my favourite shots of all time were taken about 2 metres off the ground.    Use it to explore your environment.   

Practise arcing the Inspire, which means to fix on an object and let the Inspire circle gently around an object.   You can see examples of this in my FOG video in the graveyard.   Can be very effective!

But great job, I thought your video looked beautiful, just tighten it up so the viewer doesn't get impatient.

All the best,

Jim

jimhare Posted at 2015-6-12 12:26
Hi Weigi, great to hear from you!

I watched your clip.  It's lovely!   Your exposure is great and  ...

Hi Jim...thanks for the advice all will be noted for my next filming, I will also look forward to your videos for the inspiration

thanks
weigi

wow  thank you for sharing this with us , thank you very much!! really appreciate it

Juanlife Posted at 2015-6-17 11:03
wow  thank you for sharing this with us , thank you very much!! really appreciate it

Thanks Juanlife!   I've received a lot of great advice on this forum about flying and happy to help with some filming info.

jimhare Posted at 2015-6-17 12:08
Thanks Juanlife!   I've received a lot of great advice on this forum about flying and happy to hel ...

JIm,

I too have been following this post since its creation, but during that time I crashed and had to send my bird off to DJI hell for a while. Now that it has been reborn, I have flown every day since May 19th with a few days missed. Mainly just for the sake of flying so as to get used to flying. I have done a few videos with it and it is because of this that I have a few questions if you don't mind.

1.  Is LOG mode similar to RAW used in photography? If so, i find that there is not nearly as much that can be recovered or perhaps I am using the wrong tolls in FCPX to do so. When using the videoscope, i see a flat line at the top of the highlights where the sky is obviously blown out and can not be recovered. In the clip that I have attached the sky is blown out in the beginning of the video. I knew this but I thought i would be able to recover this in post and was disappointed that I could not when I got it into FCPX.

2. When speeding up a clip in FCPX it looks just fine in FCPX, but when I upload it to youtube and watch it, the clip is a bit jumpy. Is there a way to smooth this out? I have included the clip and about 25 seconds in as I am coming up over some trees, you will notice it is a bit jumpy.

Really appreciate all your time that you have committed to this one post.



Many thanks,
Houston

houston Posted at 2015-6-18 04:36
JIm,

I too have been following this post since its creation, but during that time I crashed and h ...

Hi Houston,

While DJI's LOG setting shares the same goal as RAW, starting with all levels in the middle for correction later,  it still uses the same h.264 compression as all the other looks which means 80% of the data is being thrown away as it's captured.

This means two things:
1- you have no highlight or shadow protection.  You can't recover highlights and shadows the same as you can in RAW, you have to be much more precise in obtaining proper exposure while shooting.   Use the histogram and overexposure metre (IOS only) to expose.  You should have a nice fat histogram that tapers off at the right and the overexposure meter should only have a couple of stripes in the brightest spots of the image.  You want a cloud or two to blow out, just not giant patches of the sky.  This means you have the image as bright as possible, which is critical in the fight against noise and artifacts, without sacrificing detail in the highlights.

2. - you don't have a lot of room for grading.  You can only push the image so far before it falls apart.  Another reason to expose perfectly, you need every bit of detail possible to get a good result.  

As for jumpiness, this is usually a fight between speed of motion and shutter speed.   I can't tell you why YouTube appears to display it more than FCPx, just that if you want perfectly smooth motion you should shoot at 60FPS, but this will give a far less cinematic result.   Many prefer 60FPS but I personally find it sterile and prefer to see a few stutters in the motion.

jimhare Posted at 2015-6-18 05:43
Hi Houston,

While DJI's LOG setting shares the same goal as RAW, starting with all levels in the m ...

"As for jumpiness, this is usually a fight between speed of motion and shutter speed.   I can't tell you why YouTube appears to display it more than FCPx, just that if you want perfectly smooth motion you should shoot at 60FPS, but this will give a far less cinematic result.   Many prefer 60FPS but I personally find it sterile and prefer to see a few stutters in the motion. "

That particular section of video was sped up in FCPX so I thought that may have somethig to do with it being jumpy as the other parts of the video are nice and smooth.

Many thanks,
Houston

houston Posted at 2015-6-18 07:44
"As for jumpiness, this is usually a fight between speed of motion and shutter speed.   I can't tel ...

Speeding up footage can certainly accentuate shutter jitter so probably as simple as that.   

Do you see a difference between FCPx and the same moment in YouTube?  If so you might try running off a master file to your drive rather than doing the automatic upload.  You want to confirm everything looks perfect and it should then look the same on YouTube.   This applies to jitter, not artifacts, which YouTube certainly may introduce.

Hi Jim,

I've just got my Inspire after using a Phantom with GoPro Hero 4 Black for about 6 months. I immediately loved the way the Inspire flies, and the freedom the gimbal dial gives but was disappointed with all the compression noise. I have to admit I was filming in auto mode, with the factory ND filter (Renaat's are on order) but the exposure looked ok on the meters.

I am familiar with shooting in 4k and transcoding in After Effects, which works well with GoPro Protune settings. However, using a similar process with the Inspire log is noticeably more noisy.

By the way, has the sharpness function changed with recent firmware updates, and are you still using 0 sharpness, -2, -2 as your default settings?

Thanks,

Jerry

In answer to my own question, it seems that setting minus values to sharpness adds a HUGE amount of noise, even with just -1. This is a big difference from my GoPro where you have to reduce sharpness.