Leaving for a school trip to Iceland next week and we are taking a drone with us for photography purposes. I've been getting familiar with the machine so I can supervise the kids adequately. Some of our photo kids are going to be "directing" the shots.

We obtained some filters to help with the overcast conditions. I'm not a photography person, so I'm not sure what the difference is between the filter ratings.

We've got ND 4, 8, 16 and 32. When would I use one rating vs the other?

Each higher number reduces light by a stop. ND 4 is one stop, 8 is two stops etc. Use with very bright scenes or where the dynamic range may exceed the capabilities of the camera. A circular polarizer is a kind of ND and can be used in a pinch.

NDs won't really be of much help with aerial still photographs. If you were doing long exposures of moving water, etc., then you would use them to reduce the light coming in so you can use a very slow shutter speed to show movement.
With the UAV (drone) they are of great value when shooting aerial video. They help keep the shutter speed as close to 2x the frame rate (180* shutter angle) to give the illusion of the motion effects of film.
Have fun on your trip!

Do you have an ND set yet?

Thanks all.

Primarily will be shooting video, although I'm sure there could be some cool waterfall stills. I'm looking into using AEB settings too, but I'm not processing the photos, the kids are, so I'm not sure if they'll know what to do with that.

Yeah El Beej, ordered a set of four a few weeks ago. Just figuring out what to actually do with them.

I used a Sandmarc polarized lens filter the other day and the results are really good.
I have yet to use the other NDPL ones though, but I will.

We are going to Hawaii and I want to cut glare from ocean flights.
My hope is the NDPLs will give me some motion to the ocean look with waves and things.

Have a good time. Iceland sounds great.

I finally figured out the Mavic Pro camera focus. It wasn't easy. I would get good video and then it would be out of focus.
Get the focus right and the edges were blurry.
Oh well, I am a little slow sometimes.
Now I see the camera can work really well.
I just didn't understand it.

I'm interested in how your ND filters work out.
Please post back after your trip.

I'm a novice at this.

I've also go the Mavic Pro. I don't believe the filters we got are polarizing, though, just ND.

What tips do you have for focusing? I was watching a bunch of youtube videos and one of them said you basically keep clicking on the screen to focus, even though you may have just focused.

I was taking really bad out of focus videos and stills.

It turns out if you have it in AF (auto focus), every time you stop and hover, it auto focuses on something and it may not be focusing on what you want.
That explains why some of the footage was fine and some was not even in the same video.

I am not sure the terminology but if one focuses at 40 feet, everything at that distance and beyond will be in focus.
I tested that out by launching, then setting AF at 40 feet, switched to manual focus to hold that setting and that works, just don't try refocusing in manual until doing work closer than 40 feet.

However, if staying in auto focus at the next hover, it auto focuses again by itself.
The solution for me?
Use the auto focus to focus on a bright object 40 feet away, then turn off auto focus by switching to manual focus but not touching/adjusting the manual focus.
Then that focus you had at 40 plus feet will be locked in and stay at the setting you set in auto focus, ie 40 feet and beyond.

For anything closer than 40 feet, turn on auto focus and tap the area on the screen to be in focus for what you are choosing.

I hope I explained this right.

Type "mavic pro camera focus" in your search engine and you'll find threads about this in forums like mavicpilots which will reveal the problems and the solutions.

After spending an hour reading these things, I launched my Mavic Pro and presto! my videos and stills were instantly better and in focus when and where I wanted them to be.

Now, I am a little slow sometimes, and these threads about the camera focus solved my issues.
That said, I did need to use the reset camera settings and reset/recalibrate the MRU to get rid of the fuzzy out of focus edges of my videos as well.
I like everything in focus generally speaking, though there are times I want a specific subject in focus with everything else blurry.
Now I can do both.

As I said, from the factory, the camera was not working properly and the reset camera settings and MRU solved some other problems I was having.

I am glad I researched and tested all this before I went on vacation. Otherwise, I would have had to learn during the vacation and that would have been frustrating.
It only took a couple of hours reading and testing the drone.

I suppose I could just keep tapping on objects in auto focus mode but that was time consuming and I was not enjoying the moment as it were.
And besides, my camera wasn't working properly anyway until the reset camera setting and MRU were reset.
My auto focus wasn't working properly either until those resets and re calibrations.

Some drones are permanently focused and you can't change the focus which can make things easier, but the Mavic Pro isn't like that.

But again, maybe it was me just being slow.

Now that I understand how the Mavic Pro camera works, everything is easier.

my very first introduction to user-applied filters was in the old film-and-multiple glass lenses era....Mt. Jefferson was in the distance at the end of a perfect little valley where Metoleus River pops out of the hillside.

The valley made a perfect V shape with the image of fully exposed Mt. Jefferson a perfect ^ above, with blue sky & minimal clouds. One without filter did not capture any Mt. Jefferson at all, while with a half horizon-sky ND it was a beautiful print.

I have forgotten what that special filter was even called, but it was handy for high mountain lakes where the sky would easily wash out agains the water line.

Have no idea how the drone filters may be needed but it sounds like a marvelous project to study.

These ND and NDPL filters for drones are popular.

I found at least 4 companies that sell them.

How did the Mavic Pro do in Iceland?

We were grounded for weather almost the whole trip, unfortunately.

It snowed every single day, except the day it rained all day.

Winds were the major concern. Constant 20mph and gusts of well over 50mph. The whole week.

There were a few times we got the drone up, but it was very hard to fly because of wind.

We did get it up on our glacier walk but didn't have too much time to fly because of the winds and time constraints. Only got about 10 min of footage total, but it was actually pretty bright and sunny.

Also was letting students do the flying and, well, they're not very light on the sticks, so nearly all the footage was jerky. Maybe good for stills but essentially no useable footage because the drone wasn't moving smoothly for more than 5 seconds at a time.

I think I kept the 8 filter on there the whole time. I'm going to have one of the kids process some stills and see what they look like.

It was a learning experience, for sure. Drone flying when you're trying to manage 15 teenagers and a timeline is difficult, to say the least.

We almost got a dog run over, but that's another story! International incident avoided!!

Darn.
But at least you tried.

I am getting really good quality footage from mine when I do my part.
My pastor wanted some drone shots of the house he built for himself in south rural Loveland CO outside the 5 mile limit of the local airport.

The Mavic Pro finally got to stretch out a little.
I was using a plain PL filter.

Winds were 15MPH and all was well.