Drone Photography :
We will work through a few camera settings in flight prep, then move to the assigned buildings for our flight/recordings.
Here are some fly away tactics to apply if this occurs in your flights in the future: What to do in the event of a flyaway
This thread was also very helpful in uploading the flight data:
Use this link to learn how to upload your flight data for inspection
Digital Photography
Camera Stats:
File Format Options:
Shooting in Jpeg:
JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality.
JPEG compression is used in a number of image file formats. JPEG is the most common image format used by digital cameras and other photographic image capture devices; along with JPEG/JFIF, it is the most common format for storing and transmitting photographic images on the World Wide Web. These format variations are often not distinguished, and are simply called JPEG.
Shooting in Camera Raw:
A camera raw image file contains minimally processed data from the image sensor of either a digital camera, image scanner, or motion picture film scanner. Raw files are named so because they are not yet processed and therefore are not ready to be printed or edited without a bitmap graphics editor. Normally, the image is processed by a raw converter in a wide-gamut internal color space where precise adjustments can be made before conversion to a “positive” file format such as TIFF or JPEG for storage, printing, or further manipulation. This often encodes the image in a device-dependent color space. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of raw formats in use by different models of digital equipment (like cameras or film scanners).
DNG is the format DJI cameras use :
Northrup:
Ideally it’s best to shoot in both. JPEG can get the job done with quick results, sometimes straight from camera to source of sharing/posting . RAW photos can be stored for a later time in the event a picture turns out so spectacular and needs that extra defining touch to make it pop. Maybe you just don’t have the time or the skill set to edit in RAW currently. You can save the photo for when you do, this will always be the better option. You may take the best photo of your life, by accident, will pay to have the most control over the finished product now that storage is easier to manage then ever.
Setting up your DJI Camera:
dji mavic and phantom 4
DJI Phantom 4 Pro V2
Choosing the right Exposure:
In your camera settings , using the gear in the camera settings, lets set up Histogram and the Exposure Warning first:
Histogram:
Over Exposure Warning:
Histogram.
A histogram is a graphical representation of the tonal values of your image. In other words, it shows the amount of tones of particular brightness found in your photograph ranging from black (0% brightness) to white (100% brightness). As shown in the image above, dark tones are displayed on the left side of the histogram. As you move rightward, tones get lighter. The middle portion of the histogram represents mid tones, which are neither dark or light. Vertical axis of a histogram displays the amount of tones of that particular lightness. Histogram is exposure-dependent, but is also affected by tone curve and other settings.
Use your histogram as you shoot and as you work through your photo’s editing process.
Histogram and Exposure
Some are used to seeing histograms as graphical representations of exposure. Quite a few photographers are thus used to evaluating exposure based on histograms alone and state them as either “good” or “bad”. Usually, a “good” histogram would render most tones in the middle portion of the graph, and no or few tones would be found at the extreme edges. A “bad” histogram would have tones at the very edges of the graph, which would basically mean either underexposure to the point of lost shadow detail (shadow clipping), or overexposure to the point of lost highlight detail (highlight clipping), or even both in a single image. If we agree with such an approach, the histogram shown at the top of this article would represent an image that is ever so slightly underexposed (tones are shifted slightly to the left), but mostly ok.
Under Exposed
Over Exposed
Manual or Auto:
You have two options for setting up the camera for shooting pictures. Automatic and Manual. Automatic settings help the camera select proper lighting for whatever the camera sees making some adjustments in EV or Exposure compensation. The EV settings can be found in the gear settings for camera or by adjusting one of the scroll wheels you have setup in your drone settings. Default is right scroll.
The issues with manual settings are, as you move the camera around , the lighting changes and you need something to help keep some control over how much light and info gets to the sensor. if you choose one iso and shutter speed, the lighting will change as the Drone moves around so you have to be able to shift on the fly or again, or just shoot in the auto settings and hope to adjust in post production.
ISO Settings:
What is ISO?
