New P4P Owner with some questions

[Oceanstateflyer]

Hello everyone, and thanks for the wealth of information on this forum. I just got my p4p a few days ago, and I love it! Been taking some videos and trying my hand at the editing process. I'm getting mixed results from my video. I'm thinking it's overexposure and a crappy video card. The first videos you see are on a sandisk extreme pro, the overhead shots are on a cheap one. Could this be the reason for the horrible looking video overhead shots at the end?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer me, I truly appreciate it!

 

[Nickster]

I think you may have nailed it. It doesn't look like the overhead are writing fast enough to the card. Is it 4K video?

 

[Oceanstateflyer]

Yes it is. I'm assuming Sandisk Extreme is the way to go? Thanks for the quick response.

 

[safkruger]

Wow! Cool stuff. I also have a P4P,but am not yet as confident as you are. Only flew it twice

 

[Oceanstateflyer]

I practiced for a year before making the jump. Started with a hubsan x4 for 6 months, then syma x5 for another 6. I'm pretty confident in my piloting ability or else i wouldn't be doing this. Living so close to the beautiful coast, it'd be a shame to not get footage of it.

 

[Nickster]

Yes it is. I'm assuming Sandisk Extreme is the way to go? Thanks for the quick response.

You are welcome. Yeah stick with whatever give you the fastest write speed. The ones that come in the P4P do not write fast enough.

 

[msinger]

The ones that come in the P4P do not write fast enough.

The P4P is only able to write video at a max of 12.5 MB/s. The memory card that comes with the P4P is able to handle that write speed.

I do like using memory cards with faster write speeds since it makes transferring files to/from the memory card quicker. If anyone is looking for a faster memory card, I have a list of commonly used memory cards here.

 

[Oceanstateflyer]

The P4P is only able to write video at a max of 12.5 MB/s. The memory card that comes with the P4P is able to handle that transfer speed.

I do like using memory cards with faster write speeds since it makes transferring files to/from the memory card quicker. If anyone is looking for a faster memory card, I have a list of commonly used memory cards here.

Thank you for that link! Answers my memory card question and many more as well. I really appreciate you putting in the time to making such an informative list! That's an invaluable resource for p4p noobs such as myself, again, thanks!

 

[jephoto]

I don't think it's the card. There's video shooters here that may have more technical explanations, but there's two things I think are happening on your overhead shots.
1- simply a bit over exposed. Highlights are blowing out in the water. Adjust exposure or iso down a bit. 1/3 or 2/3 stop
2- possibly without use of ND filters your shutter speed is probably very high. Best looking video is 2x frame rate. Meaning if shooting 24 Fps , 1/50th looks best, if 30fps, 1/60th looks looks more "natural".

Obviously you can shoot at higher speeds. But slowing down shutter will look smoother.

 

[Meta4]

The first videos you see are on a sandisk extreme pro, the overhead shots are on a cheap one. Could this be the reason for the horrible looking video overhead shots at the end?

I think you may have nailed it. It doesn't look like the overhead are writing fast enough to the card. Is it 4K video?

You are welcome. Yeah stick with whatever give you the fastest write speed. The ones that come in the P4P do not write fast enough.

An SD card won't make any difference to picture quality.
And there's no writing too slow - either it writes or it doesn't.
The supplied SD cards are well in excess of the minimum required specs.

 

[Eddyfisher]

An SD card won't make any difference to picture quality.
And there's no writing too slow - either it writes or it doesn't.
The supplied SD cards are well in excess of the minimum required specs.

So if this is true, what is the point of more expensive cards like the extreme pro which is recommended? By the way I agree with JEPHOTO above.

 

[Meta4]

So if this is true, what is the point of more expensive cards like the extreme pro which is recommended?

It's recommended?
If you've seen someone recommend it, it's in the sense that this one works, not that it works bettwe than any other card that works.
In the Phantom there isn't much point because the speed bottleneck is the camera itself.
It won't write any faster with the fastest, most expensive cards.

 

[Oceanstateflyer]

An SD card won't make any difference to picture quality.
And there's no writing too slow - either it writes or it doesn't.
The supplied SD cards are well in excess of the minimum required specs.

Thanks for replying! I just checked the speed of the other card I used. It's an old toshiba and only writes at 5mb a second. Would this not make a difference? Camera settings were the same for all the clips but it seemed to me that the sandisk extreme that came with it captured much better video. Even with a write speed of 5mb it doesn't make a difference?

