Exposure question

[Meta4]

So I need a ND filter to help the exposure issue?

No ... ND filters are of no use in still photography with a drone unless you have a particular reason for wanting a slower shutter speed.
All you need to do is get your exposure right.
Do a few test runs.

 

[dtmbizzle]

You’ll fail at any attempt to get both the land and sky in that one picture properly exposed since the sky is way brighter than the land. Take bracketed shots and do an HDR merge. Or just manually take 2shots, one exposed for the land and one for the sky, then merge them.

Lightroom and Photoshop do this and there’s other options out there too.

 

[Droner66]

Unfortunately they have specific criteria that you must follow. No auto exposure. No filt

 

[Droner66]

Filters and no post editing. They also have number of photos per rotation as well as degree of tilt so it was a no win situation imo. They have the shoot to another pilot but 2 days later they assigned it to me again. I declined it.

 

[ETC]

I was doing a panorama shoot for a company (not going to mention name). Their criteria includes no filters and you cannot use auto exposure. It was very bright and sunny. I had my ISO on 100 and to even see a view I had to set my SP to 1/'120. Here is a sample photo. They rejected my shoot for overexposed pictures. Any advice on how I can get a lower exposure. I was using D-Log also.

Any help is appreciated as I have to go re-shoot and will not be making any money but hopefully will get more jobs.

Thank you.

Droner66

Why would the client specify no filters or auto exposure? the job is to get them the images not for them to achieve this. A carpenter would not allow a customer to tell them what brand saws to use or what size nails for each task. I would do the shots as a pro would do and let them deal with high quality images. Or tell them to get lost.

 

[Osmosis]

Use a ND8 with polarizer - they would never know you used a filter.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NAPI3Z9/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[Droner66]

Thanks ETC

 

[Russ43Phantom]

Manual exposure with an ND filter should work. If images used for a pano are not exposed equally, work on each image in Lightroom or Photoshop to get all equally exposed before stitching.

 

[Tonny Turbo]

You can't take good photos with a Phantom 3, without a ND filter.

 

[Droner66]

I just send them the photos. They do the post work & stitching. They are concerned about the different exposures from the sky shots to the lower shots BUT they want the photos to look like it does irl. Doesn't make sense. I'll try to take 2 panos, one filtered and one without and see if they can tell.

 

[Bosco]

A good pano stitcher will compensate for auto-exposure, but I get the client's point, as it may still be noticeable.

If you don't mind diving deeper into pano stitching, you can blend images with different exposures. Plus, the result can be better. Basically use fixed exposure, but do it 3 or more times with different settings. (Google "HDR" for more info.)

1) Find a good "medium" exposure that gets most of the pano with reasonable results, i.e., the midrange is correctly exposed.
2) Take the pano with this setting.
3) Go up 3 (or even +5) exposure steps and repeat.
4) Go down 3 (or even -5) exposure steps and repeat.

(You can either take 3 panos in series, or take 3 images in series at every angle. There are pros and cons. The former is faster and lets you use the drone pano tool. The latter gives you an additional option of blending each angle first, before attempting the pano stitching.)

The result will be over and under exposed images, but hopefully all parts of the pano will have at least 1 image that gives a good result.

Now add all the images to the pano sticher and tell it to select the image(s) with the best exposures.

The result will be a fairly "flat" image, but all parts of the image show detail. In post-production, you can tweak things to add contrast back.

Fair warning that this takes a lot of work and doesn't always work out nicely. The multiple exposures take more time, so the scene has more time to change (clouds moving, etc). And you need a windless day, as winds move the branches, so the images will not line up exactly, causing "weird ghosting artifacts".)

You'll find HDR settings in the controller menu, but imho they do not take a large enough exposure step.

 

[kerrylaw7307]

They reason they do not want auto exposer is because the exposes will be different from image to image and when stitched in the pano, you can see it. If you use a polarizing filter you will see the different grades of polarization in the images, again noticeable in the pano. Neutral density filters do not have the same affect.

I agree. I don't consider a "Neutral density filter" as a "filter". Not in the sense that it changes anything like a polarizer, a graduated filter or some special effects filters do. A neutral density filter simply reduces the available light reaching the sensor. It also will not be affected by the angle of the sun. Think of them as simply "sunglasses" for your camera. Use an ND ...

 

[gudgeman]

It seems like you could just manually double the frame rate for shutter speed- use the appropriate ND filter to move the EV closer to zero- ND filter charts are readily available- still will be a tough sell as someone mentioned above with half the image being a bright cloudless sky

 

[Droner66]

Comparison.

6-10-2018

Copy & paste into browser. Having issues creating a link.

 

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

Do NOT use an ND filter. Those giving you that recommendation don't know what they're talking about.

Expose for the SKY. As one person said, there's too much to capture in one shot (exposure latitude), so expose for the sky and let your client recover the details in the shadow / foreground.

If they forbid auto and filters -- and will stitch themselves -- that means that they will also do the post-processing work. After the stitch, they can take the resulting image into software and lift up the exposure in the shadow areas to recover as much detail that exists there.

I've done a lot of AUTO shots with panos and I know what they're complaining about. Stitching software often takes care of it when blending, but not always.

What they're risking with a Phantom (which really can't do full manual) is having UNDER exposure, where areas of the foreground will be so dark that there will be no details to recover (much like there is no details in a blown-out sky to recover in OVER exposed images). They will also still have some blending issues even without full auto, because the camera will adjust as you change angles (the compensation dial can't stop that).

But they're calling the shots, eh?

Chris

 

[Droner66]

ISO:100/100
SS: 240/320
f/2.2
EV: Not sure but think it was 0.0/2.2

 

[Droner66]

Will try next pano fo expose for the sky. Thank you.

 

[Droner66]

Anyone know why I cannot set the top row angle using Lichi in pano settings?

 

[dtmbizzle]

You can't take good photos with a Phantom 3, without a ND filter.

False.

ND filters are pretty useless for photos unless you are going for a very specifc effect like smooth waterfalls, etc. all you need is to adjust shutter speed up/down. I think what you meant to say was you cant take good VIDEOS without ND filters... That i agree with.

 

[Tech]

Check in your settings menu for + 30 degrees and turn it on before each Pano shoot! It's usually off by default.

Anyone know why I cannot set the top row angle using Lichi in pano settings?
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