Video exposure is overblown

Trailryder42 · Mar 2, 2022

Finally got some decent weather to fly in.

In trying different camera settings, exposure is still overblown, a white-out. I've put everything on Auto and even decreased the exposure setting by-1.

I'm making the camera adjustments "before flight", with the drone ON and it seems to calibrate before the app says its ready for flight.

Are you supposed to make camera adjustments with the drone in the air for them to take effect?

My FPS setting is 60 with a shutter speed of 120, but FPS and shutter speed shouldn't be causing this white-out effect should it?

Don't know what to try next?

Trailryder42 · Mar 2, 2022

Apparently, Auto ISO is screwing with me. Set it to 100 for the sunny day we have today and the footage is as expected.

I would not have expected Auto ISO to be so off, especially for a sunny day without a cloud in the sky.

kgilbertsen · Mar 2, 2022

Trailryder42 said:
Apparently, Auto ISO is screwing with me. Set it to 100 for the sunny day we have today and the footage is as expected.

I would not have expected Auto ISO to be so off, especially for a sunny day without a cloud in the sky.

I'd guess that you're right about Auto ISO being the culprit. At least that is my experience with my dSLR...

GeneGrayson · Mar 19, 2022

Trailryder42 said:
Finally got some decent weather to fly in.

In trying different camera settings, exposure is still overblown, a white-out. I've put everything on Auto and even decreased the exposure setting by-1.

I'm making the camera adjustments "before flight", with the drone ON and it seems to calibrate before the app says its ready for flight.

Are you supposed to make camera adjustments with the drone in the air for them to take effect?

My FPS setting is 60 with a shutter speed of 120, but FPS and shutter speed shouldn't be causing this white-out effect should it?

Don't know what to try next?

Might I suggest if you prefer auto to get the ND filter set. It makes a huge difference. I have an 8 for overcast, a 16 for partly cloudy, and a 32 for bright days.

Trailryder42 · Apr 7, 2022

Went to do some more testing with the drone today. Footage overblown again. WTF. Checked to make sure the ISO was still at 100, it was.

I film at 60 FPS and as far as I know, you should set shutter speed to twice what FPS is, so I had it set to 120. Nothing I was doing was eliminating the whiteout. So for the hell of it, I set the shutter speed to Auto and Bam, whiteout gone and looks expected.

Full sun today so I would think iso 100 would be fine. If I use manual iso and set to 100 for full sun, do I also have to set frame rate faster than twice the FPS?

Looks like I'm going to have to set iso to auto until I figure this out.

Saladshooter · Apr 7, 2022

Trailryder42 said:
Went to do some more testing with the drone today. Footage overblown again. WTF. Checked to make sure the ISO was still at 100, it was.

I film at 60 FPS and as far as I know, you should set shutter speed to twice what FPS is, so I had it set to 120. Nothing I was doing was eliminating the whiteout. So for the hell of it, I set the shutter speed to Auto and Bam, whiteout gone and looks expected.

Full sun today so I would think iso 100 would be fine. If I use manual iso and set to 100 for full sun, do I also have to set frame rate faster than twice the FPS?

Looks like I'm going to have to set iso to auto until I figure this out.

Did you try lowering the exposure compensation setting? If everything is set to manual then you would have to lower the exposure on a bright day to compensate for a slow shutter. You can also use an ND filter. You also may need to increase the speed of the shutter beyond the 120 FPS.... unless its excessively faster, you won't see much difference in the footage.

Trailryder42 · Apr 7, 2022

Saladshooter said:
Did you try lowering the exposure compensation setting? If everything is set to manual then you would have to lower the exposure on a bright day to compensate for a slow shutter. You can also use an ND filter. You also may need to increase the speed of the shutter beyond the 120 FPS.... unless its excessively faster, you won't see much difference in the footage.

At iso 100 it took raising the shutter speed to 960 to bring the exposure down. Maybe its me, but I thought that was ridiculous. And I can bring exposure down with the EV adjustment, but it only goes to +/- 2 and I don't think I should need to use that as a bandaid.

