POLL: What do you shoot, 1080, 2.7, or 4K?

[John Locke]

Where do I bought good filter? Any suggestions?

Polar Pro and Taco are two common suppliers. You can find them on Amazon. Beware that Polar Pro may not work with the DJI gimbal lock on P4 craft, due to a raised knurled edge that won't fit inside the gimbal lock. Polar Pro offers a modified gimbal lock, but it's a completely different design, not as effective IMO, it's just OK.

 

[SteelFlyer]

I shoot in 4K with my P4P and 2.7K with my Mavic as the 4K on the Mavic isn't very good. I use proxy workflow in Premiere and often render at 1080p. I always shoot 24fps. I like the 2.7 or 4K both to future proof my footage and to give me latitude in post to recompose or zoom.

 

[drumrocker365]

I shoot in 2.7k on my Phantom, and I typically render in 1080p unless it's a dedicated drone video. This is because my Canon t5i shoots in 1080p, so if I'm doing a vlog and including drone footage, it will ultimately be downscaled to 1080p. I do like knowing that I can crop in though and still have at least 1080p quality.

 

[Erised]

Last year when I got my P4 I was shooting 1080, and because my TV and then computer could only do 1080, at the time it seemed fine. Now that I have a kick *** laptop than can play 4K very well, I regret having shot in 1080 in the past, some of those videos' I may never get the chance to record again. The quality is so much better in 4K, when I render from 4K to 1080 or crop the quality is way better than if I recorded in 1080. Now because of the huge files and super video I just had to buy a good laptop and 2- 4TB portable hard drives, just HAD to..well that's what I told my wife and she said sure go for it. To put things in perspective her camera gear is worth more than my P4 and laptop combined. Now that inspire 2 has 2 cameras I tell her at least once a week that I see in the not to distant future I can just see her running the camera as I pilot. (that's not going so well, I think I am being blackmailed into doing lots of renovations to our house first before she even gives me a maybe! lol)

 

[MassDrone]

As soon as I got my P3P in January, I started shooting in 4K and editing in 1080. I like the option of cropping my shots, even a lot if needed, and lose nothing in the final rendition. I use Premiere CS on a MacPro with 24GB ram, 1.5 TB of SSD, and 12TB of HD.

 

[bsartist]

Shoot and render in 4k on my 27" 5k iMac. I really need to buy some more RAM since I only got the 8GB version, but right now using proxy media works just fine.

I buy my Macs with the minimum memory config and then add third party memory from OWC. More cost effective and perfectly good RAM. Mac Memory Upgrades from OWC

 

[macoman]

I buy my Macs with the minimum memory config and then add third party memory from OWC. More cost effective and perfectly good RAM. Mac Memory Upgrades from OWC

I have in my macpro ECC memory that are supposed to be for PC and works just fine and are cheaper as well.

 

[matti]

IMO there is not much difference in quality whether I shoot (P3P) UHD/4K or HD and view it on a 4K TV.

Yes, if I look very closely, UHD/4K output is slightly more detailed. But not much compared to the time to render it & HD space to store it (with FCP).

So I shoot UHD and output to HD. Shooting UHD allows me to straighten the horizon +-1-2° or crop with better quality than with HD input.

That said, I archive most of my (straight cut edited) original UHD P3P footage so I can re-edit it, if necessary.

 

[Samuraiz]

I think another category is in order since my answer is "it depends" I use all of the above depending on the project. If I am out scouting 1080 is fine.

 

[D Greg]

I shoot in 2.7k because that is the best my P3A camera will do. I can watch it in 2.k on my Samsung Galaxy Tab S, but on my computer I go down to 1080p to get a smooth playback. I can open on my Tab S and send to Roku on my 1080p TV and it looks great. I don't have a 4k TV, but would shoot in 4k if I had a 4k camera. I know it takes a lot of memory, but micro SD cards are cheap. One day I will have a 4k TV and can take advantage of the quality. I can always downgrade to watch, but can never upgrade after the video is taken. For now, 2.7k really looks good.
Who knows, maybe DJI will have a firmware upgrade to make my 2.7k a 4k.

