Hello, I have a question about recording in D-log mode.

I have the Mavic 2 Pro drone and I just bought the DJI Osmo Action 5 Pro.

I'm going on a trip to the Azores and I want to record with both the drone and the Osmo Action to later create a travel video.
I believe that to have the same color grading for both the drone and the Osmo Action footage, I should record in D-log mode on both, and later apply the same LUTs when editing the video.

I will also be using ND filters both on the drone and the action camera.

My question is whether I should set the camera parameters to manual or automatic.

If I go manual, I would record at 24fps and a shutter speed of 1/50s. ISO at 100 or 200.

The white balance would depend on the lighting conditions.
How should I go about it?

I'm afraid of overexposing or underexposing and ending up with footage that's unusable.
I'm also worried that if I set it to manual, if I move from sunlight to shade, the footage might come out too dark.


Thank you very much.

From what I've seen, if you're going to be shooting at 1/50 and 24fps and plan to keep Rocksteady on, you're probably better off using it with auto shutter and no ND filter or something like an ND8. I've seen some videos of weird jittering when shooting at low shutter speeds like that with Rocksteady on. It seems that software image stabilization doesn't do too well with slower shutter speeds since it relies on each frame being sharp. If you're going to turn Rocksteady off, I'd think you'd be okay to use that shutter speed.

jr19 Posted at 10-9 10:23
From what I've seen, if you're going to be shooting at 1/50 and 24fps and plan to keep Rocksteady on, you're probably better off using it with auto shutter and no ND filter or something like an ND8. I've seen some videos of weird jittering when shooting at low shutter speeds like that with Rocksteady on. It seems that software image stabilization doesn't do too well with slower shutter speeds since it relies on each frame being sharp. If you're going to turn Rocksteady off, I'd think you'd be okay to use that shutter speed.

These problems you've seen where with Osmo action 5 pro or other versions?

xaviDJI Posted at 10-9 11:07
These problems you've seen where with Osmo action 5 pro or other versions?

I've seen YouTube videos about it on the OA4 and most recently a Reddit thread pertaining to the OA5P.

jr19 Posted at 10-9 13:56
I've seen YouTube videos about it on the OA4 and most recently a Reddit thread pertaining to the OA5P.

Okey thank you very much.

When I will record soft situation I will desactivate RockSteady.

When I record situations with little movement, I will deactivate RockSteady, and when I’m recording situations with movement, such as riding a bike, I will activate RockSteady and use a ND8 filter.

What do you think?

Or maybe it’s better to use the correct ND filters, always deactivate RockSteady, and use digital stabilization later in Premiere?

xaviDJI Posted at 10-9 22:18
Okey thank you very much.

When I will record soft situation I will desactivate RockSteady.

In my experience, low shutter speeds (to achieve motion blur) are not compatible with "action footage" or "shaky footage" because the motion blur are "printed" in the footage, but when you will use Rocksteady (or Gyroflow in post) the stabilization tries to go in a different direction that the video direction to stabilize, and these movement looks "with jitter".

Try to imagine a footage that vibrates up and down, and using (for example) 30FPS 1/60SS. The motion blur captured goes from up to down, following the movement. When you will try to stabilize in Gyroflow (or RockSteady in-camera) the technology relies on makes changes in the video to have a straight video. You will end with a video without vibrations (I mean, without the up and down movement) but you have the "trail" by nature that leaves the motion blur in the scene. So, you have a stabilized video but with weird "shakyness or jitter" in certain places where motion blur left its mark.

That's why the 180 degree rule in "action scenes" it's almost impossible to achieve good results. The only known solution it's record in high shutter speed, stabilize in post (or RockSteady) and add motion blur in the final steps of the cooked video.

When you use ND filter, turn off stabilisation and stabilise it in post production (gyroflow, free stabilisation software). Turn on stabilisation only when you don't use nd filters.

One big problem with stabilisation at 1/50th second shutter is that the camera has a very difficult  job due to being too much motion blur in the picture for it to stabilise. In order to make it work properly, you need a shutter of 1/160th  or even more to ensure that it works. Or else you will get jitters in your footage.

In all honesty, on an action cam, a high frame rate with a fast shutter works really well. Forget ‘cinematic’ on an action cam. You can get motion blur but you can’t get a shallow depth of field, so if you move the camera around a lot, the background goes blurry and ‘dreamlike’ every time you move and then goes into focus when you stop. Unless you use a higher shutter which might give unnatural looking motion at a low frame rate.

One way to make 1/50th work for you though, so that you get stable looking footage and motion blur is to turn stabilisation off and use a gimbal or tripod. Then there is no stabilisation to worry about. The gimbal does it all for you, but watch out in the background if you move the camera ..... it might go blurry when you move and sharp when you stop!

Thank you all very much for your responses. Despite all the difficulties that arise, I want to try to make a cinematic video, and even if I don't achieve it, at least I will learn something.