In Digital Photography ISO ( International Organization for Standardization (ISO))measures the sensitivity of the image sensor. The same principles apply as in film photography (film speed) – the lower the number the less sensitive your camera is to light and the finer the grain.
Higher ISO settings are generally used in darker situations to get faster shutter speeds. For example an indoor sports event when you want to freeze the action in lower light. However the higher the ISO you choose the noisier shots you will get. Learn More.
A higher speed like 1600 is more sensitive to light, say in dark situations and offers the photographer the ability to shoot with faster shutter speeds, although these images often turn out grainy and with higher contrast
Lower ISO like 100 will retain quality/less noise but require a slower shutter speed to allow light onto the sensor. in low light, may be an issue with blur.
Here are some other guidelines for ISO settings;
Low ISO Setting (100-200)
- Outdoor subjects in sunlight.
- Landscape or indoor static subjects using a tripod.
- Use when maximum image quality is required.
Medium ISO Setting (250-400)
- Dull weather scenes.
- Capturing movements in good lighting conditions.
- Hand-held candid shots.
High ISO Settings (500-800)
- Low light scenes.
- Pop concerts and Night photography.
- Capturing fast movement in dull or indoor conditions.
Aperture In Aerial Photography
We know aperture affects depth of field. Unlike ground-based photography, depth of field is almost a non-issue in aerial photography, since we are focusing almost to infinity. Set your aperture at the maximum sharpness setting for the lens. Concentrate on shutter speed and framing your subject.
Get to know the f-stop (aperture) which provides the maximum sharpness for your particular lens. As a rule of thumb for most lenses, maximum sharpness is generally two stops down from the maximum (widest) setting. For example, an f/2.8 lens will normally realize maximum sharpness at around f/8.
The Mavic 2 Pro’s has an adjustable aperture from f/2.8 to f/11, which makes it our favorite Mavic to date, and sets it apart from the rest of the Mavic series including the Mavic 2 Zoom, which all have fixed apertures around f/2.4 – f/2.8.
Even with the ability to change aperture, shutter speed, and ISO you may need to use an ND filter when shooting at a wide open aperture like f/2.8 to get the right exposure on a bright day since so much light is entering the lens.
What is Shutter Speed:
In photography, shutter speed or exposure time is the length of time when the film inside the camera or the digital sensor is exposed to light, or amount of time shutter is open.
- Shutter speed is measured in seconds – or in most cases fractions of seconds. The bigger the denominator the faster the speed (ie 1/1000 is much faster than 1/30).
- In most cases you’ll probably be using shutter speeds of 1/60th of a second or faster. This is because anything slower than this is very difficult to use without getting camera shake. Camera shake is when your camera is moving while the shutter is open and results in blur in your photos.
8″ second exposure:
Exposure Compensation
Exposure compensation is used to alter exposure from the value selected by the camera, making photographs brighter or darker
Displayed as …–1.0, –0.7, –0.3, 0.0, +0.3, +0.7, +1.0…, where “–1.0” is one step darker than the optimal exposure value selected by the camera.
EV is factored in when adjusting Shutter Speed Manually. When Camera is in Auto you can adjust the EV settings from settings or from the wheel scroll if it is set up. (Default its the right scroll on the Remote.) shutter/ISO is automatically adjusted as you change the EV
Shooting with Filters:
When shooting outdoors , there is a lot of light available. The Sun will blow out features on just about any spots depending on variable such as time of day, clouds, shadows, etc. Filters screw right onto the camera lenses. The filters are like sunglasses for the lens, the darker the filter the less light that can effect the censor.
There are a quite few different gradients and different quality when it comes to lenses. Expect to pay around 100 bucks for 4 glass lenses that come with a case.
White balance, under the “cog” section of the camera settings.
Most people will stick with “Auto” which is the default, but this does not always give you the best results.
If it is sunny or cloudy, there are specific settings for those, so using them will often do more good than harm. And if you happen to be flying or shooting indoors, there are settings for indoor lighting too.
DJI Go App White Balance
In the end, the exact settings are up to the situation and your personal preference. The above will give you a good starting point and from there you just need to tweak and test.
