Fixing a drifting horizon in post production

[jmagee]

My P3A has developed a tilted horizon that drifts, ie, the tilt changes according to the aircraft's heading. Looking at the various threads on this problem, it seems insoluble, so the only thing open to me is to fix the horizon tilt in post production. But I have two questions here;

1) As this is a drifting tilt, the video as the craft turns will show a horizon tilt that gradually changes. Is there any software that will 'follow' such a change, and keep the horizon straight as the tilt changes? Or do you have to go through the video virtually frame by frame, cropping at a slightly different angle each time?

2) It's often said that one advantage of 4K is that you can crop a tilted horizon and still have lots of image left. But my P4A doesn't have 4K. Is straightening a tilted horizon problematical when you don't have 4K?

 

[AerialZ]

My P3A has developed a tilted horizon that drifts, ie, the tilt changes according to the aircraft's heading. Looking at the various threads on this problem, it seems insoluble, so the only thing open to me is to fix the horizon tilt in post production. But I have two questions here;

Have you adjusted your gimbal while in flight through the R/C? This is the place to start with the infamous horizon issues before we start talking about corrections in post...

1) As this is a drifting tilt, the video as the craft turns will show a horizon tilt that gradually changes. Is there any software that will 'follow' such a change, and keep the horizon straight as the tilt changes? Or do you have to go through the video virtually frame by frame, cropping at a slightly different angle each time?

You didn't mention what editor you're using but many share similar functions. In Premiere Pro, you could use keyframes to correct horizon tilt if you must keep footage of yawing with a skewed horizon. This will automate the process somewhat, but still requires that you crop the footage and adjust tilt to even it out. In the professional world, many aerial videographers avoid instances where they are 'yawing' in important footage. Why? There's a whole host of different reasons... changing lighting conditions/exposures, horizon abnormalities, etc. I could go on and on.

2) It's often said that one advantage of 4K is that you can crop a tilted horizon and still have lots of image left. But my P4A doesn't have 4K. Is straightening a tilted horizon problematical when you don't have 4K?

This is a big part of the reason why you should shoot in 2.7K and output to 1080. You still have some room to work with when cropping, just not quite as much as 4K. In this case, it really depends on where the horizon falls on your composition.

 

[jmagee]

Concerning the editor I'm using - at the moment, none!

Ever since I got my P4A, all I've been doing is shooting videos, transferring them to my laptop for safekeeping, then looking at them. I was going to look into video editors later, when I'd built up a number of video. It is only this tilted horizon problem that has got me thinking about video editors. To be honest, I find the matter of video editors and which one to choose rather daunting because I have never edited a video in my life.

As to adjusting my gimbal in flight using the RC, I had no idea you could do this. My gimbal is set on 'follow' rather than 'fpv' by the way.

 

[flowrider]

I find that I have to plan my shots in editing more carefully. Long extended shots are tough because you can only adjust the horizon once during the scene. If you introduce a cutaway then back to a scene with horizon then you can't see the horizon adjustment. This is all my preference though as I can't stand anything sort of jerky camera movement when I'm editing video unless I planned it. Look into Adobe Premier Elements to start off with. It's relatively easy to use and cheap.

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