So, based on what you have all mentioned, I have decided to do the following:

-For outdoor shots, I will use the appropriate ND filters, recording in 4K at 24 fps, 1/50s. With the ND filter, I will have Rocksteady disabled and will stabilize in post-production.

-If the outdoor scene is also an action scene, I will use apropiate ND filter and wils use 24 fps but I need to increase the shutter speed to approximately 1/160, so I can activate Rocksteady?. Can Motion Blur be added in post-production under these conditions?

For indoor shots, I will not use an ND filter, so I can shoot at 24 fps, 1/50s with Rocksteady activated.


I understand that with the mavic 2 pro I won't have these problems with stabilization since the stabilization is done with the camera's own gimbal.

Would this pattern be correct?

Thank you very much, and best regards.

This might help …..

Iancraig10 Posted at 10-10 21:55
This might help …..

https://youtu.be/00e8XDRoge4?si=hwtzNyNSxxqPZ1Bl

Thank you, but here he doesn't say anything about using Rocksteady when you uses ND Filter, 24fps and 1/50s.

the last question I have is, if in the following scenes, for example, riding a bike, I should do it like this:

Adequate ND filter, 24 fps, 1/160s, Rocksteady activate. So in post-production will I be able to achieve motion blur? is it possible?

Rocksteady doesn’t work properly with slow shutter speeds. Nor will stabilisation in post. You'll get jitter.

The way that these things work is that the computer or camera takes still no. 1 and compares it to still no.2 and then adjusts the frames for smoother motion. It can only adjust frames properly if the images are SHARP not full of motion blur.

You would need a gimbal in order to use low frame rates and slow shutter to get proper motion blur without jitter. Or a compromise by speeding up the shutter so that stabilisation has a chance to work with sharper images and less obvious motion blur. At 1/100th motion blur is decreased by half, at 1/200 by a quarter and at 1/400th by 1/8th.

The combination of handshake and poor stabilisation can look awful with low shutters. Use a tripod or gimbal and it’s much more acceptable. However, try it yourself and you’ll soon see it.

I use a fast shutter and high frame rate. Certainly on a bike, it would probably look better although many will use 30FPS with a fast shutter. The best thing is do it and see what you get. There is no one magical setting for ‘cinematic’ video. For proper cinematic, you want shallow depth of field so that the background doesn’t show slow frame rate jitter as much, a flatter profile, slow frame rate and slow shutter for blur. The blur also helps with video jitter. Ideally, the camera should be on some kind of support or gimbal. On an action cam, you can’t put the background out of focus so you will see every jitter when you pan the camera around during action unless the action is so high that everything is just blurred.

Here’s a video that I took on an Action 4 at 24FPS. I barely move the camera because of jitter, when you see footage that isn’t smooth on pans and I am using a gimbal and a tripod to smooth everything out.



For riding a bike, I would use 30 or 60FPS with auto. Compare it to your 24FPS footage and you'll instantly see the differences.

In your original post, you say that you're worried about over or under exposing. The Action 5 has a good little meter in manual mode that tells you exactly whether your over or under and by how much. Actually it's a great strength of the Actions because you can determine the right ND filter easily by calculating it from that meter reading. However, you will find yourself adjusting for every shot over and over in manual with plenty of scope for mistakes. It's not easy to continuously video in manual with an Action cam because you have less control with no aperture tweaking available.

Before taking anything important, you really need to try settings yourself so that you can see exactly what you're getting. In the end, it's what you want, not what others might think you want.

I can only share my experiences with the GoPro, but cinematic recordings are not really possible on action cameras with stabilization, if at all then only without digital stabilization and with a gimbal. All attempts to create correct motion blur with digital stabilization have failed for me. You either have to add the motion blur in post-production or use a gimbal. I find it relatively difficult to display scenes with a lot of motion in a cinematic manner at 24 fps, as it quickly leads to very visible jerking. If I were you, I would definitely do a few test recordings before you rely on the settings recommended here being right for you. Otherwise, you could quickly be disappointed with the video material you bring back from your vacation. It's better to invest a little time now than to end up having major problems with post-production.

Hi everyone, I'm back from the trip.

In the end, I filmed in 4K, 24fps, D-log M, with ND filters and without stabilization (both on the Osmo Action 5 Pro and the Mavic 2 Pro).

I took the risk of having the effect you mentioned a few weeks ago, and I think it happened, but I'm happy with the result (I'm not a professional, I just had fun doing it, but I’m eager to learn more).

Here’s the first version of my video after stabilizing the Osmo Action footage with Gyroflow and color grading with the two official DJI LUTs, as well as tweaking the color a bit (mostly using Adobe Premiere's automatic mode).

I would love to get all the feedback possible, both in filming and post-production. There's a clip at the beginning that's a bit overexposed because I didn’t always have time to change ND filters.

I would also appreciate advice on how to make the colors throughout the video more consistent.

