setting up and correct settings

Below what windspeeds would you recommend flying?

What would do you the most good is a forum search for "P4 wind speed"... look through the results and read the relevant threads.

For your convenience, CLICK HERE

Also, the information you seek is in the owner's manual.
 
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I also like SMOOOOTH turns and transitions. For that, I suggest shooting your videos in TRIPOD (intelligent flight mode.) As for exposure settings, there are MANY possibilities, filters, etc. I prefer shooting videos with a shutter speed of 60 fps and the AE (automatic exposure) on and unlocked. If something looks too dark/light, you can adjust that quickly using the right wheel. Remember that with AE on, a lot of sky in the frame will make the land appear darker. So as soon as I launch, I tilt the camera downward (moving the left wheel counterclockwise) until only about 1/8th of the screen is sky - then make [right wheel] brightness adjustments from there. Good luck. I agree with others that learning to fly the bird first is most important -- but this aircraft's camera is outstanding so I understand your eagerness to get on with it.
 
What would do you the most good is a forum search for "P4 wind speed"... look through the results and read the relevant threads.

For your convenience, CLICK HERE

Also, the information you seek is in the owner's manual.
So. I made my first flight. Fairly windy and when I went to 100-130 meters it did mention that there was high wind and 2x it mentioned to return asap. Other than that I did a couple of times the landing and lifting off procedures. then moving around (have both joysticks in my memory and is like gaming). So Im grasping that aspect quickly. I did some first drone shots while tracking myself or family while moving around and rotating around me while moving. Then some drone shots where the drone flies forward and then exponentially move upwards to lift above the forests and have the horizon in sight. Some fast and slow movements, a little peek in the Sports mode while being 6 meters above ground. And that is about it. Went through 2 batteries.
So that was that.

I do have my first questions after flying.
1. That test shot of mine where I was flying forward and exponentially going upwards over the forests. I know that the shoulder rotating buttong is to tilt the gimbal. But how do I change the field of view? You know those drone shots where shots widen and subjects suddenly end up further away and so on.

2. next week Im going on vacation and I will have everything there is. Sea, islands, vast towering mountains, and so on. I already carefully picked my positions of where I want to take my shots of layering mountains and valleys and/or islands and waters. alot of these shots will be on slopes of mountains. These areas are also forested but Im sure I can find enough places besides roads or mountain fields to lift off. But ehm. Any recommendations of how to approach this in the most safest way? I mean. If there is no wind I do want to take my drone to 200+ meters above my position on a mountain at low to zero wind conditions, but right now Im doing my tests in one of the flattest countries on earth. And that is different from countries with 80% mountains. So how will I take off and fly with the drone in the most safest way? Also taking into account that Im not 100% sure how the "Return home" will react when I would say that the return altitude is 30m or 120 m high compared to myself, when mountains around me are 2000 meters above my position.

3. I had the idea that in camera settings I was selecting my exposure to be manual with some settings, but later when I checked again it was set to A (automatic) again. Is there anything I was doing wrong? or was it just by accident.

4. Also. Can I rotate slower to the left or the right other than pushing the left joystick less hard to the left and right?

5. Also I have not concluded it yet. But how do I get the smoothest gimbal tilt?
I Set the gimbal settings like:
Enable upwards Gimbal tilt limit to 30: on
Gimbal pitch smoothness: 22.
But is all this controlled by the left rotating shoulder button? or are you guys controlling the gimbal tilt in a different way while flying?
 
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If you really need to fly at higher altitudes in stronger winds try and fly into the wind when venturing out, it might be the difference between whether you can fly home or not

1. Fly backwards or reverse forward flight in post. The AC does not have a zoom lens.

2. RTH is relative to launch point. Launch point is altitude zero.

3. Probably.

4. You can try extending the skyicks (longer throw) and playing with the gain and expo settings. Using the thumb and pointing finger to pinch the sticks should give finer control.

5. No. The exception being autonomous flight with autopilot, litchi etc.

btw- you may like to try and get your posts a little shorter. A lot of people won’t bother reading novel style posts.

There is nothing you have asked here that hasn’t been answered dozens of times. The search function is your friend.
 
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Ok. More to the point.
Do i want AFC on? Auto focus continuous. Or do I want to do this manually. I googled about afc, but one answer was that its great to focus manually or else it continuously refocuses... So im wondering. Also if manual is better, then what do I need to disable/enable?
I also see things like AF and MF focus assistant. Confusing
 
Unless your flying really close to your subject manual focus is your best bet. Set close to infinity will give you good depth of field with good overall sharpness. With autofocus assist on when you tap to focus in auto mode or hit the focus ring in manual the screen will automatically zoom in (magnify) so you can better set sharp focus.
 
Wow interesting info right there. And how do you focus?
I use the default focus where the green square can be moved to the subject and the camera focuses with a half squeeze of the shutter button.
Because of the large depth of field, exact placement of the green square isn't critical unless shooting close.
Regarding your land photo's with the mountains and valley's. Where is this made? And I see also some panorama shots. Is the drone able to make those? or did you just rotate around an shot every second or so.
The mountains were in New Zealand's South Island.
The DJI app and some others have an automated panorama function.
I prefer to shoot panoramas manually because it's simpler, faster and I have more control.
Below what windspeeds would you recommend flying? As you made enough aerial photographies to know what the P4P can handle. Also. My weather report says its beaufort 3. But Im not certain in which context this is measured. Is this on the ground, and is this different lets say100 meters higher? To take note: in my area where I live everything is flat.
Wind is always going to be stronger up high than at ground level.
The Phantom has the ability to hold position in winds to around 15 metres/sec but you might have trouble launching in that wind and you would definitely have trouble flying against wind of that strength.
The most important thing about flying in windy conditions is the direction of the wind.
I have flown in 11 metres/sec for important shots but only by flying slowly into the wind to start because it's easy to come home with a strong tailwind but fighting a strong headwind to come home is an easy way to lose your drone.

