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Best Camera Tips I could find

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Dec 17, 2013
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Moving up to the X5 fro the Phantom line I had a bit of reading to do on camera settings. This is the best I could find. Might be useful to someone. Note these are more starting settings, for the more artistic you would edit them to suit a purpose.

Please add comments if you disagree as I am just repeating what I have heard and am no means a pro on this subject!

Video, whole scene in focus (closer and further away objects):
- High aperture (f16 or f22 range)
- ISO 100-200
- Shutter speed at double frame rate. Eg 4k @ 24fps try and get a shutter speed at 1/50
- If the image is under exposed (dark): Raise ISO, reduce shutter speed, Lower aperture (open iris).

Video, closer object in focus:
- Low aperture
- ISO 100
- Shutter speed at double frame rate.
- If the image is over exposed (bright): Add a ND filter to restrict light entering camera to keep shutter speed low or adjust aperture.

Photos, daylight:
- Aperture as required. Same as video above.
- ISO 100-200
- High shutter speed in the 500 to 2000 range.

General tips:
- Aperture has best sharpness in the 5.6 to 9 range. Lens vignetting and distortion can occur at smallest and largest apertures.
- Using different shutter speeds. Someone else linked this and it was a great video to watch How Shutter Speeds & Frame Rates Can Be Used to Change the Look & Feel of Your Film
 
Moving up to the X5 fro the Phantom line I had a bit of reading to do on camera settings. This is the best I could find. Might be useful to someone. Note these are more starting settings, for the more artistic you would edit them to suit a purpose.

Please add comments if you disagree as I am just repeating what I have heard and am no means a pro on this subject!

Video, whole scene in focus (closer and further away objects):
- High aperture (f16 or f22 range)
- ISO 100-200
- Shutter speed at double frame rate. Eg 4k @ 24fps try and get a shutter speed at 1/50
- If the image is under exposed (dark): Raise ISO, reduce shutter speed, Lower aperture (open iris).

Video, closer object in focus:
- Low aperture
- ISO 100
- Shutter speed at double frame rate.
- If the image is over exposed (bright): Add a ND filter to restrict light entering camera to keep shutter speed low or adjust aperture.

Photos, daylight:
- Aperture as required. Same as video above.
- ISO 100-200
- High shutter speed in the 500 to 2000 range.

General tips:
- Aperture has best sharpness in the 5.6 to 9 range. Lens vignetting and distortion can occur at smallest and largest apertures.
- Using different shutter speeds. Someone else linked this and it was a great video to watch How Shutter Speeds & Frame Rates Can Be Used to Change the Look & Feel of Your Film

With regards to the General tips and aperture: is the 5.9 to 9 range the actual X5 setting or the 35mm equivalent? In other words is the optimum sharpness range on X5 really 2.5 - 4.5 to achieve 5.9 to 9? Confused. I shoot at f8 on my X5 but the close up stuff like flying over grass and seeing myself upon landing is crap out of focus - and yes I've calibrated.
 
Also, with regards to AF on the X5. Can I assume that everything in the AF green square is being actively focused on as it passes through the square (equivalent to AI Servo focus on an SLR)? I feel like I need to press the AF square on the screen every so often to get a better focus on things, especially as I get closer to the ground.
 
Also, with regards to AF on the X5. Can I assume that everything in the AF green square is being actively focused on as it passes through the square (equivalent to AI Servo focus on an SLR)? I feel like I need to press the AF square on the screen every so often to get a better focus on things, especially as I get closer to the ground.
No it is not continuous AF, it works like a GH4 or 70D, when you tap the screen it focuses on what you tap on, if it moves towards you or away then it will go out of focus.
 
No it is not continuous AF, it works like a GH4 or 70D, when you tap the screen it focuses on what you tap on, if it moves towards you or away then it will go out of focus.

To be clear - this is true for mode, not just photo?
 
i guess what hes saying is it doesnt track.

are you familiar with autofocus modes on a DSLR?
as in 1 shot focus mode vs AI servo?

from what gruvpix says, it looks like itll work the same as 1-shot.
i.e, you focus it on something, and if anything moves, camera or subject, itll start falling out of focus (how fast it does this depends on your depth of field)

im going to experiment over the weekend with this, my own x5 should be arriving on friday so ill let you know if i find any tricks that might be useful!
 
i guess what hes saying is it doesnt track.

are you familiar with autofocus modes on a DSLR?
as in 1 shot focus mode vs AI servo?

from what gruvpix says, it looks like itll work the same as 1-shot.
i.e, you focus it on something, and if anything moves, camera or subject, itll start falling out of focus (how fast it does this depends on your depth of field)

im going to experiment over the weekend with this, my own x5 should be arriving on friday so ill let you know if i find any tricks that might be useful!
Nice thanks! I've had mine for a month and can't find the perfect settings for good focus and overall usability for different situations.
 
are you taking photos of things from far away with a wide angle lens?
say maybe the 12mm Olympus lens?

if you set the focus on the lens to manual and to infinity on the app you could start taking advantage of something called hyperfocal distance.
basically, it'll mean things far away are in perfect focus.

how close you can get to something before it starts getting out of focus will depend on a few things.

