X5 difference, is it worth it?????

skylabimaging · Oct 10, 2015

gruvpix said:
We just delivered a 6-part doc series to a national network this month, so yea I know the difference between looking at calibrated monitors vs. a TV broadcast. Unfortunately you are absolutely wrong about the state of 'consumer TVs'. People can tell what looks good and what looks like ****, even if they don't realize it, and yea, can tell the difference between graded and ungraded footage even though according to your logic if it's going to TV broadcast why even grade it all at right?

How does that make any sense...that's like saying "I know this ice cream taste bad, I just don't realize it"

keith whitehead · Oct 10, 2015

i have a phantom 3 pro and just got the inspire 1 pro x5 been filming all day with the x5 camera messing with settings and i cant even get video as good as the phantom 3 camera. i dont know what the deal is. thinking of returning it and getting the inspire 1 regular camera instead. the pro only gets 11 minutes of flight time with 30% battery left.. does anyone know what im doing wrong. auto settings on phantom 3 vs auto settings on inspire 1 pro... phantom 3 wins by a long shot.

skylabimaging · Oct 10, 2015

keith whitehead said:
i have a phantom 3 pro and just got the inspire 1 pro x5 been filming all day with the x5 camera messing with settings and i cant even get video as good as the phantom 3 camera. i dont know what the deal is. thinking of returning it and getting the inspire 1 regular camera instead. the pro only gets 11 minutes of flight time with 30% battery left.. does anyone know what im doing wrong. auto settings on phantom 3 vs auto settings on inspire 1 pro... phantom 3 wins by a long shot.

Yeah, you're using auto settings

gruvpix · Oct 10, 2015

skylabimaging said:
How does that make any sense...that's like saying "I know this ice cream taste bad, I just don't realize it"

Viewers can sense something is off, whether they can explain what it is or not. That's what I meant.
You are right that wasn't worded very well

skylabimaging · Oct 10, 2015

gruvpix said:
Viewers can sense something is off, whether they can explain what it is or not. That's what I meant

In my experience, they can't...they just assume it's part of the picture or "it's supposed to be that way"

Basically they just accept it for what it is.

Rainbowers · Oct 10, 2015

I will not buy, for sure. 10-13 minutes is too short to set up your flying course and camera settings, looking to the Tornado with real GH4 and 30 minutes flight.

skylabimaging · Oct 10, 2015

Rainbowers said:
I will not buy, for sure. 10-13 minutes is too short to set up your flying course and camera settings, looking to the Tornado with real GH4 and 30 minutes flight.

These are pretty common flight times in the professional world....With an Alta loaded with an m15 and alexa mini we get about 10min...we map flying course using smaller drones first.

Rainbowers · Oct 10, 2015

skylabimaging said:
These are pretty common flight times in the professional world....With an Alta loaded with an m15 and alexa mini we get about 10min...we map flying course using smaller drones first.

When you need to shoot actors, right focus, right angle, etc. ... too short. Just a minimum time for one take and change batteries what interrupts the action. With the X5R will be worse and only interested for this one, not the X5s

gruvpix · Oct 10, 2015

skylabimaging said:
In my experience, they can't...they just assume it's part of the picture or "it's supposed to be that way"

Basically they just accept it for what it is.

Fair enough, but I disagree

Waldemar54 · Oct 10, 2015

White Airwolf said:
Wow!
I see from this board that there is a sucker born every minute. People just HAVE to have the latest any "greatest" products.
Don't waste your time with an X5 or X5R!
Just marketing hype. You don't need RAW for straight Television, only if you are shooting a Spielberg film and the footage is used in the film to be seen at a movie theatre screen and only a movie theatre screen where it is setup to look the way THEY want you to see it.
By the time video for TV gets crunched in editing, cable or satellite distribution and then aired on a consumer TV where 99 percent of people leave it at Factory presets, the RAW footage from the X5R will look EXACTLY like the X3 footage.
Don't waste your time and money on that marketing hype!
The grading done in post is all wiped out by the auto features in home TV's and cable and satellite systems. The highlights you worked so diligently to fix in Da Vinci Resolve for instance, will all be brought back especially on highly compressed venues such as YouTube and Vimeo let alone ordinary Television.
Please, do NOT waste your money. the X3 camera with the Inspire is all you need to make great video. If you expose and light it properly, it will look perfect on a home TV or YT, which is where most videos are watched anyway.

