D-Cinelike on the P4P -- a tutorial

[Raptorman0909]

I've posted a couple videos on the P4P's camera and have been very critical of DJI's image processing, but I have also gotten some pretty good video out of it and wanted to post something a bit more hopeful. So, on my second day out with the P4P I made two flight totally 37 minutes and I put them together to make a rather long video to demonstrate some flying techniques and video techniques that I think should be helpful to the novice and maybe even some of the more experienced drone pilots and aerial videographers. So, check out this new video as I think it should help allay some of the fears about video quality.

The video is rather long but I wanted the viewer to see the whole process from start to finish and to see how you can make dynamic changes in-flight.

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Brian

 

[richr]

I watched thru most of this video (I noticed it this morning on YouTube before you posted here) and I'd like to thank you for your discussion. I have a couple questions, if you don't mind.

I did not notice what your video settings were: 4K, 30fps, h.265, etc? Did I miss that?

More importantly is your discussion of exposure. You seemed to indicate that you were in Aperture priority with fixed ISO and were adjusting shutter speed. That seems at odds with the general 180 degree rule for video. I would expect Shutter priority or possibly Manual exposure. But conventional wisdom says for 30fps shutter speed should be 1/60 second and for 60fps it would be 1/120 second.

In spite of what many have said about not needing an ND filter I suspect that will not be the case. I plan on getting at least one ND filter to help manage that. On my only test flight (on a fairly bright day) I was shooting at 1/60 second (h.265 so 30fps), ISO 100 and at f11 was still slightly over exposed.

I have an RX100 and an RX10 so I'm very familiar with this sensor size and unless you are very close (not likely in a drone) depth of field is not going to be that much of an issue. I have not really had much opportunity to get out with mine and run similar experiments so I value your insights.

Have you had a chance to compare h.265 with h.264?

 

[Raptorman0909]

I shot in 4k UHD at 30 fps and this video was with H.264. I used full manual exposure with aperture locked throughout at f/6.3 and the ISO at 100. My shutter speed varied from about 1/100 to 1/400 depending on whether I was heading towards or away from the Sun.

I also plan to get an ND8 and an ND16 filter to have more options for shutter speed and aperture.

With only a couple days and three flights I have not been able to etst everything and my first flight using H.265 and D-Log was terrible so I decided to use H.264 and D-Cinelike for this video -- with much better results.

I need to go back to H.265 to see if it is a problem with, say, D-Cinelike -- perhaps the image processing problem DJI is having is more related to H.265, I don't know.


Brian

 

[Dronefriend]

Is that ungraded footage Brian? Looks amazing. Such a beautiful place to film as well. Perfect exposure. The skyline with the mountains and the clouds are just lovely. What were your settings for sharp/con/sat?

 

[Dronefriend]

Is that ungraded footage Brian? Looks amazing. Such a beautiful place to film as well. Perfect exposure. The skyline with the mountains and the clouds are just lovely. What were your settings for sharp/con/sat?

Edit: I was thinking, "I wonder how that would look in D-Cinelike considering Andreis thoughts on how it might lift just the lowest shadows but stay fairly neutral in midtones and highs". Then I saw the thread title and was "Duh"

Nice! Definitely think Cinelike may be the way to go. I will give Art a try myself too. I figure, the main problem with action cameras and smaller sensor cameras like these is that they too often, unless avoided in grading, make the darkest parts of the image an absolute black. We very rarely see true blacks in reality and in movies, there's always detail unless utterly dark. Which is never is.

With that said, using Cinelike and exposuring for a compromise between sky and subject, you should be able to put a Power window on the sky and just push down those highlight, leaving a good exposure for subject.

 

[Raptorman0909]

Is that ungraded footage Brian? Looks amazing. Such a beautiful place to film as well. Perfect exposure. The skyline with the mountains and the clouds are just lovely. What were your settings for sharp/con/sat?

Edit: I was thinking, "I wonder how that would look in D-Cinelike considering Andreis thoughts on how it might lift just the lowest shadows but stay fairly neutral in midtones and highs". Then I saw the thread title and was "Duh"

Nice! Definitely think Cinelike may be the way to go. I will give Art a try myself too. I figure, the main problem with action cameras and smaller sensor cameras like these is that they too often, unless avoided in grading, make the darkest parts of the image an absolute black. We very rarely see true blacks in reality and in movies, there's always detail unless utterly dark. Which is never is.

With that said, using Cinelike and exposuring for a compromise between sky and subject, you should be able to put a Power window on the sky and just push down those highlight, leaving a good exposure for subject.

This video has been graded a bit but not much. I mention in the video that I used 30 in PP for sharpening and that I also used 115 for saturation. I also used a bit of 'curves' but because to the overcast lighting instead of dragging the curve histogram to the right as is more typical I had to push it a bit left to brighten the midrange tones. I also mention in the video that is used a custom setting with sharpness, contrast and saturation at -2, -2, -2. I don't think I mentioned but should have that in the video I used H.264.

This was just my second day out with the P4P so I'm still getting a handle on the handling and feel of flying. My first trip out I used D-Log and H.265 for my first flight and was planning to use the same settings but switch to H.264 for the second flight to compare, but the gimbal fritzed out on me so I was unable to do the second flight.

So, the video was really to first of all calm the nerves of those that have been hearing bad things about the P4P camera, including some highly negative comments from me, that you can get good video. And, in addition I wanted to provide a kind of tutorial on flying and making adjustments in-flight and it's for that reason the video is as long as it is.


brian

 

[Raptorman0909]

I watched thru most of this video (I noticed it this morning on YouTube before you posted here) and I'd like to thank you for your discussion. I have a couple questions, if you don't mind.