1, the focal length of the lens (shorter is better for this, it means you can get closer to things e.g 12mm means you can get closer to the foreground than a 45mm lens would allow)
2. the aperture you're shooting at (wider is better (so think f8,f11 + tho going too wide will soften the image)
3. a whole pile of technical stuff with the camera itself that you can't control (its called the circle of confusion/the pitch of the lens' on the sensor),

id stick with points 1 and 2 and see if you can get it to work. from what I can tell it's what a lot of the people posting videos using this drone are doing.

also, that's a very, very, very basic breakdown of how it works. search online, you'll find the actual calculation to find out how close to something you can get
while keeping everything in focus. not very practical for anything that's not strapped to a stationary tripod, but maybe you'd find it interesting to read?
 
Hey I appreciate all the feedback. Trouble is that every other post I read, the aperture settings vary from post to post. I understand a lot about SLR concepts and have been photographing most of my life. I get the concepts of hyper-focal distance, DoF, CoC, but MFT and having to use an app to control infinity is really throwing me.

I've also had several fixed aperture quads 1080 - 4K. This is my first MFT quad. I'm confused, even after reading many dozens of articles on what settings are the best for certain conditions - especially as it relates to aperture. Some people say that everything on MFT cameras is doubled (15mm MFT equiv to 30mm 35MM, 12mm MFT equiv to 24mm on 35MM, etc.). And due to this 2x conversion, apertures follow suit (f5.6 MFT is really f11.2 on 35MM).

My last mission was the best out of probably the 20 or so I've flown since filming with the X5 Pro. Conditions were as follows:

Weather:

4:00PM ET / Clear / Sunny

Camera:
DJI 15mm
Polar Pro ND8 (3 stops)
Video mode: 1080p / 60fps
AF
Av mode fixed at f8 (Shutter was showing around 110)
Auto ISO

Took off and flew a 12 min mission. For the most part the footage was in focus on the distant objects. After flying around I came back down and tried some sweeps across the grass. That part was absolutely terrible and out of focus. Now granted I was moving a bit fast but still it should have looked better (like the fixed aperture cameras do - or even camcorders).

I realize I'm in a different class of filming now, but I just wish there was a book or something that describes how to do things in certain scenarios so I can plan and set my gear accordingly.

For example. How should I approach the above scenario (flying in from up high with distant objects in focus and then keeping objects in focus the closer I get? I thought the lens would at least keep objects within 10 feet in focus at that aperture. Am I supposed to be touching the AF square in the app to focus on grass moving underneath me, and do I do it every so many feet since it's technically a moving object? Someone else mentioned when I asked about how the AF square works, and they said it acts more like a One-Shot, rather than AI Servo mode - not continually keeping things within it's square bounds in focus (which is a shame and needs to be a toggle feature IMO!). AI Servo mode would solve a lot of problems I would imagine. So should I scrap AF and go MF, and if I do, do I still have to tap the app focus on the ground as I'm skimming? And that's just one example.

I have calibrated my lens until I'm blue in the face so I think it's at least close. Supposedly you can fine tune the focus in MF mode when calibrating but I can't keep the enlarged part of the image I'm calibrating on up long enough to roll the wheel to get it perfect. So I rely on aperture to get me the rest of the way. But again, low on MFT, high like on 35mm?

And another question about focus. What is the default AF point when powering up? Does it default to infinity, does it default to the center of the AF square?
 
Last edited:
Hey I appreciate all the feedback. Trouble is that every other post I read, the aperture settings vary from post to post. I understand a lot about SLR concepts and have been photographing most of my life. I get the concepts of hyper-focal distance, DoF, CoC, but MFT and having to use an app to control infinity is really throwing me.

I've also had several fixed aperture quads 1080 - 4K. This is my first MFT quad. I'm confused, even after reading many dozens of articles on what settings are the best for certain conditions - especially as it relates to aperture. Some people say that everything on MFT cameras is doubled (15mm MFT equiv to 30mm 35MM, 12mm MFT equiv to 24mm on 35MM, etc.). And due to this 2x conversion, apertures follow suit (f5.6 MFT is really f11.2 on 35MM).