 

[Oceanstateflyer]

I don't think it's the card. There's video shooters here that may have more technical explanations, but there's two things I think are happening on your overhead shots.
1- simply a bit over exposed. Highlights are blowing out in the water. Adjust exposure or iso down a bit. 1/3 or 2/3 stop
2- possibly without use of ND filters your shutter speed is probably very high. Best looking video is 2x frame rate. Meaning if shooting 24 Fps , 1/50th looks best, if 30fps, 1/60th looks looks more "natural".

Obviously you can shoot at higher speeds. But slowing down shutter will look smoother.

Thanks for the information. I was definitely over exposed and I'm purchasing nd filters. I'm assuming the suns reflection on the water makes that necessary. I have since adjusted my shutter speed to twice my frame rate and I'll see the results soon. Thanks for helping I really appreciate it!

 

[jephoto]

Even if the camera settings were the same for all the clips- it's your angle of reflectance that could make the downward shots seem hot compared to shooting straight ahead, thus needing a slight adjustment in exposure.

 

[jephoto]

Thanks for the information. I was definitely over exposed and I'm purchasing nd filters. I'm assuming the suns reflection on the water makes that necessary. I have since adjusted my shutter speed to twice my frame rate and I'll see the results soon. Thanks for helping I really appreciate it!

That has to be coupled with proper exposure for the scene - why video guys use me filters to drop the overall exposure to get within range of what your camera can handle with f-stop & shutter.
Also even though the P4P can stop down to f-11, it's not necessarily the best quality image. f-5.6-8 is the sweet spot from what I've been told. Like any lens, 2-3 stops down from wide open is the sharpest part of the lens.
All this is to get to the optimum "best settings" for any scene- but you do what you have to to get your exposure. Real world isn't always perfect.....

 

[Oceanstateflyer]

Even if the camera settings were the same for all the clips- it's your angle of reflectance that could make the downward shots seem hot compared to shooting straight ahead, thus needing a slight adjustment in exposure.

Even if the camera settings were the same for all the clips- it's your angle of reflectance that could make the downward shots seem hot compared to shooting straight ahead, thus needing a slight adjustment in exposure.

Thanks again! If you don't mind me asking... The aperature window you can open in the DJI app... The idea is to have all the peaks in the middle? I've read one thing saying middle, another saying to the right... Would you happen to know the answer?

 

[jephoto]

Depends on the scene. What you don't want is anything important to get pushed up on either side. Histogram is a graph of the tonal values in the scene.

*****EDIT***** Sorry- when I wrote the next bit earlier my caffeine hadn't kicked in yet. I reversed the Highlight & Shadow sides. I will correct it now - This is correct :
All the way to the RIGHT is Highlight. If it bumps up and stacks up on the RIGHT- that part of the scene is all white with no detail. All blown.
To the LEFT is shadow. If it stacks up on the LEFT that's Black with no detail.

Try to keep histogram from hitting either side. A Bright scene will have the bulk of the scene more to RIGHT, darker subjects more to LEFT.

But specular highlights bouncing off moving water will have some points that go white. You just don't want a LOT of your graph to be bunched up with no detail.

Are you doing manual or auto exposures? Try manual if you aren't.

 

[Oceanstateflyer]

Depends on the scene. What you don't want is anything important to get pushed up on either side. Histogram is a graph of the tonal values in the scene.
All the way to the left is Highlight. If it bumps up and stacks up on the left- that part of the scene is all white with no detail. All blown.
To the right is shadow. If it stacks up on the right that's Black with no detail.

Try to keep histogram from hitting either side. A Bright scene will have the bulk of the scene more to left, darker subjects more to right.

But specular highlights bouncing off moving water will have some points that go white. You just don't want a LOT of your graph to be bunched up with no detail.

Are you doing manual or auto exposures? Try manual if you aren't.

Glad you understood even with my incorrect description, meant histogram. I was shooting auto but I'll switch and do more research on the settings for manual. Thanks for taking the time to help me!

 

[KevMo Photog]

Thanks again! If you don't mind me asking... The aperature window you can open in the DJI app... The idea is to have all the peaks in the middle? I've read one thing saying middle, another saying to the right... Would you happen to know the answer?

Also, if your shooting in D-log and going to color correct later I would def expose your histogram a lot more to the right than you might be used to. Because D-log is really underexposed by almost 2 stops if you balance all of your date in the middle. If your shooting in some other color mode on your camera then it is prob not this way and you can balance your histogram in the normal looking way which is as balanced as you can get it without blowing out the highlights. Then adjust your contrast and color to taste in post.