Here is a short drone demo showing the cold weather we had recently in Rhode Island.

Drone Demo Reel 1 on Vimeo

Nice Paul,
Looks cold!! Is that the Phantom 4 pro you're using? The footage looks really lovely. Really nice angles on your shots too!

Hi Bryce,

Thanks Bryce, glad you like it, and appreciate you checking it out.

Yup, 5 degrees on the ice shots, the others were in the 40's. Yes it is the Phantom 4 Pro.

Good 1 Paul!

What color settings are you using on the 4 Pro? None, True Color, etc. Also what shutter are you finding best. I guess this was shot at 4K or UHD?

Chris Young

HI Chris,

Only a couple of shots were in UHD, and I do not like the results. With a few months of testing, I think 2.7K is the best setting. UHD has way too much noise for me, bit rate is too low for 4K/UHD with this little $600 camera capturing motion.

Shutter was between 60 and 80 depending on the conditions.

Some shots were none on color and some Dlog. Dlog is tough in my opinion on 8-bit cameras, but that is one of the many limitations of the 4 Pro. Also you can not set zebra levels, so the exposure can be tough at DLOG. But if you get it within 1 stop of the right setting it is OK. But none can work as well. All the other color setting have too much baked in for me to use properly in Davinci Resolve Studio 14.2.

Paul - when I saw that you hailed from Rhode Island I watched the video to see what it was of, and couldn’t figure it out, but the Point Judith area was all I could think of. After the video was over I noticed some sailing videos …. uh oh! Went and watched a whole bunch of the episodes … very interesting. Besides video, you’re quite an artist with fiberglass and gel coat.

Anyway, sailing has been one of my passions. I’d be really interested in what you have to say about video from the deck of a sailboat. Obviously you have a drone and that would be really nice, but deck shots are really difficult from a small cockpit and a constantly moving deck, and exposure issues. It would be good to have a separate thread for sail video, and the ins and outs of doing it.

Hi John,

Yes sailing is my life long passion, and filming it was passed down by my dad at a young age.

Happy to help you any way I can.

Very nice footage, Paul. It makes me home sick for Rhode Island, but Florida sure feels better this time of year. I want to see more.

Thanks Doug, glad you like the footage.

FL is not a bad place to be this time of year.

I have more footage in the works and will mix it with some SLOG from the FS7.

Only a couple of shots were in UHD, and I do not like the results. With a few months of testing, I think 2.7K is the best setting. UHD has way too much noise for me, bit rate is too low for 4K/UHD with this little $600 camera capturing motion.

Shutter was between 60 and 80 depending on the conditions.

Thanks for the heads up Paul. Got me thinking now. I saw the 2.7 setting but didn't think of trying it. Must give it a go especially if it's quieter. I agree all the baked in looks don't do much for me. Use 'none' and grade to taste me thinks.

Good one, keep it up, no pun intended :)

Chris Young

Hi Chris,

My testing seems to have dialed in on these settings. But I never stop trying new things when shooting stock, on a job different story.

Baked in looks are not for me. Max latitude and Resolve grading are the only thing now that are baked in my workflow now.

One other thing that bugs me about the camera is the follow me/tracking mode. Example is in the last shot. The camera switches to auto exposure when you select this mode. Auto exposure is something I never use on any camera. So when this started happening I realized, you have to go in after picking tracking and change exposure back to one of my saved presets. Hope they solve this bug.

As for DLog, it would be nice to have the ability to set Zebras levels. Right now we do not have this options which is another bug.

:)

Beautiful!

Thanks Ray, it was fun.

Some cool model rocket launches on your site.