Styles: sharpness, contrast and saturation.
To find these on the DJI Go app, you have to head to camera settings and then the “Camera” icon under Style.
Out of the box, these are all set to zero, but you will get better, more cinematic results if you dial down the sharpness and contrast a little.
Depending on your taste, you could go for -1 or -2 on sharpness and contrast. Most people tend to leave saturation alone.
Play around with them and see what suits you.
Color setting which is also under the “camera” section of the camera settings.
“Normal” is the default setting, and will actually work for most situations. But, if you want to have a more stylish look you can choose one of the color settings here.
There are two situations you need to think about though.
1. If you do post production, Normal, D-Cinelike or D-Log are the settings you want to try out. A lot of people say D-Log does not work that well on the Mavic, so also try D-Cinelike, you might get better results.
Choosing h.264 h.265 Two color choices on Mavic 2 Pro
HLG is a very different thing than ‘shooting flat’ or shooting Log. It is a high-dynamic-range form or HDR
D-LOG on the Mavic 2 is like shooting RAW on a DSLR and allows the camera sensor to pull as much dynamic information from the scene as it can to record a low contrast image so that highlights aren’t blown out and shadows aren’t pure black
Use this setting guide to go through all the camera features:
(jump to page 24 in pdf)
Use this guide to set up the camera settings to help you get the best possible image while you are flying !
Shooting at the right time of the day makes all the difference in how your lighting will effect your photographs and shots. Sunrise and Sunset of course being the ideal “golden hours” color for nice dramatic shots showing light and shadows casting over your subjects. But sometimes those shadows can cause problem areas, so walking a prospective shoot at both sunrise and sunset may reveal different lighting situations. Some situations may be suited for noon time sun or sometime before or after. Sometimes you may not have a choice. So learning some of your cameras features can help adjust to lighting that is offered on a shoot.
download sunsurveyor for a free lite version. 9.99 for upgraded features.
Lets start with some controller and camera gimbal adjustment:
Shooting with HDR and AEB Function on the DJI Drones Camera.
Today’s flight will follow these following guidelines. We want to accomplish the following shots using your teams, but breaking into groups of two as well.
Next Tues/Class we will work on documenting the buildings on campus. First with photos, and then moving on to video capturing. Team A: Cora, Audrey, Ken Will help capture Building A. And shoot a Shallowbag Bay Pano.
The pictures will be handed out during flight to prepare you for where you need to place your drone to capture the shot. Team B: Ed, Tom, Treyvon Will help capture Building B, both Buildings, and a pano of Shallowbag Bay.
Have a great Flight!
After these techniques have been improved, it’s time to check out some of DJI’s Intelligent Flight Modes. The Intelligent Flight Modes should never be a substitute for learning simple flight techniques with your controls manually. Some of the modes disable the object avoidance and at times loose track of the subjects as you are filming. Again, they are a neat way to ease into some trickier filming techniques. The take away on these modes would be the Active Track and Tripod mode.
Draw Mode: Draw is a new feature to the Phantom Series. It allows you to draw a route on the screen, with the Phantom 4 Pro then moving in that direction, with a steady altitude.
Gesture Mode:
Active Track: will let you lock on to a subject, moving or stationary. And fly around or follow with the camera locked onto subject.
Tapfly Mode: TapFly- a new, intuitive way to pilot the Phantom 4 with just the tap of a finger.
Tripod Mode: This mode will quickly dampen the controls, so all your filming techniques run in a very controlled manner. Smooth!
Terrain Follow: Terrain Follow uses the Mavic Pro’s network of sensors and cameras to keep it at the same height over the uneven or undulating terrain. Set a fixed height above the ground and watch the Mavic Pro adjust its altitude automatically.
Point Of Interest
You choose and object and your Phantom or Inspire 1 will orbit around it while keeping the camera pointed at it at all times. I was able to get some very fast and tight circles with this. Of course, you would normally want slow sweeping arcs for nice video.
