CAMERA SETTINGS SIMPLIFIED. (TOPAS)

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There are many discussions on camera settings on the forum, and not being a photographer, I just want to take off and fly, take stills and video without all the fuss of exposure, speeds and various other settings which I, for one, do not understand. I could do it on a Phantom FC40 with a Go Pro, so why cant I on the P3? Well, maybe I can.

After reading various non-understandable and complicated posts on the forum about exposure, speeds, Raw, etc., I found I couldn’t understand what the photographic people were talking about nor can I be bothered to for the present. Its hard enough learning to fly the a/c without any more complications.

From the information I have read on the forum and after experimentation with my P3A camera here follows my suggestions on TOPAS (Take Off Point And Shoot) procedures.

I have called it TOPAS because it is easy to remember and can be easily found again by a search should you ever want to

SETTINGS TO DO AT HOME.

There are some settings to change if necessary, but once done, you can leave them.

Fire up the tablet, controller and the Phantom.

Once you have the Go app running on the home screen I suggest you now set the camera settings. On the right hand side of the screen you will find the menu for the camera settings. Tap menu. A screen will appear at the top of which is a symbol of a still shot camera, a video camera and a spanner.

Tap the still shot camera. A screen appears starting with Photo. Tap Photo and select single shot. Now press the < to return to the first screen. With still shot camera selected again check the following settings. Image Ratio 16.9. Image format JPEG. White balance AWB. Style Landscape. Colour None.

Now lets go on to the movie camera symbol and tap it, then tap Video size. Select 1920 x 1080 48 fps. Tap the < arrow. Select video format MP4. Tap the < arrow. On NTSC/Pal select PAL in Europe and NTSC for the USA. White balance should read AWB. Style should be Landscape. Colour is None.

Now click the spanner. The screen that appears should have Histogram at the top of the list. Switch to off by sliding the white circle to the left, and similarly the video caption and the Over Exposure Warning. Grid should be None and Anti Flicker to Auto. File Index Mode should be Continuous.

All other settings are outside the scope of this article and you can learn about them at your leisure.

That takes care of the settings and they should not change even with a different battery.

BEFORE TAKE OFF

You should have everything fired up. On the Go App home screen underneath the battery percentage find a black oblong padlock with the letters AE. This is the control to lock your exposure value. Using the right hand exposure wheel on your controller set the exposure to EV 0. This value can be found in blue which is near enough under the symbol of your controller on the top bar and it is hard to see in daylight. Now tap the padlock in the oblong so that it the padlock and the letters AE change to a blue colour. This indicates that the camera exposure is locked. If you want to unlock it, the easiest way is to turn the exposure wheel on the controller so that you may change to a better exposure, and when you have done this don’t forget to tap the padlock to lock it again.

If you change from still shot to video then the padlock will unlock and your exposure value might change.

THE FOOTNOTE


I want to stress that this article is for non-photographic people like myself that just want to TOPAS and not be bothered about anything else.

I know that there are many more facets to P3 photography and suggestions for the above are welcome but, please, keep it simple and bear in mind that this IS NOT meant as a discussion. Many thanks.

Happy TOPAS,

Pete
 
Last edited:
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One point I would make on the above, is that unless you re-name your files when you transfer them to your computer, having the File Index Mode set to Reset means that you are going to have an awful lot of files with the same reference number, which will make searching for a particular video/photo much harder at a later date.
 
There are many discussions on camera settings on the forum, and not being a photographer, I just want to take off and fly, take stills and video without all the fuss of exposure, speeds and various other settings which I, for one, do not understand. I could do it on a Phantom FC40 with a Go Pro, so why cant I on the P3? Well, maybe I can.

After reading various non-understandable and complicated posts on the forum about exposure, speeds, Raw, etc., I found I couldn’t understand what the photographic people were talking about nor can I be bothered to for the present. Its hard enough learning to fly the a/c without any more complications.

From the information I have read on the forum and after experimentation with my P3A camera here follows my suggestions on TOPAS (Take Off Point And Shoot) procedures.

I have called it TOPAS because it is easy to remember and can be easily found again by a search should you ever want to

SETTINGS TO DO AT HOME.

There are some settings to change if necessary, but once done, you can leave them.

Fire up the tablet, controller and the Phantom.

Once you have the Go app running on the home screen I suggest you now set the camera settings. On the right hand side of the screen you will find the menu for the camera settings. Tap menu. A screen will appear at the top of which is a symbol of a still shot camera, a video camera and a spanner.

Tap the still shot camera. A screen appears starting with Photo. Tap Photo and select single shot. Now press the < to return to the first screen. With still shot camera selected again check the following settings. Image Ratio 16.9. Image format JPEG. White balance AWB. Style Landscape. Colour None.

Now lets go on to the movie camera symbol and tap it, then tap Video size. Select 1920 x 1080 48 fps. Tap the < arrow. Select video format MP4. Tap the < arrow. On NTSC/Pal select PAL in Europe and NTSC for the USA. White balance should read AWB. Style should be Landscape. Colour is None.

Now click the spanner. The screen that appears should have Histogram at the top of the list. Switch to off by sliding the white circle to the left, and similarly the video caption and the Over Exposure Warning. Grid should be None and Anti Flicker to Auto. File Index Mode should be Continuous.

All other settings are outside the scope of this article and you can learn about them at your leisure.

That takes care of the settings and they should not change even with a different battery.

BEFORE TAKE OFF

You should have everything fired up. On the Go App home screen underneath the battery percentage find a black oblong padlock with the letters AE. This is the control to lock your exposure value. Using the right hand exposure wheel on your controller set the exposure to EV 0. This value can be found in blue which is near enough under the symbol of your controller on the top bar and it is hard to see in daylight. Now tap the padlock in the oblong so that it the padlock and the letters AE change to a blue colour. This indicates that the camera exposure is locked. If you want to unlock it, the easiest way is to turn the exposure wheel on the controller so that you may change to a better exposure, and when you have done this don’t forget to tap the padlock to lock it again.

If you change from still shot to video then the padlock will unlock and your exposure value might change.

THE FOOTNOTE


I want to stress that this article is for non-photographic people like myself that just want to TOPAS and not be bothered about anything else.

I know that there are many more facets to P3 photography and suggestions for the above are welcome but, please, keep it simple and bear in mind that this IS NOT meant as a discussion. Many thanks.

Happy TOPAS,


Pete
Did those settings and thanks am happy with the quality
 
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One point I would make on the above, is that unless you re-name your files when you transfer them to your computer, having the File Index Mode set to Reset means that you are going to have an awful lot of files with the same reference number, which will make searching for a particular video/photo much harder at a later date.
Thank for pointing that out would of found out the hard way like you pointed out so cheers mate
 
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