I was out shooting 3 jobs today. Beautiful, abundant sunshine. Almost always on sunny days like this I use an ND 8 filter. Usually produces sharp, crisp video. Perfect lighting. But today I ended up with this. What the heck?! Any ideas on why my footage ended up so dark? That was added work in post, lol!
ND Filter Gone Wrong
- Thread starter EVDS Gary
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Oso
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Although I assume that EVDS is an experienced photographer, I asked that because of a personal experience after buying an immaculate P4 not long ago and having an embarrassing "Doh!" moment. After I received the P4, I set it up on my work surface, connected it, and started checking everything for any issues. It was in perfect condition, and showed no signs of any impact or crash, or even scratches. Although the bird was fully connected, and everything was ready for flight, there was no live image from the camera. I checked everything I could, the camera settings looked fine, everything was connected properly, I even bought a brand new data cable for the controller. Still, no image. The screen was dark, I was frustrated, and almost shipped the P4 back to the seller. Then, after several days of trying to diagnose the problem, I was tilting the gimbal up and down, up and down, when I noticed what looked like some very faint image movement on the screen as the gimbal tilted up and down. I looked closer and realized that an image was there, it was just very, very dark. Then I remembered seeing the camera exposure was set to "Manual". Hmmm. I went into the camera exposure settings, switched it "Auto", and voila, an image suddenly appeared on the screen. All better. Like I said, one of those "Doh!" moments.
I believe all settings were auto except I had color set at Vivid, which I almost always shoot in. White Balance,,,everything else was auto.
Begs the question. Why would you use ND filters AND shoot auto?
The only point of ND filters is to achieve a proper cinematic motion blur look by locking you shutter to double your frame rate. Use ISO of between 100-400 to expose and you’re done. [emoji106]
If you need more/less exposure, you need to change filters.
By using ND filters like you are, you simply starting with less light and letting the AC ride the ISO and shutter speed which defeats the only purpose of screwing on that ND filter in the first place [emoji16]
The only point of ND filters is to achieve a proper cinematic motion blur look by locking you shutter to double your frame rate. Use ISO of between 100-400 to expose and you’re done. [emoji106]
If you need more/less exposure, you need to change filters.
By using ND filters like you are, you simply starting with less light and letting the AC ride the ISO and shutter speed which defeats the only purpose of screwing on that ND filter in the first place [emoji16]
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This still hasn't been answered. It's the most likely reason, if all exposure settings were on auto (filter on or not). I don't know what remote you have, but on my P3P remote, EV is controlled with the dial at the back of the remote at your right finger-tips. Be sure to set it to 0 rather than a negative value. Display the histogram and/or blinkies to see how your video is affected by the value.
The scene should have looked dark on your screen while filming.
If you don't know what EV means, but you're doing these jobs for money, you should take some basic photographic/video courses
"Almost always on sunny days like this I use an ND 8 filter. Usually produces sharp, crisp video."
That's not what ND filters are for. In fact, it's mostly the opposite, slowing down the shutter speed to achieve more motion blur, which typically adds to the cinematic look of the finished footage, as Franky mentions above. Here you would want something like ~25 / 30fps and a ~1/60 shutter speed
A very sharp and crisp video would require a higher shutter speed and frame rate, something like 60fps and 1/125 (or higher) shutter speed, which an ND filter would work against / take you further away from. If you want faster video, the last thing you want to do is reduce the light with an ND filter.
If you know what you're doing, you can still use an automatic exposure mode, if the filter is bringing down your shutter speed to the desired setting. But then, these birds fly around and change orientation in respect to the lighting (the sun), so manual can give you finer control.
Chris
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If you use "none" it works great if you set the style to -2, -2, -1. Makes a big difference in post color grading.
Do you have the histogram displayed on your screen and do you inspect it before each flight? ND filters are not an automatic means to an end. A properly centered histogram is. For video, two things need to be checked. The second check is to see that the shutter speed is roughly equal to 1/ (2 x frame rate) so that you get a cinematic blur.
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