 

[Palliz]

I shoot ONLY 1080P 30fps - The Mavic handles this beautifully & let's face it processing anything higher requires huge RAM which most folks just don't have. I bought the Mavic Pro for portability - I ALWAYS back my Laptop with me (16G RAM) Some clients request footage immediately so it's a no brainer. You do notice how most render their 4K/2.7K to 1080P right? Hey just my personal opinion but I don't have 4K tv or PC screen so 1080P is my preference. Good luck & enjoy your Mavic whatever settings you choose.

 

[gcoxusa]

I shoot in 1080p and 30fps all the time. Part of the reason is because I combine video clips from other cameras and this just makes it easier for me. However, I like the idea of shooting in 2.7k for cropping and zooming and will try that. I use Adobe Premiere for editing but it seems a little choppy with my GoPro clips at 1080. The GoPro Studio editor works well.

One interesting thing I noticed ... a friend of mine has a UHD television and was watching my YouTube video that was shot and rendered in 1080p. I noticed detail that I had not seen before. The quality seemed to be much improved just playing back on UHD. Perhaps there is some upscaling feature going on. Of course I realize it cannot add detail ... it just looked like it.

 

[driehl]

1080/60 very nice and workable

 

[David_Cambridge]

4K 4k. Transcode to ProRes on computer input. Once in ProRes, plays fine on early 2008 Mac, with 4k graphics card.

The visual differences range from slight to significant on 4k tv, depending on how close you sit to the screen, and what screen size. The average eye can resolve 1 arc minute, so you can calculate how much effect 4k vs hd will matter on your viewing environment.

 

[jayeverts]

I shoot in 4k and render in 1080. It gives you soon many more options during editing. Additionally, it saves a ton of time when rendering out. Besides that, even though 4k is out, there aren't a lot using it where these videos would be played. Most computer screens are still just 1080. Oylts like buying a Lamborghini to drive through school zones. For me, 4k rendered video is an upcharge.

 

[John Locke]

This poll surprised me. It's pretty even for shooting different resolutions, and all have good reason for why they select a higher resolutions. I expected less would shoot 4K due to the size of the file and FPS limitation. I personally like 1080 because it lets me zoom in more to see things closer while flying.

 

[macoman]

This poll surprised me. It's pretty even for shooting different resolutions, and all have good reason for why they select a higher resolutions. I expected less would shoot 4K due to the size of the file and FPS limitation. I personally like 1080 because it lets me zoom in more to see things closer while flying.

The key to a great quality video is to shoot at a higher resolution and then render that to 1080p. In final cut the final work looks gorgeous.

 

[skiptv]

2.7 is the best, it doesn't take up as much memory as 4K and it gives you options to pan and zoom or crop on an image as you done convert to 1080p. The only time you'll need 4K is if you are filming for a major motion picture, or Netflix. which require 4K. Currently ALL broadcast and cable networks stream in 1080p.... One last thing if you think its cool to post your 4K video to YouTube or Vimeo, its not, as that platform will automatically set the streaming speed for the end user, and 90% of the time its 1080p, last but not least you need a 4K monitor to see a 4K image, again, most people do not have 4K monitors.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Once you upgrade to a P4P at 100Mbs, 4K@60fps is the ticket. Get a 4K monitor for computer display to appreciate the quality difference, edit using 1080p proxies in Premiere Pro CC, and get a 4K TV that can play back uploaded 100Mbs 4K CBR (40) YouTube videos. Downscaled 1080p from 4K always looks better than shot in 1080p orginally, just like a RAW generated jpg looks better than an original camera jpg. You have much more latitude in post when you shoot with more detail to begin with. I have been shooting 4K 24fps at 60Mbs ever since the P3P over 2 years ago. The P4P really is a huge upgrade in quality! 4K for the win!

 

[A.L.E.X]

Not sure if others experience this, but my P4Ps 4K video has such bad Moire that I'm embarrassed to show the footage to people. After all, it's an expensive drone. I figure that I either have a unique issue with my particular model, or it's a generic design problem.