1 month in on my P4P my issues.

Catchlight · Apr 3, 2017

Hi I have had the P4P for about a month and flown about 7 hrs, recently getting type rated in Australia and so now RePl and available commercial operations.

Below is a list of things I am struggling with and a few annoyances:

1. Moire and aliasing on Images.

I have tested many things to get great images, shooting PAL / 1080 / 50fps / iso 200 / F4.0 / Shutter 100 (Mechanical on and off) and using a ND 32 Filter. The ND does help heaps with exposure and totally needed for serious shooting. In post do slow the shots down in After effects 50-25fps and then de grain a little, but the aliasing in highlights is still there! I also used the "soft" camera function but didn't like that too much as whole image felt a bit too soft for me.

2. 4K files.

Big clunky files! my mac on a 30sec clip at 50 fps took about 30 mins to render ( 3 year old imac though) wont play real time in Premier (latest version) started only shooting 1080 as standard and if want to reframe then 2.7K at 50fps etc.

3. High wind warning.

Omg please is there a way to shut the front door on that warning??

4. Warnings and failures;

Micro SD card intermittent shot a heap on it to return home and it wont read in ANY of my 3 mac devices.
Red lines over the picture image and break up of image on ipad 3 (occasionally) also once when Phantom at was about 2K range base station disconnected, came back on second or so later.. phew....
Obstacle avoided at 40m above trees about 20m high, maybe a bird buzzed it I cant be sure but way way above the trees and had me scratching my head..

5. Gymbal after manovers not on horizon when rotating 90 Degrees or so.

So after flying around up and down I turn 90 or more and my horizon is way off, cant re calibrate in the air and the straighten function pretty clunky and I'm not sure it works well.

not major things fellas, but any tips much appreciated.

Dave

Michael Thompson · Apr 4, 2017

Rollercoasters, bro. Much easier to build, less of a headache. Your neighbors will love you, the wifey too.

Ade5 · Apr 4, 2017

You better learn how to use Proxies in Premiere Pro.. Makes all the difference..

JarrodF · Apr 4, 2017

Another option is taking the footage through Resolve and transcoding to Prores422 before taking it into your NLE. Both Premiere & FCPX like Prores much more than H.264 for smooth playing during editing (especially 4K). Plus you can use the Resolve pass as a 1-light color session to prep your footage.

KevMo Photog · Apr 4, 2017

JarrodF said:
Another option is taking the footage through Resolve and transcoding to Prores422 before taking it into your NLE. Both Premiere & FCPX like Prores much more than H.264 for smooth playing during editing (especially 4K). Plus you can use the Resolve pass as a 1-light color session to prep your footage.

Ah, please explain how and what software it is that you transcode to Prores422 with? And then what does the Resolve pass do as far as 1-light color session? Thx for info btw.

JarrodF · Apr 4, 2017

Sure. DaVinci Resolve is free software that you can use to do color correction (what it was designed for) and then export your clips as Prores422 files. These files are larger that H.264 files but are much easier to edit with.

KevMo Photog · Apr 4, 2017

JarrodF said:
Sure. DaVinci Resolve is free software that you can use to do color correction (what it was designed for) and then export your clips as Prores422 files. These files are larger that H.264 files but are much easier to edit with.

So you are doing the color correction first with DaVinci? And then you export your clips from DaVinci? I just started with Premier Pro about 6 months ago. Gotten pretty comfortable with cutting ect and getting settings correct for the render. But I have also been doing my color editing with it as well. So then after you say export your clips to Prores422 and then edit them in your editor right? No more messing with color at all? Sorry for the newb questions. I'm a portrait photog by trade for 31 years. lol. This video gig is a new learning curve for sure.

JarrodF · Apr 4, 2017

No problem at all. I've been doing this for over 20 years and every day there is new software (or updates) to learn. If you want, you can use DaVinci to just transcode your footage to Prores for easier editing (there is other software out there that does the same thing). Because it's going through DaVinci anyway, I tend to do some rough color correcting there. I might do some overall contrast or saturation adjustments. Occasionally I'll fix an over exposed sky. Then I export as Prores422 files and bring them into my editor (I use FCPX but Premiere works just fine). Once the project has been cut then I'll do final color correction in FCPX so that everything matches nicely.

KevMo Photog · Apr 4, 2017

JarrodF said:
No problem at all. I've been doing this for over 20 years and every day there is new software (or updates) to learn. If you want, you can use DaVinci to just transcode your footage to Prores for easier editing (there is other software out there that does the same thing). Because it's going through DaVinci anyway, I tend to do some rough color correcting there. I might do some overall contrast or saturation adjustments. Occasionally I'll fix an over exposed sky. Then I export as Prores422 files and bring them into my editor (I use FCPX but Premiere works just fine). Once the project has been cut then I'll do final color correction in FCPX so that everything matches nicely.

Really appreciate the help man! I will be trying this for sure. Because the h264 and I'm sure the h265 makes even my gaming machine choke a little bit in the editor.