DJI Inspire 2 and 5k camera

[lucabrasi]

Learning to fly and getting used to the camera particulars.  I still haven't received most of my kit so this is standard h.264 MP4 recording.  You can watch it in 4K however.  This is ungraded, straight out of the camera.

Nice. I set for 4k and didn't notice lots of difference between 1080 and 4k tho both amazingly crisp and nice. Not sure if there enough to notice on my set up on this video. Seems to explode more on the screen in closer up stuff it seems.
Ok, I little interested. What is the range on these things as far as distance from the controller/pilot? Looking at your video I really would like to go up one of the canyons behind me tho I very likely would never see it again if it crashes. I would need to start with something cheaper for sure.

[Admin]

Nice. I set for 4k and didn't notice lots of difference between 1080 and 4k tho both amazingly crisp and nice. Not sure if there enough to notice on my set up on this video. Seems to explode more on the screen in closer up stuff it seems.
Ok, I little interested. What is the range on these things as far as distance from the controller/pilot? Looking at your video I really would like to go up one of the canyons behind me tho I very likely would never see it again if it crashes. I would need to start with something cheaper for sure.

The max range is 4.3 miles with the stock remote.  This footage is recording to an SD card at 100 Mbps.  It is regular MP4 so, fairly low quality data going through a pretty nice lens and camera.  When the rest of the gear shows up (SSD drives, etc) that unlocks 4.2Gbps (42 times the data in these clips) and it will be RAW or ProRes.  That is when we should see the big quality jump.

[PonoBill]

There are lots of trackers available. I have another trackimo on the way for mine. Hope it doesn't get lost in the mail.

[TallDude]

I'm more of a stills guy. Lots of DSLR lenses for indoor sports, but not real familiar with video formats. From what I see, the drone camera captures objects or subjects in both the near and far field amazingly crisp. This is probably due to the relatively small aperture. Bright outdoor lighting allows for that small aperture and sharp focus near and far. The thing I notice is that the higher resolution (formats) allow the fast moving objects stay in focus better. I've taken off on a big wave and during the drop, my GoPro image blurred the face of the wave. Same thing with my skiing videos. It's fine looking in the distance, but as I turn, the near field snow surface blurs. If I where to go from a Hero 2 to a Hero5, would the blur disappear? The resolution is definitely better, but does that translate into sharp high speed focus?

In your video (Admin), I notice the fast moving trucks along the Hwy below disappear and reappear like glitches. I wonder if this would clear up with the higher res., a faster SSD, or different format?
I would think the slower and smoother the drone moves, the sharper the image will be. Or when the drones are tracking their moving subject, sometimes matching speed, this too would reduce the need for focal speed. Does this make sense, or are video formats less effected by aperture or sensor size? 

Sorry. Lots of questions. I've heard my Canon T2i shoots professional quality video, but I've never tried to shoot video with it.

[lucabrasi]

In your video (Admin), I notice the fast moving trucks along the Hwy below disappear and reappear like glitches. I wonder if this would clear up with the higher res., a faster SSD, or different format?

I just went back and looked and that is where I can tell the difference between 1080 and 4k here. Quite a bit smoother. Missed that before.

[lucabrasi]

I'm more of a stills guy. Lots of DSLR lenses for indoor sports, but not real familiar with video formats. From what I see, the drone camera captures objects or subjects in both the near and far field amazingly crisp. This is probably due to the relatively small aperture. Bright outdoor lighting allows for that small aperture and sharp focus near and far. The thing I notice is that the higher resolution (formats) allow the fast moving objects stay in focus better. I've taken off on a big wave and during the drop, my GoPro image blurred the face of the wave. Same thing with my skiing videos. It's fine looking in the distance, but as I turn, the near field snow surface blurs. If I where to go from a Hero 2 to a Hero5, would the blur disappear? The resolution is definitely better, but does that translate into sharp high speed focus?

I am definitely nothing more than casual but I know I can't take stills of some of the things I am thinking of and do it any justice at all for what I am looking at and seeing. Someone else probably but not me. I think a drone could and for some reason that video of Hood River made something click. Perhaps the snow on the trees is what made it click this time. Other drone videos haven't.

