Hello Fellow Yuneec Pilot!
Join our free Yuneec community and remove this annoying banner!
Sign up

Massachusetts from the air.

Joined
May 7, 2020
Messages
372
Reaction score
321
Fall in Mass montage. Would love some constructive feedback. I’m still plugging away hoping each vid is better than the last.


Im tip toeing into pan and zoom on my video editor and I’ve tried a few times (not in this video) but haven’t had a whole lot of success. So looking forward to start incorporating that in my videos when I start picking it up. Would also like to start putting more thought into music choices and matching the sounds up to the imagery. I tried that in one section of this video while flying over the stadium at a section of an airy part of the music, but would like to incorporate that more and really giving it thought. Until then, hope you somewhat enjoy the subject matter.



 
I have seen all your latest videos. You have a special talent for going over subjects or around or through them. Lots of gutsy moves. At 1:21 , tower almost scares you as a viewer. Very fun to watch your videos. You are gonna go places with these. Keep up with the excitement but be careful w the rone EH!!! Keith C.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rubik and Docdor
I have seen all your latest videos. You have a special talent for going over subjects or around or through them. Lots of gutsy moves. At 1:21 , tower almost scares you as a viewer. Very fun to watch your videos. You are gonna go places with these. Keep up with the excitement but be careful w the rone EH!!! Keith C.

Thank you for the compliment, I appreciate it. I’m glad you caught that (gutsy shots), that’s what I go for..somewhat gutsy or at least interesting and/or exciting. I’m trying to be gutsy without being dangerous or illegal. Virtually all of my shots I’ve gotten permission from the land owners or other places, there’s a few I haven’t gotten permission with but you’d be surprised with some of the shots you can get just by the right camera angle while flying over a 5 foot width of tree line on the side of the road (still legal in my book, not over people or property) or even flying over a small stream, River, or drainage ditch on the side of the road, away from people’s roofs. There’s always spots to use in the air that make it look like you’re closer to something than you really are. That said, I went to the rectory of that church and spoke with the priest and got the ok. Told him I would take pictures of the church and send to him via email.

I find when you “bribe” the people with pictures they usually give you the ok-to-fly. It costs me a few minutes to download the pics and email to people, but I consider them possibly future clients if they like the free pictures..

Appreciate the kind words.
 
Fall in Mass montage. Would love some constructive feedback. I’m still plugging away hoping each vid is better than the last.


Im tip toeing into pan and zoom on my video editor and I’ve tried a few times (not in this video) but haven’t had a whole lot of success. So looking forward to start incorporating that in my videos when I start picking it up. Would also like to start putting more thought into music choices and matching the sounds up to the imagery. I tried that in one section of this video while flying over the stadium at a section of an airy part of the music, but would like to incorporate that more and really giving it thought. Until then, hope you somewhat enjoy the subject matter.



The bridge footage was probably the most professional looking if you are looking at moving forward. It uses and involves a lot of dynamics.

Concentrate on perfecting those types of technical maneuvers.

Keep in mind, specialty maneuvers are like special effects, do not over use them in a video, limit them to show importance and draw attention, use them for a big bang.

Color grading is there kinda, but if you don't deal with the blowout from your white balance, there is no amount of grading that will cause you to not see the blowout and draw your eyes from a great story.

Again, color grading is there and you are nailing it, but start honing your white balance settings. Be very cautious when using ND filters to achieve this. Try to learn how to do it with out ND filters first as you need to learn to walk before you can run.

Finally, if you really want to have a great video/short film, you need to be telling a story of some sort that viewers will pick up on with the related music and a title that informs you. It is so important and I can never stress it enough, begin with a storyboard and work through it, other wise you are just putting music to a UAV video.


Side note.......if you found another pilot and a second controller, one could concentrate on flying and the second person could concentrate on camera control. Personally I believe you would have some spectacular videos to show. Right now other than your blowout and grading, you are on the fence, so that's not bad at all. There is not one pilot that can do both ( flight & camera control ) at the same time so well that it would truly wow someone, at best an ooooooo.

This does not make you a bad pilot or camera controller, it just forces you too look at what you want as an end result and what you are willing to give up or compromise on to achieve it.

When you look at feature films where there is a UAV involved, sometimes there are up to 4 people operating all of the features of a UAV mounted camera system. Pan/tilt, focus, zoom and flight control.
 
  • Like
Reactions: GILBERTO MORA
The bridge footage was probably the most professional looking if you are looking at moving forward. It uses and involves a lot of dynamics.

Concentrate on perfecting those types of technical maneuvers.

Keep in mind, specialty maneuvers are like special effects, do not over use them in a video, limit them to show importance and draw attention, use them for a big bang.

Color grading is there kinda, but if you don't deal with the blowout from your white balance, there is no amount of grading that will cause you to not see the blowout and draw your eyes from a great story.

Again, color grading is there and you are nailing it, but start honing your white balance settings. Be very cautious when using ND filters to achieve this. Try to learn how to do it with out ND filters first as you need to learn to walk before you can run.

Finally, if you really want to have a great video/short film, you need to be telling a story of some sort that viewers will pick up on with the related music and a title that informs you. It is so important and I can never stress it enough, begin with a storyboard and work through it, other wise you are just putting music to a UAV video.


Side note.......if you found another pilot and a second controller, one could concentrate on flying and the second person could concentrate on camera control. Personally I believe you would have some spectacular videos to show. Right now other than your blowout and grading, you are on the fence, so that's not bad at all. There is not one pilot that can do both ( flight & camera control ) at the same time so well that it would truly wow someone, at best an ooooooo.

This does not make you a bad pilot or camera controller, it just forces you too look at what you want as an end result and what you are willing to give up or compromise on to achieve it.