1. But how do I change the field of view? You know those drone shots where shots widen and subjects suddenly end up further away and so on.
The lens has a fixed focal length so this is not possible.
2. Also taking into account that Im not 100% sure how the "Return home" will react when I would say that the return altitude is 30m or 120 m high compared to myself, when mountains around me are 2000 meters above my position.
RTH is one of the most important things for a new pilot to learn and understand.
The day you need RTH is the worst day to learn how it works.
Go to a large open area and experiment with RTH (you will have to fly more than 20 metres away).
Make sure you learn how to cancel RTH and resume control too.
3. I had the idea that in camera settings I was selecting my exposure to be manual with some settings, but later when I checked again it was set to A (automatic) again. Is there anything I was doing wrong? or was it just by accident.
The camera settings should stick to whatever you set.
Are you sure you were using automatic?
In the Phantom settings Automatic is abbreviated to Auto .
A = Aperture Priority, S = Shutter Priority and M = Manual
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4. Also. Can I rotate slower to the left or the right other than pushing the left joystick less hard to the left and right?
5. Also I have not concluded it yet. But how do I get the smoothest gimbal tilt?
If you are interested in making videos, it's usually a good practice to avoid rotating the camera or tilting the gimbal as much as possible.
Look at Hollywood movies and you won't see much of it. Look at bad home videos and you see lots.
If you have to, make the camera movements as gentle as possible.
 
Wow... 130m for your first flight in windy conditions and 200m planned for the second when you are away in turf you are presumably not familiar with, perhaps take things a bit slower and learn the basics otherwise your planned trip might end in tears.
I've been flying for a year now and have yet to venture anywhere near 200m or have found the reason to do so.
Flying high on one's first flights is clearly a newbie trait and not worth the risk. More importantly there's so much else to master such as RTH.
 
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I will second the comment (or maybe “third” since I mentioned it in one of my earlier posts ;-) ) to play with the EXP setting on yaw so you can get slow pans with little stick input. If you set it properly then a little stick movement will yield slow pan. And the more you push it the faster it will go.

Also, sounds like you found the gimbal sensitivity. That’s key too. If your tilts are too fast then either you haven’t dampened it enough in the settings or you just need more practice with that wheel.
 
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Hello everyone,

Yesterday I received my Phantom 4 pro Drone and have not flown yet as I find the most important part right now to have everything set correctly. I watched some videos from experienced users from whom I loved the quality in their video's and took over strongly recommended settings. Important to note is that my goal is having 4k footage in the highest possible quality coming out of this drone.

From them so far I have things like:
Video Settings
Compression:
MP4 compression (Windows based)
White balance: Custom 5700k (auto = not ideal. It changes constantly)
Style: Best is Custom with settings -2, 0, -2 or -1, 0, -1.
Color: Best recommended setting is D-Cinelike.
Encoding format: H.265 is slightly better but needs fairly strong PC. Which I have. And H.265 does a better compression, thus less taking up space while retaining the same quality. So H.265 is generally recommended

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Photo settings
Image ratio
either 4:3 or 16:9. But 16:9 is perhaps best because it matches the video format
Image format: RAW
White balance: Custom 5700k
Color: D-Cinelike

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Main Settings

Histogram: On
Lock Gimbal while shooting: On
grid on, having a pointer on, etc.


But what I am not sure about yet and to which I ask you guys help with is the following:

1. Regarding Manual or automatic exposure control settings (ISO, aperture, Exposure, etc.)
So far I have been answered with that the best is to have it manual, and keep the ISO at 100.
The exposure does change as light changes. But what kind of shutter speed settings should I use then in a setup like this? Because in this case the shutter speed is then used to set the exposure right?
Also I'm not familiar with Shutter speed in general. Should shutter speeds have different settings when capturing in 30fps and 60 fps?

2. Another thing is. I mentioned 4k is the resolution to film on. But in my mind I think of capturing it in 60fps in stead of 30 because I want my motion to be as smooth as possible. But I see some of these users who captured great footages from the Phanom 4 pro drone, but then in 30 fps. So I am a bit confused in my initial feel of what I should go for. 30 or 60 fps? Visual quality should stay the same right? but one more smooth?

3. Also. I noticed filming in 4k 60fps is not possible with H.265, only in H.264. Are these formats quality wise the same? I know that H.265 should make file sizes smaller than H.264

4. As mentioned. I have not flown yet as I am mostly concerned with the settings at the moment.
But I do have questions.
-What is your preferred flying mode? Do you fly everything manually? My goal is to have the most smoothest cinematic like landscape video's.
-So would you use way points?
-And can I use way points and "script"/"animate" the field of view and tilting?

5. last question. What can you do with the Histogram when it's set to on?

thanks alot in advance guys.

Start here, and never, ever change it:

App: v4.0.8
Aircraft: v1.3.509
Remote: v01.04.01.00
Precise Fly Safe database: v00.00.01.04 Original: v01.00.01.07
Basic Fly Safe database: v00.00.01.04 Original: v01.00.01.05

Turn off all the Object Avoidance. Avoid your own objects.

Rock solid, time-tested, field-tested.

Good luck.
 
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