My last mission was the best out of probably the 20 or so I've flown since filming with the X5 Pro. Conditions were as follows:

Weather:

4:00PM ET / Clear / Sunny

Camera:
DJI 15mm
Polar Pro ND8 (3 stops)
Video mode: 1080p / 60fps
AF
Av mode fixed at f8 (Shutter was showing around 110)
Auto ISO

Took off and flew a 12 min mission. For the most part the footage was in focus on the distant objects. After flying around I came back down and tried some sweeps across the grass. That part was absolutely terrible and out of focus. Now granted I was moving a bit fast but still it should have looked better (like the fixed aperture cameras do - or even camcorders).

I realize I'm in a different class of filming now, but I just wish there was a book or something that describes how to do things in certain scenarios so I can plan and set my gear accordingly.

For example. How should I approach the above scenario (flying in from up high with distant objects in focus and then keeping objects in focus the closer I get? I thought the lens would at least keep objects within 10 feet in focus at that aperture. Am I supposed to be touching the AF square in the app to focus on grass moving underneath me, and do I do it every so many feet since it's technically a moving object? Someone else mentioned when I asked about how the AF square works, and they said it acts more like a One-Shot, rather than AI Servo mode - not continually keeping things within it's square bounds in focus (which is a shame and needs to be a toggle feature IMO!). AI Servo mode would solve a lot of problems I would imagine. So should I scrap AF and go MF, and if I do, do I still have to tap the app focus on the ground as I'm skimming? And that's just one example.

I have calibrated my lens until I'm blue in the face so I think it's at least close. Supposedly you can fine tune the focus in MF mode when calibrating but I can't keep the enlarged part of the image I'm calibrating on up long enough to roll the wheel to get it perfect. So I rely on aperture to get me the rest of the way. But again, low on MFT, high like on 35mm?

And another question about focus. What is the default AF point when powering up? Does it default to infinity, does it default to the center of the AF square?

Don't confuse out of focus with motion blur: when you fly low above grass, in your example, the low shutter speed will cause motion blur even if you are within the focus range for object distance. If you stop or slow down the speed of the craft, that will cause less motion blur.
 
Hey I appreciate all the feedback. Trouble is that every other post I read, the aperture settings vary from post to post. I understand a lot about SLR concepts and have been photographing most of my life. I get the concepts of hyper-focal distance, DoF, CoC, but MFT and having to use an app to control infinity is really throwing me.

I've also had several fixed aperture quads 1080 - 4K. This is my first MFT quad. I'm confused, even after reading many dozens of articles on what settings are the best for certain conditions - especially as it relates to aperture. Some people say that everything on MFT cameras is doubled (15mm MFT equiv to 30mm 35MM, 12mm MFT equiv to 24mm on 35MM, etc.). And due to this 2x conversion, apertures follow suit (f5.6 MFT is really f11.2 on 35MM).

My last mission was the best out of probably the 20 or so I've flown since filming with the X5 Pro. Conditions were as follows:

Weather:

4:00PM ET / Clear / Sunny

Camera:
DJI 15mm
Polar Pro ND8 (3 stops)
Video mode: 1080p / 60fps
AF
Av mode fixed at f8 (Shutter was showing around 110)
Auto ISO

Took off and flew a 12 min mission. For the most part the footage was in focus on the distant objects. After flying around I came back down and tried some sweeps across the grass. That part was absolutely terrible and out of focus. Now granted I was moving a bit fast but still it should have looked better (like the fixed aperture cameras do - or even camcorders).

I realize I'm in a different class of filming now, but I just wish there was a book or something that describes how to do things in certain scenarios so I can plan and set my gear accordingly.

For example. How should I approach the above scenario (flying in from up high with distant objects in focus and then keeping objects in focus the closer I get? I thought the lens would at least keep objects within 10 feet in focus at that aperture. Am I supposed to be touching the AF square in the app to focus on grass moving underneath me, and do I do it every so many feet since it's technically a moving object? Someone else mentioned when I asked about how the AF square works, and they said it acts more like a One-Shot, rather than AI Servo mode - not continually keeping things within it's square bounds in focus (which is a shame and needs to be a toggle feature IMO!). AI Servo mode would solve a lot of problems I would imagine. So should I scrap AF and go MF, and if I do, do I still have to tap the app focus on the ground as I'm skimming? And that's just one example.

I have calibrated my lens until I'm blue in the face so I think it's at least close. Supposedly you can fine tune the focus in MF mode when calibrating but I can't keep the enlarged part of the image I'm calibrating on up long enough to roll the wheel to get it perfect. So I rely on aperture to get me the rest of the way. But again, low on MFT, high like on 35mm?

And another question about focus. What is the default AF point when powering up? Does it default to infinity, does it default to the center of the AF square?
Don't think too much about it. Your lens is probably calibrated fine, and unless you are literally about to hit something, everything will be in focus at infinity above f4. Also I'd forget about 1080p60 unless you know you are going to slow down the footage. The 1080p60 setting still looks like garbage and DJI hasn't fixed it since the original FW.
 

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