Footage of Burton-upon-Trent - UK

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Hi everyone.

If anyone has a random 10 minutes to spare then I'd greatly appreciate any constructive criticism to my footage here. Best to watch in full screen and highest HD option.
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Just an average town in the UK - nothing too special in the area but it's rich with history. (Something thats a little hard to see high up!) Alas, please tell me what you think, mostly in reference to video quality, the camera footage/techniques and any areas of improvement. I'd also like to hear any views on how it abides by the CAA's regulations.

It was shot at 2.7k, 25fps, mp4. I used Handbrake on all my clips using codec x264, with a quality rating of 17 to get the filesize down and maintain the quality of the videos. These were then workable clips and I used Sony Vegas 13 to edit and render the video with the same specs, 2.7k, 25fps, mp4, etc. I did render them at 28k bit rate however just to be safe. The final size of it was 2.06GB which I think is pretty impressive.
 
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Really like the footage. What part of the country is it in? Loved seeing Sanai House, not a castle but the first place I've seen with an actually moat. The video on my system was a little bit choppy, but that may be due to the different video standards we have in the States. We generally film at 24, 30, or 60 fps, multiples of 6 where we run our mains at 60hz, I believe yours are 50hz. 30 or 60 fps may have converted better, not sure, still new at this myself. I've been shooting at 1080p at 60 fps and it seems to give me pretty smooth footage, provided I'm easy on the controls. One other thing, I noticed all your cars were driving in the wrong side of the street! :D
 
Nice footage...gives a really good oversight of the area. As far as critical comments are concerned, I would say that the video is rather too long for general viewing..ok for 'home consumption', but to keep casual viewers interested, three to five minutes is a good length to aim for.
I may be wrong, but don't think you've use an ND filter for this..the jerky motion of the vehicles, and slightly choppy pans, make me think that the shutter speed is too high...ideally you should be shooting around 1/50th of a second, certainly no more than 1/100th.

As far as CAA regs are concerned, you seem to have avoided flying over much in the way of built up areas, so it looks to be a 'safe' flight, although I would hazard a guess that you were very close to the 400' height limit at times! All in all..well done :)
 
Really like the footage. What part of the country is it in? Loved seeing Sanai House, not a castle but the first place I've seen with an actually moat. The video on my system was a little bit choppy, but that may be due to the different video standards we have in the States. We generally film at 24, 30, or 60 fps, multiples of 6 where we run our mains at 60hz, I believe yours are 50hz. 30 or 60 fps may have converted better, not sure, still new at this myself. I've been shooting at 1080p at 60 fps and it seems to give me pretty smooth footage, provided I'm easy on the controls. One other thing, I noticed all your cars were driving in the wrong side of the street! :D
Glad you like it. It's Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, England. Pretty much very close to the centre of England. Sinai house does indeed go back centuries, its great that a moat is still there. You can read more about this unique and (haunted) house here: Sinai Park House | An Extraordinary Place

I believe on the phantom itself I'm using PAL settings which means I can only shoot 2.7k at 25fps. Is that the same for you or can you go higher? I know that if I do 1080p I'm able to select 60fps. I generally thought having a higher quality video would be a bit more beneficial than the extra framerate.. even though 60fps does look really nice. I haven't really experimented much with it but they're noticeable differences when you look at other videos.

Nice footage...gives a really good oversight of the area. As far as critical comments are concerned, I would say that the video is rather too long for general viewing..ok for 'home consumption', but to keep casual viewers interested, three to five minutes is a good length to aim for.
I may be wrong, but don't think you've use an ND filter for this..the jerky motion of the vehicles, and slightly choppy pans, make me think that the shutter speed is too high...ideally you should be shooting around 1/50th of a second, certainly no more than 1/100th.

As far as CAA regs are concerned, you seem to have avoided flying over much in the way of built up areas, so it looks to be a 'safe' flight, although I would hazard a guess that you were very close to the 400' height limit at times! All in all..well done :)
Aye, 10 minutes is a long viewing time and I'd prefer to keep it snappy.. alas.. I wanted to essentially 'complete' filming for my town so one compilation of everything made sense, even if its a bit too long. There's definitely lots of other places I'd like to do which are short and snappy videos.

No ND filter. phantom3 advanced and its also set to auto. I've experimented with the settings but I just don't feel comfortable messing around with them during the flight to get perfection when auto -generally- does a pretty good job. Would you recommend a filter? I think I'd like to get one for those really sunny days and I'd like one to eliminate blur/pixelation around lights during night flights.

I've just checked the source video and there's no choppiness on the slow pans. I believe it might of done this when I sped the video clips up in sony vegas. Literally all clips have been sped up slightly. Whenever I'm panning it seems to be the most noticeable. Speeding these clips up probably stopped the video being 13 or more minutes longer..! Scarifies had to be made I guess. :) Future videos should be shorter anyway.. slowing them down shouldn't be a necessity.

Really appreciate the feedback!
 
Definitely worth getting ND filters -(and you can still use auto exposure)-to get the shutter speed down. As an exaggerated example of the problems with high shutter speed, if you're filming a moving vehicle with a shutter speed of 1/2000th you're going to be getting a load of crisp images which will translate into jerky motion when you play the video. As I've indicated above, for fluid motion you should be aiming for a shutter speed of roughly twice the frame rate. On a clear day ND 16 would probably be a good starting point...if t's really bright you might want to go up to ND 16 or even 32.
 
I'm using a P3P which allows me to go 4k at 24fps. It is the conversion and compression of video that brings out visual anomalies. I don't currently have any video conversion or editing software outside of iMovie, but my wife is returning to school so I can get Adobe's CC for $20 a month. I'll start my editing at that time. Of what I'm not sure, the suburbs of Philadelphia are not that exciting from the sky.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app
 
I'm using a P3P which allows me to go 4k at 24fps. It is the conversion and compression of video that brings out visual anomalies. I don't currently have any video conversion or editing software outside of iMovie, but my wife is returning to school so I can get Adobe's CC for $20 a month. I'll start my editing at that time. Of what I'm not sure, the suburbs of Philadelphia are not that exciting from the sky.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

Everything always looks so different from that unique aerial view! I'm sure some local folk would love to see the footage.
 
You put a drone up anywhere in the UK and you will have an interesting piece. This one is no exception!

I've been over there twice but that was "BD" or "before drone." Next time, I guess.
 

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