Four settings adjustments to achieve a cinematic image with the Mavic 2 Pro

1. Always shoot in manual settings with “DLog-M.”

What will come to be a disappointing surprise initially when uploading your footage after shooting with the DLog-M profile will transform into awe after making a few easy color corrections using photo/video editing software such as Adobe's Premiere Pro or Apple's Final Cut Pro.

This shooting profile is what’s considered a RAW format. What is maybe most noticeable right from the get-go is how dull all the colors are–they’re neutral. If you didn’t know any better, you might think to yourself, “Wow. I had no idea the world was so gray,” or maybe and probably more likely you’d think something was wrong with the camera.

If it’s time that you have none of and couldn’t possibly spare five to twenty minutes of making adjustments post-shoot then make the time or maybe it is best not to shoot raw.

That being said, if top-shelf quality is of the utmost importance then D-Log is the go-to. The D-Log profile offers the most room for color correction due to the 10-bit color capabilities. There are heaps of resources online to get a more in-depth understanding of color science but two of the most common graphics storage methods (8-bit and 10-bit) are discussed here briefly.

8-bit color is the system utilized to store an image’s information and each pixel represents one byte or 8-bits. It offers 256 red shade values, 256 green shade values and 256 blue shade values which offer a combined 16,777,216 available colors. If this is new information then this range of color possibilities likely sounds staggering and surely it was in the early 90s.

10-bit color on the other hand, like featured in the Mavic 2 Pro’s optional D-Log setting allows for 1,024 possible shades of each primary color respectively generating 1,073,741,824 (1,0243) possible colors. The increase in available red, green and blue shades for the camera to store will create a better, more accurate life-like image.

2. Exposure: Adjust the aperture between f/2.8 and f/5.6, strive for the lowest ISO and set the shutter speed to twice that of your frame rate.

Setting the aperture around f/4 will give the best results by achieving a balance between image sharpness and an even depth-of-field. Opening up the aperture from f/5.6 to f/2.8 allows the camera's sensor to gather more information about whatever or whoever is being captured which means more light is entering through the camera's iris.

Increasing f-numbers decreases amount of light

Understanding f-stop ratios can get a little complicated the deeper it's read into but in a few words, increasing the f-numbers means decreasing the size of the opening for light to enter and vice versa.

The more information gathered the better but without making some additional adjustments to the shutter speed or swapping out the standard UV filter with an ND filter the subject will likely be heavily overexposed or blown out.

So what's the workaround? Increasing the shutter speed is one option. The shutter speed is measured by the amount of time the shutter is opened per second. As the shutter increases the more light is required. As the shutter decreases less light is required and the subject will appear to blur when in motion.

Achieving the right amount of blur between frames as a subject is moving is much of what gives a video that cinematic aesthetic that also relies on the chosen frame rate. Frame rate and shutter speed go hand-in-hand when aiming for a cinematic image, specifically a frame rate of 24 frames per second or more precisely 23.976fps; the standard frame rate used in the majority of major motion pictures.

With the frame rate set to 23.976, the aperture set around f/4 and the ISO set to 100 the question of the shutter speed's adjustment is all that remains and can actually be answered simply by following a rule of thumb.

The 180° rule of shutter is a standardization developed by the motion film industry that says whatever frame rate is being used, in this case 23.976, the shutter speed should be doubled. An exact figure would mean setting the shutter speed to 1/47.952 second but most camera systems won't offer this frame rate, so choose the next closest (1/50 second). Because 23.976 is the industry standard, 1/50 second is the appropriate shutter speed, but the 180° rule can also be applied to other frame rates: 25fps and 1/50s, 30fps and 1/60s, 60fps and 1/120s and so on.

Manual settings configuration

The settings are dialed in but how does the image preview look, is it completely blown out? Whether or not the preview is bright white will depend on what the current lighting situation is. For the sake of this post being about dialing in drone settings and drones generally shooting while the sun is out, we'll say, yes, the picture is in fact overexposed.

So what is the solution? An ND filter. This little piece of tinted glass will cut the amount of light that reaches your camera’s sensor, in a way it’s a bit like tricking the camera into thinking there’s less light than there actually is, granting access to the above settings while attaining a properly exposed image with cinematic motion blur. Now it's time to get out there and create some visually appealing cinematic footage–or don't, you do you.

For more information about ND filters refer to the previous post here.

Photo credits: Thomas Husen; KoeppiK, CC BY-SA 4.0; Thomas Husen