how to use exposure value with solo app 2.1

[erikgraham]

Huh. I guess I'd have to see the footage. I was hoping it was just a matter of leaving the spot meter on. That can cause rapid exposure shifts on a drone. But it sounds like you must be trying to film in difficult (and variable) lighting. I fly pretty far north most of the time, in places that are generally overcast. So I may not have run into the issues you are having in super bright settings.

 

[pete]

I run raw, nativee, iso 400, low sharpness... no spot. Also 2.7k @ 60fps, but at the time of my issues I was still basking in the 4k@30fps glory of the Hero 4.

sounds like the issue you described earlier is not related to your WB nor ISO settings. maybe it was just a bright sunny day and you might have spend some time shooting towards the sun and your filter was not enough to fight the amount of light. ND8 is sometimes not enough in extreme conditions and if you have no ND16 filter then you could still "buy" an extra stop by going from 4k@30fps to 2.7k@60fps (as I assume the GoPro would try to shoot at 1/120s).
also, if you are convinced raw/native WB is not working for you, you can try to lock it to 5500, that's also quite a safe bet in any daylight conditions (other than heavily overcast).

 

[Craig]

What brand and where did you buy your filters?

 

[pete]

What brand and where did you buy your filters?

I'm using "Blurfix Air" filters from SnakeRiver Prototyping :
BlurFix Air Filters

I bought them in Australia from Rise Above :
Snake River Prototyping SRP - BlurFix Air Filter for GoPro

 

[Mr_Chris]

sounds like the issue you described earlier is not related to your WB nor ISO settings. maybe it was just a bright sunny day and you might have spend some time shooting towards the sun and your filter was not enough to fight the amount of light. ND8 is sometimes not enough in extreme conditions and if you have no ND16 filter then you could still "buy" an extra stop by going from 4k@30fps to 2.7k@60fps (as I assume the GoPro would try to shoot at 1/120s).
also, if you are convinced raw/native WB is not working for you, you can try to lock it to 5500, that's also quite a safe bet in any daylight conditions (other than heavily overcast).

Hi Pete,

I bought the Blurfix Air "set" when MicBergsma introduced them to me -- with the exception of a UV filter they're all useful, and the UV is still a good balance item potentially, though I find myself wlways chucking a more funcrtional one on lately. Will ask another question about that perhaps in another thread too. I;m so happy to see others using the SRP filters and with all the same hardware too!

But on the two occasions I had the worst issues, yes I was not filtered. I was about 1 hour into my Solo and had upgraded for that trip -- from IRIS. Considering the amount of change, my relative success is a real testament to the success 3DR have had with this product in terms of making it newbie-friendly. I don't think I've ever gotten such a 1-hour-rank-newbie experience ever actually, not even with a smartphone camera.

These days I seem to always shoot in 2.7@60 as above, with one of the filters in that 6-pack (ND4, ND8, CP/ND4, CP/ND8, CP, never UV yet) and have been setting WB manually with Raw, Low sharpness and memory fails meon the others.

In terms of the exposure topic of this thread, there is one that I wonder about though.. I have used "low light" if I think I might have some moment that might benefit from it, but I'm not sure it's ever done anything for me. I use it in a sunset dusk/dawn scenario where I think I might turn oblique to the light and get relative darkness. But I wonder if you've had any experience with that? It seems to use frame rates more than exposure, since the camera won't allow it to be set if you're already at 30fps but offers it at 60. Do you tweak EV/low light at dawn/dusk "just outside the golden hour" times? Or just fly unfiltered and 30fps so you know what you'll get in post?

Thanks,
Chris

 

[pete]

I have used "low light" if I think I might have some moment that might benefit from it, but I'm not sure it's ever done anything for me. I use it in a sunset dusk/dawn scenario where I think I might turn oblique to the light and get relative darkness. But I wonder if you've had any experience with that? It seems to use frame rates more than exposure, since the camera won't allow it to be set if you're already at 30fps but offers it at 60. Do you tweak EV/low light at dawn/dusk "just outside the golden hour" times? Or just fly unfiltered and 30fps so you know what you'll get in post?

I don't change EV at those times (golden hour), GoPro will work within your ISO range and once it reaches ISO 400 (if that's your limit) then increasing EV is not going to help you. You could go higher in ISO but then you get more noise and the footage is almost not usable. You can get some usable results up to half an hour after sunset (I didn't try half an hour before sunrise but it should be same) with ISO 400, but there is still quite a contrast above and below horizon (almost overexposed above horizon and very dark below horizon) and you need to use post processing to fix that (from my experience). In this scenario (up to half an hour after sunset) and assuming your entire footage contains combination of above-horizon/below-horizon view then it would be preferable to use graduated filter, unfortunately SRP offers only ND8/ND16 graduated filter and that's too much at dawn/dusk, ideally you would want a low ND graduated filter with at least 2-Stop range, either 0 to ND4, or ND2/ND8 or 3-stop range 0 to ND8 grad filter if there was one, but I don't think such product is offered anywhere for the GoPro.