Follow Me
Your drone will follow (you) your GPS signal .This is a great mode for anyone doing sports or any activity and wants an automated eye in the sky filming you.
Waypoints
The best till last. This is the most anticipated feature for quite some time. It’s a bit different than what I was expecting. It actually works more like the 3DR Cable Cam than the old Phantom 2 waypoints. Rather than adding points on the map, you fly to a point, and press a button on your controller to set the point. You then fly to the next point, and press then button again to set a 2nd, then 3rd.. point, etc. The copter will then fly between the points at a speed of your choosing. The camera can tween in an arc between points, or can be pointed forward at all times. It works very well and you can adjust the gimbal while flying, but you can’t yaw. 3DR Solo still has a 1-up with Cable cam, because it can automate Gimbal tilt, something that the DJI app cannot, at least at this time.
Course Lock
(Part of the old IOC controls) The drone flies in a straight line (course) no matter what the orientation of the nose is. This allows for some unique shooting opportunities, with a lot of camera mobility, a lot like a moving camera out the side of a helicopter or out of an airplane.
Home Lock
Never lose your drone again. Pull the right lever towards you and the drone will come back to you no matter where it is or what direction it’s facing. You are the hub on a wheel and your drone revolves around you.
Setting your Camera setting for video:
Drone Filming Techniques
Shared Flight Data from flight: Phantom Help: https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/SC16O59RNNVVNVUI8KIA/
DJI Service Repair: https://www.dji.com/service/repair
Upload Flight Data: https://airdata.com/ https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/
Phantom Help Resource links. Invaluable list of links:
https://www.phantomhelp.com/Phantom-4/
DJI
SCENARIO 1
CRASHES AND COLLISIONS: https://store.dji.com/guides/full-guide-for-dji-customer-service/
Setting your Camera setting for video:
Tom’s Tech Time Offers an abundance of Free Drone information.
Use Tom’s guideline’s for setting up your Mavic’s or Phantom’s Camera settings for good video lighting, and cinematic quality video. 18 minutes, worth every minute:
As you use this guide , you will eventually apply your own techniques as you grow accustomed to what your footage will look like when you get it into your editor. So look at this as a starting guide.
White balance, yes, which is also under the “cog” section of the camera settings.
Most people will stick with “Auto” which is the default, but this does not always give you the best results.
If it is sunny or cloudy, there are specific settings for those, so using them will often do more good than harm. And if you happen to be flying or shooting indoors, there are settings for indoor lighting too.
DJI Go App White Balance
In the end, the exact settings are up to the situation and your personal preference. The above will give you a good starting point and from there you just need to tweak and test.
Styles: sharpness, contrast and saturation.
To find these on the DJI Go app, you have to head to camera settings and then the “Camera” icon under Style.
Out of the box, these are all set to zero, but you will get better, more cinematic results if you dial down the sharpness and contrast a little.
Depending on your taste, you could go for -1 or -2 on sharpness and contrast. Most people tend to leave saturation alone.
Play around with them and see what suits you.
Color setting which is also under the “camera” section of the camera settings.
“Normal” is the default setting, and will actually work for most situations. But, if you want to have a more stylish look you can choose one of the color settings here.
There are two situations you need to think about though.
1. If you do post production, Normal, D-Cinelike or D-Log are the settings you want to try out. A lot of people say D-Log does not work that well on the Mavic, so also try D-Cinelike, you might get better results.
DJI Go App Color Settings
2. If you are not planning on any post production, color settings might work well for you. Just be aware, they are hard to reverse (in the editor) once you have shot with them.
Choosing h.264 h.265 Two color choices on Mavic 2 Pro
HLG is a very different thing than ‘shooting flat’ or shooting Log. It is a high-dynamic-range form or HDR
D-LOG on the Mavic 2 is like shooting RAW on a DSLR and allows the camera sensor to pull as much dynamic information from the scene as it can to record a low contrast image so that highlights aren’t blown out and shadows aren’t pure black
Drone Filming Techniques
There is a plethora of techniques, learning these few easy skills will get you where you need to be.
