Learning Video

[Bob Israel]

With the new Mavic 3, I am more determined than ever to become a better video editor using Final Cut Pro. While I've done some video in the past, my abilities were minimal. So, I'm starting to focus on this more but learning FCP to the same extent I can edit in Lightroom. This will be an evolution. YouTube is my friend and there are some good tutorials.

So, up went the drone and I recorded some lake video using DJI's Master Shot feature. This gave me some footage using preset drone movements. I then extracted parts of clips to use for the video, set some transitions, applied some royalty free music and exported in 4K and uploaded to my website. It was probably the easiest edit to date.

So, don't expect anything that's epically cinematic but I figured those here would appreciate the challenge of dealing with video vs stills. Have a look and of course, C&C are welcomed.


https://photos.smugmug.com/MyDailyWanderings/i-Cz8x3jc/0/e90513ac/1920/Mavic h264-1920.mp4

 

[AlanLichty]

Are those snowflakes zipping past the lens about half way through? I have only barely played around with video so far with my M3 and that was mostly from a fixed viewpoint. I like your fly-by's here.

Did you buy the Mavic 3 Classic or the original with the telephoto lens? I have played around with the zoom feature a bit at Cape Perpetua a few weeks back but haven't tried editing this clips yet. I did notice that zooming in while shooting a video seems quite effective vs. zooming in on something with the drone's flight.

 

[Bob Israel]

Yup, we had a few flakes yesterday. And today, we’re getting 2-4”. So, it starts!

I bought the Magic 3 with the zoom. Just started to play with it. The main camera will go to 4x via digital crop. It looks pretty good. The second lens starts at 7X and is lower resolution. At it’s default focal length, it looks decent. However, as you zoom in (up to 28X) the quality suffers.

 

[AlanLichty]

I do most of my still photo shooting with either 1x or 7x which I have assigned to one of my programmable controller buttons so I can quickly toggle back and forth without needing the touch screen. I have another button programmed to switch between continuous zoom (1-4x/7-28x) and the 1x/7x modes with the zoom assigned to the right wheel (I have the RC Pro controller). I found that the 1x-4x range was quite effective for video work. I can't imaging the jump from 4x to7x would be useful in a video clip. At 7x the motion of the drone slows down dramatically as if you have invoked Cine mode flight.

 

[Bob Israel]

I do most of my still photo shooting with either 1x or 7x which I have assigned to one of my programmable controller buttons so I can quickly toggle back and forth without needing the touch screen. I have another button programmed to switch between continuous zoom (1-4x/7-28x) and the 1x/7x modes with the zoom assigned to the right wheel (I have the RC Pro controller). I found that the 1x-4x range was quite effective for video work. I can't imaging the jump from 4x to7x would be useful in a video clip. At 7x the motion of the drone slows down dramatically as if you have invoked Cine mode flight.

I plan on assigning a custom button when I get the DJI RC controller with the screen. It has more custom buttons than the stock screenless remote.

 

[JimFox]

Very nice Bob! The preset moves are a great way to start out.

Your experiences with Final Cut will be interesting. I use Adobe Premiere Elements as they have a real working Shadow and Highlight recovery tool. Then the assembly of the video is all done in Movavi.

So you are able to put videos on Smugmug? I never even thought about trying that on Zenfolio. Not sure if it's even possible. Are there any limits to sizes, lengths or amounts of video?

 

[Bob Israel]

The link above goes to a gallery on my smugmug website. Not sure of the limits. This video was compressed to H.264 and was about 500mb. Uploading was relatively straightforward. I attempted to embed the video on this post but haven't figured that out yet going from Smugmug to Focal World. Embedding using BB code, while it worked for stills, didn't work for this video. Still exploring.

 

[JimFox]

Yeah, it would be nice if it could be linked with a thumbnail of the video.

 

[Bob Israel]

Still trying to figure that out too!

 

[BlackRockArt]

With the new Mavic 3, I am more determined than ever to become a better video editor using Final Cut Pro. While I've done some video in the past, my abilities were minimal. So, I'm starting to focus on this more but learning FCP to the same extent I can edit in Lightroom. This will be an evolution. YouTube is my friend and there are some good tutorials.

So, up went the drone and I recorded some lake video using DJI's Master Shot feature. This gave me some footage using preset drone movements. I then extracted parts of clips to use for the video, set some transitions, applied some royalty free music and exported in 4K and uploaded to my website. It was probably the easiest edit to date.

So, don't expect anything that's epically cinematic but I figured those here would appreciate the challenge of dealing with video vs stills. Have a look and of course, C&C are welcomed.


https://photos.smugmug.com/MyDailyWanderings/i-Cz8x3jc/0/e90513ac/1920/Mavic h264-1920.mp4

Bob, this is a good start. Also, the speed of video seems a bit too fast, with drone video, most time it is easier on the audience to go slow.

Oliver

 

[Bob Israel]

Thanks Oliver! In fact I did speed up some of these clips. I was torn between speed of the drone and not covering enough ground quickly enough. And I was conscious to not have a video that was too long. But you’re correct.