Thanks a lot for all the tips.

Best regards!

Iancraig10 Posted at 10-10 23:40
Rocksteady doesn’t work properly with slow shutter speeds. Nor will stabilisation in post. You'll get jitter.

The way that these things work is that the computer or camera takes still no. 1 and compares it to still no.2 and then adjusts the frames for smoother motion. It can only adjust frames properly if the images are SHARP not full of motion blur.

I think I got jitter rihgt?

Is it too acccentuated?

Even though there is jitter, I’m happy with the result. For future recordings, I understand that the ideal would be a physical stabilizer for the DJI Osmo Action 5 Pro, right?

Now, I’d like to unify the colors of the different clips a bit, without losing the essence of each one."

Let me know if you'd like any adjustments!

También me gustaría saber cual sería la mejor configuración para la exportación del vídeo para obtener la mayor calidad posible. Todo fue grabado en 4k a 24fps, pero al uso el gyroflow con los de la osmo action creo que piernen algunos píxeles... ¿Entonces que resolución debería poner al exportar?

I think your footage looks great. You took care over how you videod and refrained from throwing the camera around too much. I don’t think ‘jitter’ is a major problem. Thing is, if the video is good, people won’t look for technical problems because they’re wrapped up with the video. Really, content is important, but your technique looks pretty good actually.

It looks like you have ‘unified’ the colour with the teal and orange LUT that it looks like you’ve used.

With no speech and music, the cinematic style you shot in and the LUT, your video is slightly ‘removed’ from reality and does indeed look cinematic. Gyroflow works better than in camera stabilisation. I guess it has more time to ‘think’ about it and uses a very different method to work. I think that was a good idea.

I’m guessing you were around 1/50th shutter?

Pensé que lo hiciste muy bien con este video y si fue tu primer intento, entonces bien hecho. se ve genial.

La semana que viene visitaré España en un crucero y llevaré mi Action 5 para grabarlo en vídeo.  ¡No puedo esperar! ….. Bilbao y La Coruña.

Iancraig10 Posted at 10-22 23:27
I think your footage looks great. You took care over how you videod and refrained from throwing the camera around too much. I don’t think ‘jitter’ is a major problem. Thing is, if the video is good, people won’t look for technical problems because they’re wrapped up with the video. Really, content is important, but your technique looks pretty good actually.

It looks like you have ‘unified’ the colour with the teal and orange LUT that it looks like you’ve used.

Thank you so much for the recommendations before the trip and for the feedback now.

Exactly, I recorded at 24 fps with a 1/50 shutter speed using ND filters suited for the light at the time (which, by the way, is crazy to keep changing all the time, especially on that island where it could be raining and then five minutes later the sun suddenly comes out). I tried to make as few movements as possible while recording that way, but I noticed that my hand shake was quite strong, and I feared it would turn out badly. However, after running it through Gyroflow, I really like how it came out.

Bilbao will definitely be great for you. Since you’re going by cruise, I don’t know if you have the opportunity, but I’d recommend visiting San Sebastián as well, which is another city in the Basque Country, very beautiful with a beach and a lot of history, and it’s only an hour's drive from Bilbao. Both Bilbao and San Sebastián are well-known for their gastronomy and tapas bars. But be careful, the people from Bilbao and San Sebastián consider themselves rivals haha.

I’ve never been to A Coruña, but the region of Galicia is very beautiful in general. I’m from the interior of Catalonia, and if you like nature, there’s a lot of it here as well, or you can explore big cities like Barcelona.

I hope your trip goes very well! Best regards!

Can’t wait to get there! I love going to Spain in the surrounding islands. Also, it’s a proper try out for me with the Action.

I often video the way that you did here but as you say, it is way more tricky because of the changes in light that you can get, leading to you forever fiddling with the camera. There’s also way more scope for mistakes. However you can be rewarded with a beautiful video that really doesn’t look like an action cam, even though you have that massive depth of field to jitter all over the place.

For me, the Action is just a mini camera with no aperture control. I don’t treat it like an action cam really. I’m not really a great fan of throwing cameras around and feel happier with the movement happening in frame rather than creating a load of it myself by running around with the camera. I just find it hard to watch.

There are two things that I really like about the DJI Action. The sound arrangement is fantastic. I’m using two wireless mics so I can switch to mono for voice or stereo in wide stuff or scenery. It works really well.

The other thing is that exposure indication that you get in manual mode. It really allows you to see where you are as far as exposure goes. It’s much easier to control in comparison to other action cams tbh.

There’s a lot of potential for really good footage, let alone the action stuff that many use it for. Having said that, the fact that it is an action cam means that it can be taken/put in all kinds of places where you wouldn’t want to take a full blown camera. For instance, next week, if there is a storm on Biscay, I’ll be out there with the action!!! Wouldn’t do that with one of my posh cameras…….

If anyone has criticism of the video that can help me improve,  are welcome. I still have time to change things in post-production