It's been a while but I've managed to get a good half a dozen or so flights in now and am still not convinced with my Mavic's camera focus.

Below is footage from my latest flight over Dartmoor, UK. The sun is low in the sky at the moment and with my settings at least, trying to film towards the sun results in grainy footage with prop flickering. I've got Polar Pro filters but found they produce a dark vignette and even more grainy video.

With regards to my footage, I also notice a fair amound of flicker and wondered if anyone has some tips for reducing?
Current settings: Auto ISO, TrueColor ('None' gave bad greens and browns), WB Auto, EV -0.3, 4K 24, PAL, MP4, Anti Flicker - AUTO(?)

Video put together in PowerDirector with no extra grading.

Try to practice with manual setting and don't use auto balance and needs smoother slow while turning. You can use the cinema option but overall was good. Good have followed the wild horses a bit more! Happy ;fying!

I don't like Truecolour you lose a lot of data from excessive contrast when you view it in Scopes.
You might try the Cinelike which is a more natural start point especially with Contrast and Saturation on -1.
If it's dull sharpening is OK on zero but -1 too on bright days.

Focus looks good to me but it struggles if you move sideways or pan quickly and it will look blurred - keep these movements super slow and speed up in post if you want.
The Auto white balance is quite good but can cause problems by changing as the camera moves, I prefer to set it manually on 6000 and tweak colours later, or choose sunny/cloudy to preference.
You don't need to be on PAL nwadays, this gives more options for example 30fps will look a bit smoother than 24/25fps though some prefer that slightly jumpy look (I dont!)

dronist Posted at 2017-1-25 06:52
Try to practice with manual setting and don't use auto balance and needs smoother slow while turning. You can use the cinema option but overall was good. Good have followed the wild horses a bit more! Happy ;fying!

Thanks. When I saw the pony running I was worried that people might think it was me and the drone scaring them but I do have some other clips of it still running about with me a very long way away.

4wd Posted at 2017-1-25 11:43
I don't like Truecolour you lose a lot of data from excessive contrast when you view it in Scopes.
You might try the Cinelike which is a more natural start point especially with Contrast and Saturation on -1.
If it's dull sharpening is OK on zero but -1 too on bright days.

Thanks for the tips - I'll try the Cinelike and your other suggestions. The "None" color setting gives me horrible greens. I also didn't realise PAL restricts the FPS. Very good to know!

Nice video, good job.

Wow, that's some beautiful countryside!

Def go with 30FPS, pans will be much smoother.

However, I'm afraid to say I think your left-side field is defocussed compared to the middle and right. At 2:50 it became pretty obvious to me while viewing at full-screen 1440p. ;(

Ex Machina Posted at 2017-2-3 19:14
Wow, that's some beautiful countryside!

Def go with 30FPS, pans will be much smoother.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm still fairly convinced it is slightly out of focus, esp. at certain distances. Will try to raise this again with DJI.