Get rid of the props in your Gopro Footage.

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I am pretty new to the world of Gopro and mine is the Hero 3+ Black Edition.

I am carrying out flight tests to decide which camera settings look the best to me so that I can pick my favourites and be ready for the summer. I edit using Final Cut Pro X.

I like to shoot my video with the Gopro camera facing up in its highest setting as this minimises the fisheye effect. The trouble with this is you often see the props in the frame.

Damm those Props !!!

You may have heard people talking about shooting in 2.7K and then cropping the video. Here are some examples of this. The first video shows the view as it came out of the camera.

Note the max resolution in the forum player is 720p. To watch in 1080p open them in Youtube.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIuulfXEc4s[/youtube]

The second clip has zoomed and the frame repositioned within FCPX to eliminate the props. It has also been stabilised using FCPX default stabilisation. The Y value refers to the Y-axis value which moves the frame upwards. There is a sweet spot which minimises the amount you have to zoom the image and those 2 values are shown.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FieaPUOYl9o[/youtube]

I like that ultra wide screen look that is becoming popular on the web and so the final example has additional cropping applied to make it look more widescreen.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdTMCU4hWUQ[/youtube]


The video was shot in 2.7K wide field of view with Protune turned on. Protune gives you a very flat rather fuzzy image which needs further work in your editor. I currently like 2 plugging for FCPX from a company called Crumplepop. They make a fisheye removal tool and an HDR editor for Gopro which can really bring out the detail in your video. The effects are fully customisable. In the examples above on the HDR effect has been applied. The fisheye was not needed as the camera is in the optimum position.

I will now conduct similar tests using other Gopro settings and share anything of interest here.

Shrimpy
 
2K medium FOV. No props pretty much ever. If you look at the video I just put up, I was moving that Phantom pretty hard! Prop shadows, now that's a different story. I need a sun visor. That and I need to remember to put the ND filter back on when filming out in the desert at 3PM!
 
ianwood said:
2K medium FOV. No props pretty much ever. If you look at the video I just put up, I was moving that Phantom pretty hard! Prop shadows, now that's a different story. I need a sun visor. That and I need to remember to put the ND filter back on when filming out in the desert at 3PM!

What frame rate are you guys shooting in 2k?

...Skeeter
since 1960....
 
skeeter said:
ianwood said:
2K medium FOV. No props pretty much ever. If you look at the video I just put up, I was moving that Phantom pretty hard! Prop shadows, now that's a different story. I need a sun visor. That and I need to remember to put the ND filter back on when filming out in the desert at 3PM!

What frame rate are you guys shooting in 2k?

...Skeeter
since 1960....

I am PAL so 2.7K shoots at 25fps. This is one of its drawbacks as you can't really slow it down.
 
How about using 1440? and then you have the option of tilting up and down by quite a decent amount in FCPX when you need to i.e. when you perform extreme manoeuvres. When you import it use the fill function BTW.
 
Hey, thanks for the heads-up. Very useful information. I'm planning on buying some decent editing software soon. All I currently have is the Gopro version and MS Movie Maker.
 
Shrimpfarmer said:
I am PAL so 2.7K shoots at 25fps. This is one of its drawbacks as you can't really slow it down.

Everything you have should support both PAL and NTSC, so you could switch if you wanted to shoot 30p. FCPX, Vimeo, Youtube, etc. don't care about the difference.
 
Shrimpfarmer said:
I am pretty new to the world of Gopro and mine is the Hero 3+ Black Edition.

I am carrying out flight tests to decide which camera settings look the best to me so that I can pick my favourites and be ready for the summer. I edit using Final Cut Pro X.

I like to shoot my video with the Gopro camera facing up in its highest setting as this minimises the fisheye effect. The trouble with this is you often see the props in the frame.

Damm those Props !!!

You may have heard people talking about shooting in 2.7K and then cropping the video. Here are some examples of this. The first video shows the view as it came out of the camera.