Got to wondering if my GoPro 7 does the same thing. It does. Running it at 60 FPS, with an iso of 100, the shutter speed was set to 240, but I don't remember doing that and the camera doesn't have an Auto setting. Increasing it over 240 brought exposure down even more.

I guess I'd forgotten that shutter speed affects exposure. You can't go lower than 100 iso for a sunny day, so if 100 is still letting in too much light, I guess the only other way to decrease it is shutter speed.

That makes sense for still pictures but I guess I wasn't putting 2 and 2 together when it comes to video. Never occurred to me. That doesn't speak well of my CRS syndrome.

Saladshooter · Apr 7, 2022

Trailryder42 said:
At iso 100 it took raising the shutter speed to 960 to bring the exposure down. Maybe its me, but I thought that was ridiculous. And I can bring exposure down with the EV adjustment, but it only goes to +/- 2 and I don't think I should need to use that as a bandaid.

Got to wondering if my GoPro 7 does the same thing. It does. Running it at 60 FPS, with an iso of 100, the shutter speed was set to 240, but I don't remember doing that and the camera doesn't have an Auto setting. Increasing it over 240 brought exposure down even more.

I guess I'd forgotten that shutter speed affects exposure. You can't go lower than 100 iso for a sunny day, so if 100 is still letting in too much light, I guess the only other way to decrease it is shutter speed.

That makes sense for still pictures but I guess I wasn't putting 2 and 2 together when it comes to video. Never occurred to me. That doesn't speak well of my CRS syndrome.

You are going to have to use an ND filter to achieve the results you want. That will allow for the lower shutter speed. Without an adjustable aperture, its the only way to get the results you want without making a compromise with a faster shutter..

Trailryder42 · Apr 7, 2022

Saladshooter said:
You are going to have to use an ND filter to achieve the results you want. That will allow for the lower shutter speed. Without an adjustable aperture, its the only way to get the results you want without making a compromise with a faster shutter..

I guess one effect of a higher shutter speed over using an ND filter to lower it, would be crisper video, as far as motion blur is concerned? I hate motion blur.

Saladshooter · Apr 8, 2022

Trailryder42 said:
I guess one effect of a higher shutter speed over using an ND filter to lower it, would be crisper video, as far as motion blur is concerned? I hate motion blur.

Yes. The only effect you are getting by using the 120 FPS shutter speed is intentionally introducing motion blur. The double frame rate rule is used to create a more cinematic effect (i.e. Motion Blur) particularly when flying low. If you like crisp video, use a higher shutter speed.

Ridefreak · Apr 8, 2022

If you're filming in 60fps a 120 shutter is going to give the more realistic picture IRT the subjects motion. I don't know how much it matters with a static subject but the 2X rule is geared around filming motion. That's also going to give a darker picture so depending on you're camera direction a fast frame rate can cause larger swings in the light intensity recorded onto the SD card. One thing you have to consider is rarely will one ISO work on an moving camera that sometimes points in the direction of the sun and other times away from it. I found using an ND8, auto exposure and post processing get me the most consistently editable video. I use the term consistently because it's easy to record video that's unusable when using a set ISO when the camera turns into the sun. The real issue is the camera is being asked to film in a dynamic environment, sometimes facing the sun other times away from it. GoPros have similar issues and I've resorted to auto on those to get the most usable video. We have very intense sun here, 5K' altitude, low humidity, few clouds and bright sun, it's sometimes quite the challenge to well lit video w/o having some of it blow out.

Trailryder42 · Apr 12, 2022

Thanks all. Had my first successful flight today after correcting those settings. Had it follow me while riding some mountain bike trails.

New question. Does shutter speed effect file size?

When setting shutter speed to Auto, it apparently is ramping shutter speed up around 940 to get the correct exposure in full sun, from what I've been able to determine when setting shutter speed manually and watching exposure change on my screen. Now, from how I understand the ND filters to work, they have the effect of decreasing shutter speed.