Spot, Centre or Average

[nicholas hickman]

Greetings fellow H'ers,

I'm wondering about the best metering to use, being relatively new to photography but not completely ignorant. I tend to default to spot metering every time I boot the bird up, I feel it gives me the most control but I'm asking if there are times when centre or average would be more suitable?

I presume the answer may well be :- it depends on what you are filming / photographing..

I like to film in natural so I can post process to get the most out of the scenes and help with colour matching different clips together.

kind regards

 

[BillyTexas]

Greetings fellow H'ers,

I'm wondering about the best metering to use, being relatively new to photography but not completely ignorant. I tend to default to spot metering every time I boot the bird up, I feel it gives me the most control but I'm asking if there are times when centre or average would be more suitable?

I presume the answer may well be :- it depends on what you are filming / photographing..

I like to film in natural so I can post process to get the most out of the scenes and help with colour matching different clips together.

kind regards

It really depends on your situation. If there is a lot of contrast i think spot metering is perfect. Captain drone made a good video on this.

Bill W.

 

[nicholas hickman]

Hi Bill,

yes Captain does some fantastic stuff. I got the H after watching his videos on the typhoon.

 

[WesBur13]

I personally use spot metering. I like being able to choose my area if interest


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[David Armstrong]

Spot metering is great, but dialing the setting manually will you give you the most consistent look.

A general rule of thumb is to keep your ISO as low as possible and set your shutter speed to your FPS x2.
For example, if you are shooting at 30 FPS then you would set your shutter speed to 1/60 or if your are shooting at 60 FPS, you would set the shutter to 1/125 which is the closest to double the FPS.
After this, to get the correct exposure you are looking for, you would then use a corresponding ND filter.
Granted, most people do not follow this rule with drones, mostly because you are generally filming landscapes and not close-up moving objects.
However, to achieve the most "normal motion" look, you will want to follow this formula.

I typically set my ISO to 100 and my shutter speed to 1/60 (due to using 4K 30FPS) then I use whatever ND filter will give me a balance on my histogram.
Generally, I use ND8, unless I am shooting into the sun (like a sunset), then I might bump up to a ND16.
If it is kind of overcast, but fairly bright, I would use a ND4.
I rarely fly without a ND filter.

I also don't like any of the Yuneec's presets for their WB. Therefore, I first set it to Auto, then once I point the camera at my general filming subject, I will let the WB adjust to the scene and then hit Lock.

If Yuneec would ever add Kelvin setting to their WB and make it to where the ST16 would remember the WB/Exposure settings, my love for the Typhoon would increase exponentially. (It is already really high....)

 

[nicholas hickman]

David,

Thanks for that wonderful reply, I have a set of ND filters in the post, most valuable help. I have started locking white balance and trying out exposures and shutters, nothing worse than auto exposure changing mid shot when filming.

 

[Michael Brown]

I have the ND filters which I naturally assumed I would need, but with the manual settings that are available and my inclination to keep the sun behind the H, I have not needed ANY of the ND filters. Here's the first promo I did without any filters whatsoever: