An in-depth review of the video quality of the Mavic 2 Pro
https://youtu.be/_Hje5u_Ctr8

Thank you Steve,
It really is a great drone.
Let us know how you get on with it

Not really a drone question, but what is your take on the shutter speed for video? I know about the rule to use 2 x the frame rate and I have been trying to do that using ND filters. However, when the drone is out in the sky, and I want to take a still photo, I am limited to the same "slow" shutter speed unless I up the ISO, which I don't want to do. So getting a clear sharp photo seems to clash with the desire to have smooth video. A friend suggested that unless there was a lot of motion in the clip, then not using the ND filter would be fine for video even if the shutter was considerably faster than the norm - ie about 1/320th second

Steve

In my opinion, this isn't much of a problem anymore since the Mavic 2 Pro has an adjustable aperture. It was more of an issue with the older drones that had a fixed aperture.

Where are you filming? Unless it's VERY bright, I seldom need more than an ND4 filter, and you can stop down when filming, and open up when taking pictures.

Furthermore, since the drone has a gimbal, a 1/50 shutter will most often produce very good results. I feel that most of the motion comes from the drone, so while taking pictures, keep it still.

In my opinion, using a 1/50 shutter looks much more professional, and if things aren't moving when you're out filming with your drone, I'd say you might not be filming very interesting stuff.

Even if you had to use a 1/50 shutter for photos, do you really find that to be too slow for a wideangle lens on a gimbal that is usually far away from the subject?

Of course, there is no perfect answer. Personally, I've always had more problems with too little motion blur for video, than too much for photos.

Yes, I agree - the aperture makes a big difference. However, it seems the sweet spot for sharpness is around F4 and down at F11 it gets pretty soft. So I was trying to balance getting moving items still in my photos with the smooth video and keeping the aperture around F4! I did take some dusk shots and good pretty sharp results with a shutter speed of 1 second. Any slower than that and I did see motion blur in my photos. So you are probably right about the still shots at 1/50th being OK. I was in Hawaii with the drone and so it was very bright. I used the ND16 with polarizer and usually ended up with 1/50th second at F2.8 or F4 - somewhere around there. Perhaps the ND8 would have been a better choice. Still learning every day!

Steve

I was going to reply to your first question, but Increasing difficulty said exactly was I was going to say and I perfectly agree with all he said.
The only small difference is that I use two ND+polirizer filters: a ND 16 for most situations in video, and a ND64 for time lapses and video in extremely bright situations

  I just purchased some higher ND filters to shoot long exposures with the MAP2.  That will be a real test of the drone's stability using the gimbal.

Long exposure? The longest exposure I could achieve without motion blur was 1/4s.
That's fantastic, but it doesn't qualify as long exposure, in my opinion.

Quote from: Zero Talent on February 02, 2020, 12:43

Quote from: Mantis on February 02, 2020, 09:22

  I just purchased some higher ND filters to shoot long exposures with the MAP2.  That will be a real test of the drone's stability using the gimbal.

Long exposure? The longest exposure I could achieve without motion blur was 1/4s.
That's fantastic, but it doesn't qualify as long exposure, in my opinion.

I'll be testing 1/2 to 1 sec. That will, of course, need to have some stable air.

You might get lucky, once in a while @1/2s, under perfect windless conditions. 1s will give you only out of focus SS rejections