Second Short Film shot in Namibia

Remote Rider · Dec 28, 2015

All feedback / constructive criticism most welcome...

Richard Hurst · Dec 28, 2015

Fantastic video.can I ask you what your thoughts are on the X5. I'm finding the video very mushy in 1080p, even when in editing in premier pro i push sharpening to 90, which is a ridiculous amount it still is mushy, nowhere near as nice and sharp and crisp as the X3. Feeling a bit dejected by it all.

Remote Rider · Dec 28, 2015

Richard Hurst said:
Fantastic video.can I ask you what your thoughts are on the X5. I'm finding the video very mushy in 1080p, even when in editing in premier pro i push sharpening to 90, which is a ridiculous amount it still is mushy, nowhere near as nice and sharp and crisp as the X3. Feeling a bit dejected by it all.

Thanks. I brought the X5 along on my last 2 trips and ended up hardly using it. Dynamic Range of X5 is a bit better, but thats just about it imho. Greater set-up time, fiddly nature of camera and poorer flight performance remain big disadvantages ij remote locations...

InterMurph · Dec 28, 2015

Richard Hurst said:
Fantastic video.can I ask you what your thoughts are on the X5. I'm finding the video very mushy in 1080p, even when in editing in premier pro i push sharpening to 90, which is a ridiculous amount it still is mushy, nowhere near as nice and sharp and crisp as the X3. Feeling a bit dejected by it all.

Which lens? And how are you focusing?

A lot of the "mushy" X5 footage online appears to me to be out of focus. For landscape shots like in this video, manual focus, set to infinity, works best.

Can you post some of your mushy footage?

DavidB · Dec 28, 2015

Impressive video. It does highlight what a quad-copter can do; in going from footage from a land-based position to a multitude of moving views from the air. I especially liked the various ways the camera/quad-copter was moved around a scene. Too many people seem to get engrossed in travelling towards the object of interest. I also liked the relative short duration of each clip. Other videos that have been posted, have had scenes that going for what I believe is a boring long time. I tend to limit segments to no more than 4 seconds, even if it means deleting a mid section of a clip. All the items of interest are still present, but you do not need to see the tree/river/hill etc for 25 seconds continuously. One area that I have always struggled with is the transitions between video scenes. I noticed you generally used either an immediate transition or a dissolve. I have a preference for a dissolve between video segments and sharp transitions between photos. Do you have any recommendations for why you choose one or the other? Many thanks and keep up the great work.

Richard Hurst · Dec 29, 2015

InterMurph said:
Which lens? And how are you focusing?

A lot of the "mushy" X5 footage online appears to me to be out of focus. For landscape shots like in this video, manual focus, set to infinity, works best.

Can you post some of your mushy footage?

Hi

I shoot manual focus with it set to infinity, I'm a semi professional photographer so know exactly what I'm doing. It is something DJI are aware of and are working on a fix for it asap. It seems to be worse when using certain settings.

Remote Rider · Dec 29, 2015

DavidB said:
Impressive video. Do you have any recommendations for why you choose one or the other? Many thanks and keep up the great work.

Thank you David. I tend to choose the transition depending on the music rhythm...., bit far from perfect. Still working on that.... ;-)

TajoDavy · May 10, 2016

You are really inspired.
Awesome!

InspiredOne · May 11, 2016

Very well done, as usual.

My only two observations are the delivery of the gentleman doing the voice over (too low key/energy), but that's just me. And it would have been nice to hear some indigenous music under it all.

Orchard · May 11, 2016

Simply amazing. To say your videography is good would be an understatement. Thank you for sharing. I wish I could go!

PortCanaveralFlorida · May 11, 2016

Nice vid! Feedback using PP. Did you want the black top and bottom or was the "scale to fit" not selected or, is this coming from the vimeo UI? IF... you do need the scale to fit option... your setup was not correct in your timeline. This may be the reason you're seeing mushy footage. Check again the timeline settings.

A FALE SAFE WAY is to always (In PP) 1. Make a new project (title whatever) and click ok. 2. when the New Sequence (Sequence Presets) box comes up CLICK CANCEL. 3. Import your footage. 4. Drag a clip over the New Item Icon (lower right) then your done. It will always set the correct frame size, fps, without you searching all the presets which will screw you up picking the wrong one. Note, the black bars in your video. Now, you could always want that look...but. Easy setup 1.0.1.

InspiredOne · May 11, 2016

PortCanaveralFlorida said:
Nice vid! Feedback using PP. Did you want the black top and bottom or was the "scale to fit" not selected or, is this coming from the vimeo UI? IF... you do need the scale to fit option... your setup was not correct in your timeline. This may be the reason you're seeing mushy footage. Check again the timeline settings.

A FALE SAFE WAY is to always (In PP) 1. Make a new project (title whatever) and click ok. 2. when the New Sequence (Sequence Presets) box comes up CLICK CANCEL. 3. Import your footage. 4. Drag a clip over the New Item Icon (lower right) then your done. It will always set the correct frame size, fps, without you searching all the presets which will screw you up picking the wrong one. Note, the black bars in your video. Now, you could always want that look...but. Easy setup 1.0.1.

He made an esthetic choice. It's called "letterbox," has to do with screen aspect ratios.

PortCanaveralFlorida · May 12, 2016

InspiredOne said:
He made an esthetic choice. It's called "letterbox," has to do with screen aspect ratios.

I'm very familiar with the "letterbox" look. There are some folks that pick presets that don't match the video. I was trying to possibility breakdown the problem of the mushy video in the discussion above. Nothing really to do with 16x9 in somewhat of a square hole. aka letterbox. (Richard Hurst)

apsussex · May 12, 2016

Remote Rider said:
All feedback / constructive criticism most welcome...

Thorough enjoyed that, some absolutely beautiful shots in there, well done.

apsussex · May 12, 2016

Richard Hurst said:
Fantastic video.can I ask you what your thoughts are on the X5. I'm finding the video very mushy in 1080p, even when in editing in premier pro i push sharpening to 90, which is a ridiculous amount it still is mushy, nowhere near as nice and sharp and crisp as the X3. Feeling a bit dejected by it all.

RIchard what isit like in 4k? I have never shot in 1080p on the x5, but at 4k with 0 sharpness its very crisp. There was an older firmware which was very soft, but the latest seems to work very well.