Good evening Ladies and Gents,

I am new to the DJI Inspire today was my third flight only due to our amazing weather we have here in Rainy Wales.

The Sun was finally out, so installed the Lens Filter, changed settings from automatic brightness to "Sunny" but to be honest my pictures are way to bright and dissapointing quality... I was expecting high quality 12mpxl pictures but they are shockingly rubbish... Video was exactly the same just a constant brightness to it, could not see anything during the video at all it's like as if even on automtaic it just wasnt adjusting the brightness at all. Quite dissapointing based on all the images and video you see on advertising etc. Can you adjust these manually or is there anything else I can do to try and get me a decent image even in sunny conditions.

Thanks
Bob

Are you using the custom settings or "Auto."   Never rely on auto, you want to set your camera based on the histogram.   Also, you need to shoot in LOG to protect the highlights and shadows.

Use a combination of ND, ISO and shutter speed.   In addition some of us like custom settings for sharpness, contrast and saturation as well.

Let us know what you've been doing and we can guide you to the right settings but believe me, you can get stunning images from the Inspire, just requires a bit of photographic knowledge.

Bob, Jim is 100% correct. It also helps to have some knowledge of basic color correcting once you have the footage in your editing program. Color correction is a massively complex subject on it's own, so don't feel like you need to become an expert, just learn the basics to find the saturation, contrast and sharpness setting you like. There is no silver bullet, it's something you have to learn over time so be patient and feel free to use this forum for help. There are some seriously good color folks here (but I'm not one of them!)

Best of luck, look forward to seeing some cool shots.

just took a picture of golfcourse behind my home as a framegrab from the 4k-30fps video looks fine to me considering the sunshine and snow..checkout the details on the bright snow covered greens...

You can check this guy out. He uses Avid as his editing software, but the basics of what he is doing is pretty much the same in all of the editing programs, so ignore all of the shortcut stuff he is talking about and listen for the ideas of what he is doing to correct the image, then figure out how to do that in whatever software you are using. Link

arunmehta Posted at 2015-3-9 06:55
just took a picture of golfcourse behind my home as a framegrab from the 4k-30fps video looks fine t ...

Nice!  Talk about dynamic range.  

Keeping the snow highlights clean and getting nice tone on the trees and sky doesn't happen by accident!

Thanks guys for your help, I think thats maybe what I need but as with some men, patience is not a highlight of mine.

My knowledge of photography is not all that unfortunately , I think I need some photoshop lessons possibly to get the acquired image, the image there from arunmetha is the kind of quality I am after, that type of image look, it looks like I have allot of required lessons.

But thank you for all your input, I appreciate the time taken to help

Would someone be kind enough to take this image and just give me an idea how they could make it abit more professional looking at all, feel free to take it, it was only a quick image i took the other day on flight

This is an example of what I meant, I literally only had the ND Filter on and I had the settings set to Sunny

hi bob...  Here are my thoughts on image 0014.  generally you will always want to have the ND filter on, during daytime photography, which you did (page 36 in manual for over-exposure and jello effect).  The sunny setting you used has to do with the camera white balance, not brightness.  Sunny would be correct for this shot.  As to the photo being too light and washed out, I think you had the exposure set to manual but you probably didn't know it. (my reason for this is when the exposure is set to auto, the DJI camera does a great job of choosing a good average exposure)  and this didn't happen with this shot.  Make sure you dial in proper exposure using [1] Camera Settings Dial page 25 in Inspire manual.
And I would double check your horizon... maybe you wanted the horizon to be off in this shot, but in case you didn't, make sure you auto-calibrate the gimbal.

hope this helps

You are overexposing the image.   This is dangerous as when areas go to white it's almost impossible to recover them.   Make your shutter speed much higher and it should help.

I took the image into Photoshop and in under 5 minutes got it to look like this so there is still quite a bit of info in there, it's just out of balance.

jimhare Posted at 2015-3-10 11:33
You are overexposing the image.   This is dangerous as when areas go to white it's almost impossible ...

Jim, you could re align the horizon in Photoshop too can't you?

Surprised you didn't change the horizon Jim

Also the image is not taking advantage of the rule of thirds!

Guess a guy could just set the copter up somewhere and play with the camera settings and see what happens?

Dangair Posted at 2015-3-10 15:35
Jim, you could re align the horizon in Photoshop too can't you?

i tried correcting the horizon Dangair :-)

Bob,
You are definately overexposing ..i would try "auto" and "vivid" for now untill you master post processing . Even in auto mode the framegrabs from video in 4K are SUPERB!

BTW on your  image i used the "Curves" and "level" feature of photoshop6 -win64

Dangair Posted at 2015-3-10 15:35
Jim, you could re align the horizon in Photoshop too can't you?

Not interested in correcting every aspect of the image, just addressing their concern about overexposing.

Just kidding Jim. You really could do mini tutorials though. or post links to sites you know that have solid info. Good job anyways.

arunmehta Posted at 2015-3-10 16:00
i tried correcting the horizon Dangair :-)

Bob,

The whites are quite strong and the only way to tame them would be to copy colour from a part of the image and paste it to the area. too much work And cheating! I will try messing around with the camera itself sat up high on something in various light conditions and experiment without actually flying. Maybe

Thanks for all the information gents.

I did take her up again today as a nice sunny day for us (crappy weather for the rest of the week) and got a few good shots just by playing with the Manual settings, a nice bright sunny day and was able to produce allot better picture, that I personally am allot happier with today ...