Tracker. Ok, that's what that means. At least I would know where it is if nothing else. Looking at some of the other drones mentioned here. Might be kind of fun.

Here is the first place that popped into my mind. Absolutely no justice......even without resizing it (which is a pain) and on the full screen. I think I could pull something off far better in some places with a drone. Summer as well.



 

[Admin]

I'm more of a stills guy. Lots of DSLR lenses for indoor sports, but not real familiar with video formats. From what I see, the drone camera captures objects or subjects in both the near and far field amazingly crisp. This is probably due to the relatively small aperture. Bright outdoor lighting allows for that small aperture and sharp focus near and far. The thing I notice is that the higher resolution (formats) allow the fast moving objects stay in focus better. I've taken off on a big wave and during the drop, my GoPro image blurred the face of the wave. Same thing with my skiing videos. It's fine looking in the distance, but as I turn, the near field snow surface blurs. If I where to go from a Hero 2 to a Hero5, would the blur disappear? The resolution is definitely better, but does that translate into sharp high speed focus?

In your video (Admin), I notice the fast moving trucks along the Hwy below disappear and reappear like glitches. I wonder if this would clear up with the higher res., a faster SSD, or different format?
I would think the slower and smoother the drone moves, the sharper the image will be. Or when the drones are tracking their moving subject, sometimes matching speed, this too would reduce the need for focal speed. Does this make sense, or are video formats less effected by aperture or sensor size? 

Sorry. Lots of questions. I've heard my Canon T2i shoots professional quality video, but I've never tried to shoot video with it.

You have obviously spent your time behind the lens because those are some of the big variables in video.  There is a lot of overlap in stills to video, but some major differences as well. 

The trucks are a great example of compression.  By the time a video is on Youtube, it has usually been compressed/decompresed at least 3 times (in camera, during export from editing software down to something YouTube friendly,  and then YouTube's compression).  If you look at the 4K version (based on the same uploaded file) it looks better and the trucks stay present.  The general rule is the less compression the file has undergone the better in will handle the next compression.  4K and larger formats are a mixed blessing.  The amount of data that needs to be transferred for all those pixels goes way up.  But...if the allowable bit rate is not capable of handling that amount of data then the data is reduced or discarded to allow things to keep flowing.  That often shows up as artifacts, missing details, blocking of similar colors, Missing Trucks, etc.  To make things worse for us our videos typically have a lot of motion within every frame.  Consider taking a video where the camera is still on a tripod and a squirrel is eating a nut.  The squirrel is moving but takes up a small portion of the frame. The rest of the frame is relatively still.  Relatively little changes from one frame to the next.  That is easy for a codec to "describe".  Now move to a windsurfing video where every pixel in every frame is changing.  That has a much higher data requirement.  This often results in compression problems like the ones that you mentioned in your post.  Export Settings out of your editing program can help a lot with this.  This takes some experimenting and I am not there yet by a long-shot with this setup.  The SSD's that we have coming will allow much less compression all the way through.  RAW does not compress in the camera (and ProRes compresses a lot less), so you lose at least one step of degradation.  We'll see how that goes .

In still photography crisp, sharp images are typically the goal.  Correct focus is one element of that, a high enough shutter speed freezes motion and the lens/aperture control depth of field.  In video/film shutter speed is managed very differently.  Most video/films aim to roughly double frame rate for the shutter speed (ie 30 FPS would likely choose 1/60th shutter).  This is done so that each fame will have some motion blur.  Without that blur, the video can look very strobe-like.  The human eye/mind still reads the end product as sharp as long as focus has been achieved.  These are often much slower shutter speeds than you would use in still photography.  To get there (outdoor daytime) this often means ND filters to allow for slower shutter speeds.

I am at the very beginning of figuring this camera out.  It adds another element to have the camera flying at the same time.  It is really easy to focus on flying and space something on the video side.  It is very fun.

