Do You Need ND Filters for Your Drone?

[@JimmyJinIA]

This is the best video I have seen going over the rules, reasons, and highlights of ND filter use. Excellent video Jake.

[@JakeSloan]

Thanks so much Jimmy J!!

[@TheAlaskanOutsider]

Great video and love how you pull up into scenes on the snow machine!! So cool 😎

[@JakeSloan]

Hahahaha thanks!

[@AlbertJanBoxma]

You’ve explained the use of ND-filters really well, Jake. This will help using my Freewell ND-filters with my DJI Mini 2. And what a stunning environment you’re shooting in! 👌🏻

[@JakeSloan]

Agreed and thanks!

[@fpvflyriding]

Thanks Jake, all of my filming aspirations are on snow covered winter days & I've found it hard to find helpful tips & tricks for these conditions.

[@JakeSloan]

I have lots more and I’m so glad to hear they helped!!

[@fpvflyriding]

@@JakeSloan I messaged on Facebook if you still have your Skydio 2 for sale.

[@ranjanbhattacharyaphotography]

wowww, excellent video Jake

[@JakeSloan]

Thank you so much!

[@MrEddieNunez]

Spot on Jake. Sometimes when we are flying for leisure, we lose track of capturing the moment because we want to worry so much on the 180 rule. I find it particular annoying when shooting videos and photos at the same time, having to come back down to take off the filter and then take off again.

[@JakeSloan]

Agreed!!

[@PaulFeinberg]

Eddie......

[@MrEddieNunez]

@@PaulFeinberg Paul…….

[@jodokcello]

Makes it sense to use nd filters also in auto-modus?

[@JakeSloan]

It does

[@Lordvader330]

Great video. Jake you really make it simple.

[@JakeSloan]

Thank you sir!

[@dougcooper4917]

Excellent Tutorial Video On Filters Jake! Thank You For Your Help!

[@JakeSloan]

Thank you Doug! Have a great weekend

[@michaeldockman8573]

Thanks for an easy to understand explanation!

[@JakeSloan]

You're welcome!

[@PaulFeinberg]

Great video as always Jake!

[@JakeSloan]

Thanks Paul

[@deanfordcreative]

Jake, very nice video. Been watching your camera setting videos to get better footage/images. This has a lot of production value, I can see you did a lot of set up here. Question: when you’re doing a slo-mo track of an action, how does the 180 rule work? Say a subject is walking or a vehicle is moving. Also, good acting during the orbits!! 😉were you just waving your arms or were you actually videoing footage with the SLR?

[@JakeSloan]

I was actually talking to the camera but those parts didn’t make it into this video lol. I was saying sort of the same things but they just didn’t quite make sense with the rest of the video and didn’t cut well into the parts where I was talking about right and wrong shutter speeds.

[@deanfordcreative]

@@JakeSloan I edited my Q while you replied. Thanks. What frame rate shutter speed do you use for slo -mo?

[@JakeSloan]

If you plan to shoot in 120fps but slow that footage down to match a 24 or 30fps then yes you should follow the 180 rule. If you plan to leave it in real speed then you can still shoot at 120 but leave the shutter speed at 2x what your project timeline will be in (ie 24 or 30 etc).

[@jimanderson4865]

So when your referring to the 180 rule. That's when your doubling the frame rate for the shutter speed? Just trying to grasp the meaning of 180 rule.

[@JakeSloan]

That’s exactly right

[@IdahoMthman]

Great information. Very helpful to me

[@JakeSloan]

Glad it was helpful!

[@michaelpoczynek]

Very well said, Jake. Great video as always.

[@JakeSloan]

Thank you Michael!

[@timelapsebylkunl72]

Thank for a great video! It is first time that i hear about break 180 rule for VFX work.

[@JakeSloan]

I'm glad it was helpful!

[@YaleWall]

Super helpful! I’m heading to Iceland to shoot KZbin videos, and I wasn’t really sure how snow affects what I know about ND filters. Thanks!

[@JakeSloan]

Nice!

[@jolebole-yt]

I always buy filters first, then the Drone. Then when the Drone arives, the filters are all ready to go on the drone. Smart huh :). Great breakdown of filter usage. My variable Freewell filters for my Tamron's are awesome. I except these to be just as good.

[@JakeSloan]

they are and thats a great way to do it!

[@107drones]

Well you certainly made this easy to follow. Question: How would you know if you had the correct ND filter on a drone during flight? Or do you have to wait and see what you got only after you have landed and viewed what was on the SD card?

[@JakeSloan]

I usually check by holding the drone and looking at the screen (phone or controller) and making sure the exposure is where I want it but yeah sometimes I have to do a quick test flight to see where things end up

[@gerrykp]

awesome! thank you so much for the great video! really informative and helped me understand!

[@JakeSloan]

You’re welcome

[@hdemetri]

Well done. The examples you use are really great. Those low rotational shots look dizzying without the ND filter. I usually don't notice the difference when using the filter when I'm flying above 150 ft since the movement below me is pretty slow. As a non professional, choosing the right ND filter with a drone without aperture control can be a little challenging as the lighting will vary depending on the direction you are facing. I think if your shutter is off just a little bit from the 180 rule, the motion blur can still be acceptable.

