Hello awesome community!

I'm kind of a newbie to drones (and video production or photography in general) and I saw some different videos and articles recommending the use of ND filters, but one thing I don't remember seeing is recommendations about sunrise/sunset.

So, do you use ND filters in those situations? What would be the recommendation for the mini 2?

P.S.: I was sharing some practice videos with family and friends but was annoyed about compressing it so much to send copies around so I created a YouTube channel where I uploaded this video I made on auto, without filter: https://youtu.be/e_3DSYj3Z7Q
It was -9℃, weather conditions were not great and probably if I had used the pro settings I would have had a better result. But in any case, I got curious if an ND filter would have helped.
Any feedback about that video would also be highly appreciated.

Cheers!

That looks very nice. Good job.

I haven't used ND, but advice on it seems mainly to adjust shutter speed in high brightness situations. The mini 2 has a pinhole camera with low light levels, so it struggles in the dark. Pro mode may have enabled you to get more exposure in the dark, but it would have been covered in noise. You may find a polariser gives you some effects, but at sunset, it's all too quick to experiment.

Other places to upload stuff is google photos and google drive. You can make it generate special links to specific files and albums. Google Photos will also host 360 panoramas of high quality. However, I didn't study Mini 2 panoramas for long enough to work out whether they were full 360. I've been thrust onto Mini 3 Pro.

The other situation where it's good to do a sunset, is when sun is coming under the edge of cloud, about 5-10km away. You move toward it, with shutter faster, so the sun effects are detailed properly, but your foreground is dark and mysterious.

An ND filter wouldn't have done anything that would have helped in your video.

Hi there. Thank you for reaching out. Hope that you could get the best recommendation from our fellow DJI Pilots here in Forum. Should you have other technical inquires or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach us. Thank you for your valued support.

In general, your shutterspeed will get fast enough to capture sunrise and sunset situations.
So you don't need ND filters for that.
The reason you want ND filters most of the time is for getting a slow shutterspeed for video.
That will allow you to introduce a small bit of motion blur which looks pleasing to the eye.
Without an ND filter, this is usually not possible because of the fixed aperture and the fast shutterspeed that will give you.
Now this won't make your footage 'a lot' better. It's more about the details that you know you need when you master everything else.
Some mistakenly think ND filters are a 'make everything look better' solution. But they are not.
They can help making video footage smoother, but when you move slowly, the effect is very little and I don't find it worth the hassle of taking them with me and putting them on my drone.
And in your situation (high contrast) the ND filters won't help either. Because everything in the frame will get darker (or less light will enter the lens), so the contrast stays the same and your sun will still be blown out, where the foreground is still dark.
You could use the AEB mode for photogarphy and get a tad more dynamic range (but you have to merge the AEB stack in post)

Long story short : no. You don't need ND filters. Unless you have mastered all the other techniques that are involved with videography and you are ready for the last 5%.

The only time you need an ND filter for taking photos is if you're trying to take a long exposure shot in a brightly lit scene. You do not need an ND filter for sunrise or sunset shots unless you're trying to do something artistic.

You need one for video so that you can control your shutter speed so that it is roughly double your frame rate. The 180 degree rule says that if you're filming at 25fps, your shutter exposure should be 1/50.

CloudVisual Posted at 12-22 02:46
The only time you need an ND filter for taking photos is if you're trying to take a long exposure shot in a brightly lit scene. You do not need an ND filter for sunrise or sunset shots unless you're trying to do something artistic.

You need one for video so that you can control your shutter speed so that it is roughly double your frame rate. The 180 degree rule says that if you're filming at 25fps, your shutter exposure should be 1/50.

Nice, simple, short explanation of ND filter use.

(Only thing I'd add is that they achieve the above by reducing the amount of light that enters the lens in a 'neutral' way - ie it doesn't affect anything else such as colour, contrast etc.)

Being minimalist, I don't want to have to use a Neutral Density filter if I don't need to. Lazy? Not at all; prudence.

I want to take a sequence of images over a year, as the sun sets up and down the western mountain range, capturing the last slivers of light as it dances back and forth. Then put ’em into a video.

Will pointing the camera at the sun burn the CCD?

If sport mode makes the aperture its smallest, will I be able to get the images I want, being able to see the sliver of sunlight *AND* the detail of the surrounding mountains?

Does sport mode change the mini 2's camera aperture?

Many thanks.

d0ugparker Posted at 7-4 09:59
Being minimalist, I don't want to have to use a Neutral Density filter if I don't need to. Lazy? Not at all; prudence.

I want to take a sequence of images over a year, as the sun sets up and down the western mountain range, capturing the last slivers of light as it dances back and forth. Then put ’em into a video.

If sport mode makes the aperture its smallest, will I be able to get the images I want, being able to see the sliver of sunlight *AND* the detail of the surrounding mountains?
Where did you get this idea?
The only things that switching to Sport Mode does is to increase the tilt angle of the drone which increases the speed of the drone.
It changes nothing about the camera or lens.

will I be able to get the images I want, being able to see the sliver of sunlight *AND* the detail of the surrounding mountains?
The camera in the Mini 2 has so much depth of field, you would always be able to see the sliver of sunlight *AND* the detail of the surrounding mountains.
What you might have difficulty with is having them both exposed properly.
With or without ND filters, you are likely to have a too bright sky and a too dark foreground.

Does sport mode change the mini 2's camera aperture?
Nothing changes the aperture of the Mini 2.
It has a fixed aperture, so it cannot open any further or be stopped down.