[TallDude]

Thanks' Admin. That explains a lot of it. I shoot in RAW for stills as well. When I initially see the quality of the video 'in motion' and the cost, it always makes wonder why I would want to throw down $2K for a full frame. Then another $3K for a f2.8 piece of real glass. When I capture the stills from the high res video, I am less than impressed. 1/60 is super slow. Not even in the realm of stop action. I'll hang on to my glass for now.

Lucabrasi, sports photography has been my main focus. To me the composition is a piece of cake. Your subject is your target. When it comes to shooting landscapes, I have a hard time framing my shots. The rule of thirds, focal subject, light, depth of field, vanishing points, etc. I'm sure some people just see it and it just comes natural, but not me. The drones constantly are changing the perspective which captures interest. If you went through every frame of the beautiful and captive video, I think you'd be hard pressed to find one frame with an equal level of interest. Maybe a few decent ones?

[Admin]

Tall,

Your T2i is a great camera and take amazing photos.  That APS-C sensor (1.6X) is larger than the Micro 4/3 sensor (2X) on this drone.  That is the main reason why the depth of field is so large like you noticed on most drone footage.  Smaller sensors mean larger depth of field (more of the foreground and background in focus at equivalent lens/settings).  The test video above was shot at 30 FPS, F4.0, and 1/60th using a ND filter to lower the exposure.  It is a 15mm lens which is like a 30 mm on full frame.  Those same settings on your sensor would have a much softer focus background and even more so on Full Frame.  Go pros and cell phones use tiny sensors.  This makes the depth of field huge.  That is why Apple just  put out that new feature trying to create the shallow depth of field look in the newest iPhone.  Trying to fake shallow depth of field using software.  Summary is that smaller sensors are amazing when you want everything in focus, less so when you want to get that creamy background blur to isolate your foreground subject.

RAW is awesome in stills and Video because the camera doesn't apply a curve and doesn't compress.  The image stay's linear so everything can be adjusted later.  This is super helpful for White Balance and maintaining tonality in darks and whites in video which is a pin in the ass on the MP4's from this drone and pretty well sucks in my test video above.  That info just gets tossed when the in camera curve is applied and it is a struggle to correct it.  That is where I hope to see a huge improvement with RAW and ProRes.

In my test video above the whites on the snow in the trees have lost most detail and the dark tones are pretty well crushed together as well.  Both are well within their limits but the detail has been tossed.  This get worse with each compression until beautiful snow with gradations and texture looks like a white blob on a branch.

[PonoBill]

The snow shots are a lot better in 4k, but still "blob on a branch". It's funny how displeasing 4K video on TV is. Scenes that previously were unremarkable, now look fake or at least unpleasant. I've tried to understand why, and I think it's background resolution and/or depth of field--there's no separation of the characters from the background.

The makeup is too obvious too--Seeing Tom Selleck made up like an old tart while he's trying to look like a serious Police Commissioner is a difficult disconnection to absorb. Robert Redford with a bucketful of rouge slapped on top of pancake. Yikes.

[Admin]

Hiya Bill,

You may be in luck.  That is called motion smoothing, motion interpolation or soap opera effect.  It can be turned off.

https://www.cnet.com/news/what-is-the-soap-opera-effect/

[PonoBill]

Cool. Will it fix Tom Selleck's Mascara? I think he should be using Taupe instead of Midnight Charcoal.

[Admin]

Cool. Will it fix Tom Selleck's Mascara? I think he should be using Taupe instead of Midnight Charcoal.

Yes, you will have your Selleck back.  That gnarl can ruin a good movie.   

[GOTWAVZ]

So....my Phantom 4 lasted 3 weeks and now is back at DJI service.....even though it has front and bottom collision avoidance it doesnt have back or side, which my son proved very effectively as he rammed it into a tree in our front yard.
Bought the new MacBook pro with Final Cut Pro X. Sat down to start playing with it and realized it had no USB ports.  I couldn't even download my fricken files.....GGGRRRR why does Apple keep pissing me off.

[TallDude]

GGGRRRR why does Apple keep pissing me off.

I'm a Banana person and completely avoid Apples.