I did not notice what your video settings were: 4K, 30fps, h.265, etc? Did I miss that?

More importantly is your discussion of exposure. You seemed to indicate that you were in Aperture priority with fixed ISO and were adjusting shutter speed. That seems at odds with the general 180 degree rule for video. I would expect Shutter priority or possibly Manual exposure. But conventional wisdom says for 30fps shutter speed should be 1/60 second and for 60fps it would be 1/120 second.

In spite of what many have said about not needing an ND filter I suspect that will not be the case. I plan on getting at least one ND filter to help manage that. On my only test flight (on a fairly bright day) I was shooting at 1/60 second (h.265 so 30fps), ISO 100 and at f11 was still slightly over exposed.

I have an RX100 and an RX10 so I'm very familiar with this sensor size and unless you are very close (not likely in a drone) depth of field is not going to be that much of an issue. I have not really had much opportunity to get out with mine and run similar experiments so I value your insights.

Have you had a chance to compare h.265 with h.264?

In post #6 I mention that on my first day of flying I used D-Log and H.265 and was planning to do a second flight with D-Log and H.264 to see if there was a difference between H.265 and H.264, but the gimbal sh!t the bed so I was unable to do the second flight and test D-Log with H.264. When I looked at the video using D-Log I was really bummed as I was expecting D-Log to be the preferred color profile.


Brian

 

[KevMo Photog]

Looks great man! Neat old mill too! Some good tips in there too Raptorman!

 

[Raptorman0909]

Looks great man! Neat old mill too! Some good tips in there too Raptorman!

Thanks KevMo!


Brian

 

[Lucaxel]

I can watch this sort of education for hours! Many thanks for this!!

 

[KevMo Photog]

Thanks KevMo!


Brian

So do you feel like the best way to go is with the D-cinelike setting for video? I will color grade later with Premier Pro btw.

 

[F3honda4me]

From what I saw in another thread it seems like none is better than art or cinelike and -1/0/0 or -2/0/0 is best.

 

[Raptorman0909]

From what I saw in another thread it seems like none is better than art or cinelike and -1/0/0 or -2/0/0 is best.

Perhaps, but if DJI is bad handling contrast with there color profiles it stands to reason that there handling of contrast with there custom contrast setting will be no better. Also, I'm convinced sharpening should be lowered to either -1 or -2 and that saturation should also be lowered to -1 or -2 -- the default sharpening and saturation values are too high for my taste and an overly sharp image requires more data to compress than one that isn't so sharpened. I'd rather use my bitrate bandwidth to record actual detail and not waste it on synthetic detail -- the data needed to compress the overly sharp image leaves less to compress the actual detail so using a sharper image actually degrades IQ because it robs data to do so leaving less for the actual detail.


Brian

 

[Carltonart]

fantastic! Thanks for sharing, I noticed it didn't look like you were constantly re focusing, care to share the secret? did you just focus in the middle and let it go?

 

[Raptorman0909]

fantastic! Thanks for sharing, I noticed it didn't look like you were constantly re focusing, care to share the secret? did you just focus in the middle and let it go?

I replied in the comments section of the video but the short answer is the only time I actually focused the camera was almost at the very end. Turns out the camera was pretty close to spot on. For a more complete answer check the video again for my comment.


Brian

 

[Raptorman0909]

I can watch this sort of education for hours! Many thanks for this!!

Thanks, I appreciate that...


Brian

 

[Andrei V]

So do you feel like the best way to go is with the D-cinelike setting for video? I will color grade later with Premier Pro btw.

KevMo, you really need to do a bit of testing for yourself to see what works best for your needs and workflow. . I think None and Dcinelike are probably the most promising color profiles. Hopefully some day DJI will push out a firmware update that gives us a true logarithmic mode to preserve more dynamic range.

For now, you just have to be very careful with your exposure -- watch your histogram and zebras, make an artistic decision about what parts of the image you're ok having blown out or clipped.

 

[h3nno]

Is it better to adjust exposure on the fly vs aperture? I'm new to the world of manual mode videos so not sure which is best.

 

[F3honda4me]

Perhaps, but if DJI is bad handling contrast with there color profiles it stands to reason that there handling of contrast with there custom contrast setting will be no better. Also, I'm convinced sharpening should be lowered to either -1 or -2 and that saturation should also be lowered to -1 or -2 -- the default sharpening and saturation values are too high for my taste and an overly sharp image requires more data to compress than one that isn't so sharpened. I'd rather use my bitrate bandwidth to record actual detail and not waste it on synthetic detail -- the data needed to compress the overly sharp image leaves less to compress the actual detail so using a sharper image actually degrades IQ because it robs data to do so leaving less for the actual detail.


Brian

Thanks, I see what you mean.

 

[CleethorpesKid]

I've posted a couple videos on the P4P's camera and have been very critical of DJI's image processing, but I have also gotten some pretty good video out of it and wanted to post something a bit more hopeful. So, on my second day out with the P4P I made two flight totally 37 minutes and I put them together to make a rather long video to demonstrate some flying techniques and video techniques that I think should be helpful to the novice and maybe even some of the more experienced drone pilots and aerial videographers. So, check out this new video as I think it should help allay some of the fears about video quality.

The video is rather long but I wanted the viewer to see the whole process from start to finish and to see how you can make dynamic changes in-flight.

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Brian

Thanks for sharing