When you look at feature films where there is a UAV involved, sometimes there are up to 4 people operating all of the features of a UAV mounted camera system. Pan/tilt, focus, zoom and flight control.

Thanks for the feedback Murray, very helpful. I’ve been just using auto settings and would like to start diving more deeply into camera settings and WB. In the past on numerous occasions when I have messed with the settings the images came out awful, namely the WB lock. I remember having issues with a partially sunny day with clouds going in and out, I locked WB on sunny and it didn’t work well for me. On other ocassions I’ve locked WB under different scenarios and it never seemed to work for me.

My post editing skills are lacking a bit and I’m working to correct them. It’s just such a pain in the butt to color/edit while on the timeline editor and using the picture from the video on the timeline, it’s a bit grainy and not very detailed, and when I export video and view it in VLC it’s a lot more detailed and clear, so I have to go back and forth to keep changing settings and export over and over. I’m using video pad professional but in all the editors I’ve tried (about 10 different ones) they basically suffer from the same problem: the viewer quality isn’t like the finished product once exported out. Though I found the video pad editor the easiest to use so I stuck with that, only $3.99 every 4 months.

The bridge shot was my first go at a more difficult maneuver and I’m going to try and hone my skills to get more of those shots in future videos. After a while the straight forward and straight back shots get boring.

Thanks again.
 
Nice, but got to ask where did you fly from @ gillette ? After I flew at a cemetery, the one with the tower from the 1800's (I forget the name) I stopped at gillette got ready to take off, and security came out of the woodwork. Was told that if I had put it in the air they would of had to call in the FAA, and state police, but if I wanted they would take me to the main office, and issue me a permit for $500, I said no thanx packed up and left ? Security was nice about it, and we talked for a half, then I saw another locals drone footage at the stadium so I asked. Seems your allowed to fly around as long as you take off of of the stadium's private property even during pre-season, but once its regular season its restricted air space.. I see thats the church in fairhaven I flew there myself on the way to the water front, then to mattapoisett to the lighthouse.
 
Nice, but got to ask where did you fly from @ gillette ? After I flew at a cemetery, the one with the tower from the 1800's (I forget the name) I stopped at gillette got ready to take off, and security came out of the woodwork. Was told that if I had put it in the air they would of had to call in the FAA, and state police, but if I wanted they would take me to the main office, and issue me a permit for $500, I said no thanx packed up and left ? Security was nice about it, and we talked for a half, then I saw another locals drone footage at the stadium so I asked. Seems your allowed to fly around as long as you take off of of the stadium's private property even during pre-season, but once its regular season its restricted air space.. I see thats the church in fairhaven I flew there myself on the way to the water front, then to mattapoisett to the lighthouse.

Yeah, I wasn’t on Gillette property, was in the woods and the pan/zoom makes it look closer than how far away I was, I was actually pretty far away from it. There’s cranberry bogs that abuts the stadium property. Not the first time I’ve hiked a mile or so to get a shot. Although I love how the c23 takes images that give you a close up feel but yet pretty far away, it gives great shots. Much better effect than the cgo3. Not sure why.
 
Thanks for the feedback Murray, very helpful. I’ve been just using auto settings and would like to start diving more deeply into camera settings and WB. In the past on numerous occasions when I have messed with the settings the images came out awful, namely the WB lock. I remember having issues with a partially sunny day with clouds going in and out, I locked WB on sunny and it didn’t work well for me. On other ocassions I’ve locked WB under different scenarios and it never seemed to work for me.

My post editing skills are lacking a bit and I’m working to correct them. It’s just such a pain in the butt to color/edit while on the timeline editor and using the picture from the video on the timeline, it’s a bit grainy and not very detailed, and when I export video and view it in VLC it’s a lot more detailed and clear, so I have to go back and forth to keep changing settings and export over and over. I’m using video pad professional but in all the editors I’ve tried (about 10 different ones) they basically suffer from the same problem: the viewer quality isn’t like the finished product once exported out. Though I found the video pad editor the easiest to use so I stuck with that, only $3.99 every 4 months.

The bridge shot was my first go at a more difficult maneuver and I’m going to try and hone my skills to get more of those shots in future videos. After a while the straight forward and straight back shots get boring.

Thanks again.
The biggest mistake people make with white balance on video, is they treat it like taking a photo and it doesn't work that way. Taking a photo is easy to set white balance as the camera is taking one picture of one thing and video is always moving. Break your shots down and set white balance for each shot in that specific direction. If you change direction, the white balance is no longer going to be accurate and throw everything off. I feel that is where you are having your problem with it. Experiment by creating a story. Put the story to a storyboard that has the shots you want planned out.....stick drawings if you have to as you just need a plan to work from. If you are facing directly away from the sun, that is realistically the only time you can set and go with the white balance as it should not change.
 
The biggest mistake people make with white balance on video, is they treat it like taking a photo and it doesn't work that way. Taking a photo is easy to set white balance as the camera is taking one picture of one thing and video is always moving. Break your shots down and set white balance for each shot in that specific direction. If you change direction, the white balance is no longer going to be accurate and throw everything off. I feel that is where you are having your problem with it. Experiment by creating a story. Put the story to a storyboard that has the shots you want planned out.....stick drawings if you have to as you just need a plan to work from. If you are facing directly away from the sun, that is realistically the only time you can set and go with the white balance as it should not change.

With regard to the video/photo side of this board, that’s probably the two best pieces of advice I’ve gotten (story board and white balance for each shot already planned out). I never considered story boarding video or even given much thought in advance, or in great detail, of what I wanted to shoot. Going to incorporate that going forward.

Thank you.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Murray Martz

New Posts

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
20,955
Messages
241,590
Members
27,284
Latest member
csandoval