Much better Bob, good job!   

Dangair Posted at 2015-3-10 22:10
Just kidding Jim. You really could do mini tutorials though. or post links to sites you know that ha ...

Cheers!   

bob_kelly_2003@ Posted at 2015-3-11 05:48
Thanks for all the information gents.

I did take her up again today as a nice sunny day for us (cra ...

Nice work!  

Again another unbelievable piece of work of Jim

Just to assure everybody is aware of his tutorial here.

bob_kelly_2003@ Posted at 2015-3-10 06:30
This is an example of what I meant, I literally only had the ND Filter on and I had the settings set ...

Really way over exposed. Try the ND Filter that came with the Inspire. You may need a bit more reduction? try the manual settings. The Camera is made to accept very low light. so when you throw a ton of light at it it has a problem with it. This is the same with any Digital Camera. You could also try changing the angle of your shot.

Dangair Posted at 2015-3-10 15:35
Jim, you could re align the horizon in Photoshop too can't you?

Yes you can.

Dangair Posted at 2015-3-10 15:37
Also the image is not taking advantage of the rule of thirds!

The rule of thirds is your job not the camera. You have to set up your composition. The camera is not going to do that, there is no camera that can do that for you. There is a Grid that is available in the Pilot Program that will give you the rule of thirds.

jimhare Posted at 2015-3-11 06:49
Much better Bob, good job!

Totally agree. The whites are white. Good job and keep trying your options.

rodger Posted at 2015-3-11 08:12
The rule of thirds is your job not the camera. You have to set up your composition. The camera is  ...

Please take note I said " the image" not the camera, but then that's kinda hair splitting isn't it? But I may as well explain for those unaware. The rule of thirds suggests that for good image balance the horizon should be on a line equal to one third the distance from either the top or bottom of the scene. In general if the land is occupying 2/3 of the image, it is the subject. If the land is occupying 1/3 of the scene, the sky is the subject. In addition to this is a vertical line on either side of the image at approx 1/3  that the subject should occupy. The rules are not hard and fast, but do help define the correct proportions of your image for balance and good Harmony.

jimhare Posted at 2015-3-9 06:38
Are you using the custom settings or "Auto."   Never rely on auto, you want to set your camera based ...

Jim,


For us non-video pros, can you get us some guidelines to use on basic video shoots?  I would like to get the best quality video before it goes into post production. I understand the basics for photos, but videos is all new to me.

RichJ53 Posted at 2015-3-11 11:03
Jim,

Hey Rich,

I posted a 20 minute tutorial yesterday that talks about settings and post production:

http://forum.dji.com/forum.php?m ... lang=en&lang=en

jimhare Posted at 2015-3-11 11:17
Hey Rich,

I posted a 20 minute tutorial yesterday that talks about settings and post production:

Jim,
It's funny, right after I posted my question... I found your tutorial link and watched it! Wow that was very nice of you to spend so much time for our benefit.

If you do not want to shoot in Log mode all the time, what is the next best option. Some of us do not need to spend this much time in post production (at least me) however, I do understand Log is best.
Thanks
Rich

arunmehta Posted at 2015-3-9 06:55
just took a picture of golfcourse behind my home as a framegrab from the 4k-30fps video looks fine t ...

How do you get a screen grab from a video?

RichJ53 Posted at 2015-3-11 11:40
Jim,
It's funny, right after I posted my question... I found your tutorial link and watched it! Wo ...

Heh, was happy to do it!

The next best is probably the NONE or VIVID setting, but you should still avoid the AUTO setting and judge your own ISO, shutter and use of the ND filter.

If you're shooting stills then you can make the shutter speed as high as you like, but if shooting motion then it should be low, maybe in the 60-150 range.

nalhutta Posted at 2015-3-11 12:28
How do you get a screen grab from a video?

i find a framegrab from a video gives me excellent pictures in VLAN player under advanced settings there is a camera button with "take a snapshot" ...it takes care of my 180 rule maybe thats why my pictures have been good...i have NEVER yet used the CAMERA function of Inspire only VIDEO

Got along way to go yet, but nevertheless couldnt of got an image like that without your help, very much appreciated everyone thank you ....

Just trying to work out video now, think i'm recording in highest setting and my poor old computer can't handle playing a 4k video, very jumpy when playing.

That's okay, you aren't really meant to play the MP4 4k files in their native format, it's not unusual to have to transcode them into a CODEC that's easier to read and at the same time gives you the opportunity to make color corrections.

arunmehta Posted at 2015-3-11 15:00
i find a framegrab from a video gives me excellent pictures in VLAN player under advanced settings ...

That's pretty awesome. If you don't mind could you let me know the size of the resulting image? I'm curious to know if it is equivalent to a 4k resolution of 3840 x 2160?

nalhutta Posted at 2015-3-12 00:21
That's pretty awesome. If you don't mind could you let me know the size of the resulting image? I' ...

yes that is a full resolution grab same as the video reolution

bob_kelly_2003@ Posted at 2015-3-10 06:30
This is an example of what I meant, I literally only had the ND Filter on and I had the settings set ...

First of all setting the camera to "Sunny" is about setting the white balance and NOT the exposure. The simplest thing to do if you know nothing about photography is the following:-

1. Set the camera to auto
2. Turn on the over-exposure warning in the app... This will show over-bright areas on the screen with black and white diagonal lines.
3. Use the dial on the right of the transmitter and turn the wheel until the diagonal mentioned above go away

I think you will find this will help a lot...