Learn these 5 essential techniques:
Preparing for Filming:
Adjusting your camera gimbal’s settings, will greatly reduce some of the rapid movement caused by scrolling to fast , and stopping your scroll abruptly. It’s really quite simple.
The Feature “Enable Synchronized Gimbal Pan Follow” (It minimizes the sharp robotic yaw movements in video. However, some don’t like the feature because the ‘lag’ in yaw confuses the pilot when s/he is following a subject and hard to predict for framing. Turning it off will lock it to the Drone, but if you make hard Yaw movements the video will not look as fluid .)
Adjusting your control sticks to help dampen the quick movements of the controllers will help you get smooth movements while focusing on the subjects you are filming. Start here with some of these simple settings you can adjust in the field as you get used to filming your footage.
As a Drone pilot, you will constantly be learning things about your drone and there will always be room for improvement in your filming skills. At the beginner level, you will need a new understanding of some the most basic skills. Most of the beginner skills you used in the last lesson will play the biggest part in your filming techniques. The other major tool: Practice, Practice, Practice…
There is a plethora of techniques, learning these few easy skills will get you where you need to be.
Learn these 5 essential techniques: Videos on the external Link Here
1. Aerial Pan Shot
Pan shots are typically captured while the camera is mounted on a tripod. In the case of drones, the tripod is replaced by the gimbal, in addition to the moving drone, away from your position. It’s quite a bit more complicated than a simple pan obviously, but the visual effect you can achieve is that much better. I prefer to do a pan left or a pan right while actually moving the drone forward or backward to add some sophistication to my shots, but many artists prefer to stay in “hover mode” while panning to maintain the stability of the shot. It’s a matter of taste and what effect you’re trying to achieve, so keep that in mind. Simply rotate your drone across the landscape or your subject, and you’re golden!
2. Tracking Shot
Usually used while moving parallel with the subject, tracking shots are choreographed in synchrony. The whole essence of this technique is matching the speed and being able to maintain focus on your subject at the needed composition point. We see these types of shots in motion pictures all the time, as well as at sports events and in car commercials. The trick here is to coordinate and rehearse as many times as needed. The easy way is to strafe your drone with the controls, with the camera at the same height, distance, and focal length, but you can add more movement if you feel comfortable or if it’s necessary.
3. Ramp Shots:
This is a type of shot where the drone is flying up or down without moving the camera/gimbal at all, and it’s strictly relying on flying. This technique of camera movement can be also achieved through a crane or jib arm, but obviously the range we can get through drones for how far up or down we can go is tremendous, and gives us way more freedom. Pedestal shots are used a lot to show statues, monuments, and even views above the clouds. This can be as easy as adjusting your altitude control and going straight up and down, without having to worry about camera movement or focal distance.
Ramp in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp4WvsskWc4
Ramp Out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45wmbNNbFYs
4. Fly Over
We see these shots all the time, everywhere from commercials to music videos to TV shows — you name it. An easy way to go about filming a good fly-over shot is to choose one object or specific landscape and focus the whole camera movement around that one subject, while the drone is continuously flying and covering the distance until it passes the object from above. Fly-over shots are used for various purposes, but you can mainly think of it as a type of shot that helps you place the subject in a geographical perspective and show the scale of it.
5. Reveal Shot
A reveal shot pretty much does exactly what the name suggests. It serves as a technique to reveal the point of our interest or what we want the audience to focus on. It’s probably my favorite aerial technique to create big “WOW” effects and show a specific time of the day, as well as serving as an intro and outro for a specific scene. Start your drone in a spot that’s out of view of your subject, then move it until your subject is in view — it’s as easy as that! Some classic motion pictures employed a reveal shot to create memorable scenes, such as the opening sequence of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, which uses these type of shots to introduce us to the infamous Overlook Hotel.
Orbiting Shot:
An orbit shot is a type of cinematic shot that enables you to move around an object while moving up or down. Or staying at one height.
Here’s an example of these shots stitched together:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqv5Tcb3cIQ&t=8s
COA Drone Flight School 