Ian’s Mavic Pro Drone Update
In this film Ian tells us the things he has learnt in the couple of months since getting his DJI Mavic Pro Drone.
Since crashing it he has picked up a few things that he will now pass along to you.
Enjoy.
If you fancy getting a Mavic for yourself have a look HERE.
I have had the Mavic Pro for a couple of months now so here in a nutshell is what I’ve learnt.
Bear in mind that as far as I am concerned this is a film making tool.
You can do what you can do what you like with your own drone, but if you, like me just want to use it to make films then this is for you.
Lesson One. Don’t fly into a tree.
Firstly don’t fly it into a tree.
Now this may seem obvious and it is, but what I learnt is all about being aware of your surroundings.
There are all sorts of hazards from electrical and telephone cables which are somewhat tricky to see to hulking great oak trees which if you are flying backwards neither you nor the drone are going to notice, especially if you are just watching what’s going on on the screen.
This was the mistake I made.
I didn’t have a clear line of sight to the drone because the house was in the way and flying backwards to achieve the nice reveal that I was going for, it meant that I couldn’t see what I was flying towards.
Hence the crash.
So it should be.
Lesson one. Pay attention to your surroundings.
Lesson Two: Active track, point of interest, and tripod mode are brilliant.
There are a fair number of things that the drone will do itself to give you a much smoother and better shot than you are going to achieve flying it manually.
A quick setup and it will do the work for you.
Obviously these things have there limitations and there are some things that you are just going to have to do for yourself but if it will do it for you, let it.
You will often end up with a much better end result if you just let it get on with it.
Lesson Three: There are no rear or side sensors.
This kind of goes back to lesson one but is also important for lesson two.
If you are using point of interest, where the drone will just circle around a central point it is very important to remember that you can only work within the available space, so you need to set your circle up within your narrowest gap.
Once the drone is circling it’s not going to notice the thing you haven’t accounted for that it’s now flying sideways towards.
The same goes for active tracking modes.
You want that super tracking shot but you also want your drone to survive the ordeal.
Lesson Four. ND filters are a must.
Chances are you are filming outside and if you are you are going to have to deal with some pretty harsh light levels.
In order to get your exposure right and give you plenty of bandwidth in the footage you shoot you are going to want to use Neutral Density also known as ND filters.
They are essentially sunglasses for your camera.
There are a truckload on the market but I just bought the ones made by DJI.
For goodness sake don’t get the gimble cover ones.
Firstly they are curved so they will do some really weird things to your footage, including making it fuzzy, but they will also cover the air intake for the cooling vent behind the camera resulting in your drone overheating.
Lesson Five. Edit your footage.
Learn some basic editing.
There are loads of really great editing packages out there ranging in price from Free to many thousands of pounds.
DaVinci Resolve is a good free package that will get you started and there are versions available for windows, Mac and even Linux users.
Yes, I know.
It’s got all the tools you need to take your footage from, quite dull to watch, to gripping and exciting.
The main thing you need to know is that we only want to see the bit of your footage that work well.
We don’t want to see the bit where you were getting the drone into the right place or where it was all wobbly.
Each individual clip in your finished sequence shouldn’t last too long.
Also if you have the ability don’t just use drone footage.
Mix it up with some stuff shot on a camera.
Pay attention to your use of sound and graphics.
It doesn’t have to have a hollywood budget to be engaging and you will feel a real sense of achievement and will probably enjoy the whole process along the way.
OK so that last one was just my pet hate getting an airing and not something I have learnt recently, but I hope it helps you create something more interesting to watch.
Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this film come rant.
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Thanks for watching.