Note the max resolution in the forum player is 720p. To watch in 1080p open them in Youtube.

The second clip has zoomed and the frame repositioned within FCPX to eliminate the props. It has also been stabilised using FCPX default stabilisation. The Y value refers to the Y-axis value which moves the frame upwards. There is a sweet spot which minimises the amount you have to zoom the image and those 2 values are shown.

I like that ultra wide screen look that is becoming popular on the web and so the final example has additional cropping applied to make it look more widescreen.

The video was shot in 2.7K wide field of view with Protune turned on. Protune gives you a very flat rather fuzzy image which needs further work in your editor. I currently like 2 plugging for FCPX from a company called Crumplepop. They make a fisheye removal tool and an HDR editor for Gopro which can really bring out the detail in your video. The effects are fully customisable. In the examples above on the HDR effect has been applied. The fisheye was not needed as the camera is in the optimum position.

I will now conduct similar tests using other Gopro settings and share anything of interest here.

Shrimpy

Don't forget about flying "backwards" too. Your P2 will lean away from the props as opposed to leaning into them from the camera's perspective. It works pretty well for me. :)
 
lgeist said:
Don't forget about flying "backwards" too. Your P2 will lean away from the props as opposed to leaning into them from the camera's perspective. It works pretty well for me. :)

And then you can run the clip backwards when editing if need be.
 
Visioneer said:
lgeist said:
Don't forget about flying "backwards" too. Your P2 will lean away from the props as opposed to leaning into them from the camera's perspective. It works pretty well for me. :)

And then you can run the clip backwards when editing if need be.

Its an excellent suggestion and I have used the reverse a number of times. The only downside is if you have anything moving within the frame like people, cars or even wildlife it gives the game away.

I was out this morning conducting more tests. I selected all the resolutions and recorded fast forward flight with each. Going to edit it together so people can see how each perform.
 
I have completed the remainder of the resolution tests and these are the results. Volume warning on the first video as I forgot to reduce the sound of the motors in the edit. I left the motors audio in so you can hear its being worked hard.

720p Tests

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wIYRXZ6DwI[/youtube]

1080p Tests

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ288OBM1Ps[/youtube]

1440p Test

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXZk5Uannv0[/youtube]

2.7K Tests

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTkT-9gF3vk[/youtube]

Despite the different resolutions recorded all the above clips were edited in FCPX and exported as 1080p clips to Youtube. The pictures were all shot using Protune. The crumplepop HDR filter was applied to all of them to sharpen the picture up for clarity.

Wind conditions were still.
 
Reduce gimbal angle upper limit so you can't see props at all?

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk
 
pault said:
Another solution would be to just cut a couple of inches off the end of the props ;)
We really need an "I'm joking/sarcasm" font. You know somebody's going to want to know how many inches they can cut off and still fly. :roll:
 
Visioneer said:
pault said:
Another solution would be to just cut a couple of inches off the end of the props ;)
We really need an "I'm joking/sarcasm" font. You know somebody's going to want to know how many inches they can cut off and still fly. :roll:
Yeah, agree. It did cross my mind - stupid post, sorry (cannot even blame the sauce as I was stone cold sober :))
 
Well having played around with all the various footage there is still only one way to go. 2.7K medium, zoom and crop in post if necessary.

I didn't know how much to cut off the blades Pault so I did one inch off one, two inches off the next and 3 & 4 inches off of the last two. It flew crazy man and didn't seem to make any improvement at all......are you sure this is right? :?
 
pault said:
Visioneer said:
pault said:
Another solution would be to just cut a couple of inches off the end of the props ;)
We really need an "I'm joking/sarcasm" font. You know somebody's going to want to know how many inches they can cut off and still fly. :roll:
Yeah, agree. It did cross my mind - stupid post, sorry (cannot even blame the sauce as I was stone cold sober :))

No, not a stupid post ... I got a chuckle, most will. Your smiley should've clued the clueless.

Then there's this (go to the 6:50 mark) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2itwFJCgFQ
 

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