What video setting for less work in post?

[DroningOnAndOn]

I'm going away and will likely be editing footage I plan to shoot on an iPad or a lightweight PC (surface pro). I won't have as much control for editing (iPad) or much graphic horsepower (surface) so I was wondering if shooting in normal or art etc rather than dlog and cinelike might provide good results.

This will be on a P3P and P4P.

If it's going to destroy my footage for the future I'll stick with cinelike/dlog but if I'm going to still get solid results and the footage will still be very usable in the future I'll try that.

It'll mostly be daylight shots of beaches and rainforests.

 

[Techcop50]

90% of the time I use the default settings, but I'm not using my content "professionally".
Just my 2 cents...

 

[Tomas Wangen]

I'm going away and will likely be editing footage I plan to shoot on an iPad or a lightweight PC (surface pro). I won't have as much control for editing (iPad) or much graphic horsepower (surface) so I was wondering if shooting in normal or art etc rather than dlog and cinelike might provide good results.

This will be on a P3P and P4P.

If it's going to destroy my footage for the future I'll stick with cinelike/dlog but if I'm going to still get solid results and the footage will still be very usable in the future I'll try that.

It'll mostly be daylight shots of beaches and rainforests.

Normal / none and dCinelike are both good options for minimal post. Dcinelike has a hint more recoverable shadows.

Dlog is unusable without toning in post.

H264 is much less demanding on hardware and software than h265

 

[John Locke]

I'm going away and will likely be editing footage I plan to shoot on an iPad or a lightweight PC (surface pro). I won't have as much control for editing (iPad) or much graphic horsepower (surface) so I was wondering if shooting in normal or art etc rather than dlog and cinelike might provide good results.

I personally like "True Color" but "none" works OK too. I shoot MP4, 1080 @ 60FPS for general purpose use. It's easy to edit and post, and the results are generally very good for most viewers, since most have is 1080 displays. The 60FPS is used in case I want to slow down a scene, but I rarely do that.

IMO, 4K is too much hassle for travel. It takes too much space in the SD card, difficult to edit (impossible to edit with your planned iPad or Surface), and although 4K looks totally awesome if done right, the extra clarity isn't as impressive as good composition of your video capture, mastering smooth moves, cinematic framing with reveals and golden hour lighting with correct exposure. Good POIs help too!

I highly recommend you test your editing method before you travel. You might have surprises that you'll need to address first.

 

[DroningOnAndOn]

Cheers guys! I did some tests yesterday with the props off and none, true colour and cinelike produced nice footage straight off the camera that would likely require less work post.

I did a bit of reading and realised I can use proxies in Premiere Pro to make the footage actually editable on my Surface! That will be fantastic though I'll have to set it rendering during the night to have a job ready for editing.

Surprisingly, an iPad Air 2 can edit 2.7K @ 60FPS without issue; I haven't tried 4K yet but I think it'll do a pretty reasonable job. I think my iPhone 7+ will do that fine ironically.

My issue with 1080P is that the P3P looks like a smooshed mess at these settings. I shot the other day (overcast, mid afternoon) with the P3P in dlog and the footage is garbage (I struggled to get it even useable in post). At 4K in nice light it's pretty decent but the P4P footage at 1080P was light years better than the P3P in the same conditions. Leaves on trees were sharp at 1080P on the P4P where the P3P was blurred and smeared and indistinct. The P4P has a seriously good camera!

How do you guys go about exposure? Do you always use manual settings with the video?

It's a struggle to fly carefully and smoothly and shoot interesting footage whilst simultaneously attempting to manually control the camera setting especially where you only get a single shot at something. For example, I shot a steam train coming past the other day and had a grand total of 30-40 seconds of contact time. I was lucky to just get the couple of shots I wanted as it zoomed past and I wouldn't have time to try manual and hope everything came out.