The only advantage would be more sensitivity, and FAA rules in the States, as well as other countries, do not even allow for night or dusk flying anyway.
Even UK DOP Philip Bloom says the same thing. Check it out!

Waldemar54 · Oct 10, 2015

Airwolf; I was just about to say something very similar but you have summarised it well "You don't need RAW for straight Television, only if you are shooting a Spielberg film and the footage is used in the film to be seen at a movie theatre screen and only a movie theatre screen where it is setup to look the way"

However, as you can see we do have a lot of Spielberg’s or at least wanabe ….

And! It is nothing wrong with that either but then just do not try to make anything else out of it.

Zarick · Oct 11, 2015

I'm not sure about the x5 vs x3 battle as the x5's latitude doesn't look great, but for normal cameras the burned out yellow highlights, infinite DOF, and overly sharpened images will most certainly be felt by the average TV consumer. They may not be able to point out what feels wrong, but they will just not stay with you even if the story is great. Ever listened to a film with the surround sound on a stereo channel only, or one with the colors being off ? It feels wrong and you can't get into the story because you're thinking that there is something wrong.

jb. · Oct 12, 2015

Actually, viewers will stay with a pretty terrible image as long as the sound quality is acceptable.

It's FAR more important to have good sound design than good video. That's not saying you can put up complete crap and expect viewers to OOH and AAH, but either the X3 or X5 put out video that's going to satisfy the majority of viewers. You should see how much top-shelf stuff has GoPro footage edited into it.

keith whitehead · Oct 13, 2015

here is my first video posted on youtube. looked a littlt better prior to being posted on youtube
Inspire1Pro
X5 Camera Stck Lens
1080p 60fps
mode is on classic not d-log

wbill · Oct 14, 2015

Thank you for the sample...the sky is blown out so that "extra" dynamic range doesn't seem to be doing much. But granted everyone needs time to figure out the best settings and their grade. I actually bought my inspire 1 after the x5 was announced and I could have bought the pro, but while the camera hardware itself has potential to be much better for video, it seems DJI has hobbled it. So when I factored in the facts of the same bitrate, extra cost, shorter run time, extra crash cost putting more expensive camera on a quad, I just opted for the x3...since for most stuff its good enough. And I will add a resounding no in my experience, most consumers do not really appreciate higher quality video source. I can say that because most of my clients are still requesting DVDs over blu-ray and even HD video files. Sound is much more important. Here's the deal, you put high quality right next to low quality and sure, they'll notice. Or if the image is just so bad, but mostly they don't care...or at least don't want to pay a little more for higher quality. I just shot a corporate video for a client in 4K for internal use, well they just asked me to compress the 3 minute video to 50MB, so had to down res to 720p 1.7Mbps to accommodate their IT infrastructure. So while it is fun to have the latest and greatest, most don't have true need for it. If you want it and have the money, godspeed!

keith whitehead · Oct 14, 2015

not to sure about the sky being blown out. it was an overcast day.
but agree somewhat on your point. guess it depends on what you do with it. me im using it for professional use, inspections, music videos,weddings and other things so detail is important. but im still trying to get used to camera it will get better over time im sure. just a high learning curve with this camera

johnmont250 · Oct 14, 2015

keith whitehead said:
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here is my first video posted on youtube. looked a littlt better prior to being posted on youtube
Inspire1Pro
X5 Camera Stck Lens
1080p 60fps
mode is on classic not d-log

lol, hell you could almost walk the dog with the i1!

wbill · Oct 14, 2015

I shoot professionally too. And nothing was wrong with your sample, the only important content looked great (i.e. Kids). You're right that we all define our own needs and when I looked at mine I just didn't think the x5 got me enough to be worth it, but who knows maybe down the road I'll find it will be worth it.