[@JakeSloan]

Agreed

[@DrillSrgtEuge]

Thank you for this video. I was actually wondering what would happen if the 180ﾟ shutter rule was broken using an ND filter. However testing it on my own, my eye couldn't discern what the change was or the difference was. This was very helpful thank you.

[@JakeSloan]

Awesome glad it was helpful

[@thisdroneupflying]

Thank you Jake! Huge help!

[@JakeSloan]

Glad to hear it!!

[@nathanstepp86]

Would the 180 rule still apply if you would want to pull stills out of a video? Wouldn’t it be better to have the choppy video if you wanted to take photos out of the video? Really new to drones as I just got the mini 3 for an Iceland trip. Thanks

[@JakeSloan]

if you want to pull stills out of a video then you want to shoot at a shutter speed of 360 degree shutter or higher to eliminate any blur so if filming in 30fps then at least a shutter speed of 120 or higher

[@droningwesternaustralia]

Great video thanks Jake. So blame 51 Drones for me finding your channel. Ok, so a question. So you have a ND filter on, your shooting with the 180 rule and you decide that you can do without the motion blur. You don't want to land and remove the filter, can you just stop recording change your shutter speed and start filming again say at a higher shutter speed. Will the filter affect the video or not

[@JakeSloan]

No you can absolutely do that. You might just need to raise your ISO to compensate

[@Dabizdiaz]

Hey jake what drone did u used to record yousel qith snowmobile? Sky dio?

[@JakeSloan]

this was all Mavic 3

[@chriswedgworth]

Thanks for the info

[@JakeSloan]

You’re welcome

[@MohammadEhsanYousaf]

Amazing Video Sir

[@JakeSloan]

Thanks

[@arieboele]

Thanks Jake

[@JakeSloan]

you're welcome

[@shutterspeedireland1148]

great stuff sir

[@JakeSloan]

Thank you

[@Keaton_Whelan]

I still don’t understand the point of ND filters. I get they’re like sunglasses for your lens but how does that affect shutter speed and stuff?

[@JakeSloan]

the darker you make it with the filter the lower your shutter speed can be

[@lnimical]

Hey Jake, hopefully you can shed some light for me. I recently went up the the Alps to do some footage - I used a Sony A7S3 using the S-Log3 color profile. I was overexposing everything to about 1.7, and when I finally had the opportunity to review my footage, everything was completely blown out. I'm really not certain why this happened (I'm still learning). The only thing I can think is that I had to lower my ISO down to about 100 due to the bright light bouncing off the snow. Have you ever experienced anything like this? Should I have used an ND filter and kept ISO around 640? Thank you.

[@JakeSloan]

are you sure your highlights are clipped? mine look clipped until I pull them back. Also make sure your histogram is on your view so you can check your exposure that way. I rely on that more than anything to make sure I am not clipping my highlights

[@lnimical]

@@JakeSloan Thank you - yes, most definitely clipped. I managed to pull whatever I could and make something out of it. Will pay closer attention to the histogram in the future!

[@lnimical]

@@JakeSloan Would love to get some feedback on the video if you're up for it. Don't want to post the link here unless you're ok with it.. just mainly looking for some critique on drone movement, and color grading. I understand you're probably busy, so feel free to say no :)

[@KardosoMedia]

The day we get adjustable built in ND’s on a Mavic we will literally have it all. Nothing worse than putting up the drone then realizing you should have used a different filter.

[@JakeSloan]

Oh man that would be amazing!!

[@kurtdewittphoto]

Great video.

[@JakeSloan]

Thanks!

[@kurtdewittphoto]

@@JakeSloan I've been shooting video a long time and seriously never implemented the 180 rule. Early on, a friend said I should shoot at 1/60 so I always stuck with that no mater what framerate I was shooting. I will start using that rule from now on!

[@shot_by_tony]

If you can explain this I’ll be very happy… shutter speed rule to add blur to a faster moving object to recreate how our eyes/brain sees the motion. Great… but what’s the difference between the real moving object and the same moving object on film.. why doesn’t our eyes/brain still add the same blur…

[@JakeSloan]

That has to do with screens, refresh rates, and the frequency that all our devices operate at

[@shot_by_tony]

@@JakeSloan thank you, will think more… also… if you film at 25fps you shoot at 1/50, but if you film at 50fps with the intention to slow the footage down to 25fps at playback, is 1/100 or 1/50 the correct amount of visual blur… prob not hugely significant, but interested 😊 thanks for your reply

[@JakeSloan]

If you plan to slow the footage down then shoot with a 1/100 shutter speed if you don’t plan to slow the footage down then keep the shutter 1/50

[@donaldrobbins252]

Thank you :)

[@JakeSloan]

you're welcome

[@friendcircle49]

May Allah bless you and go Ahead brother

[@JakeSloan]

👍🏻

[@nonyab3237]

Which ND filter number(s) do you use most on your Mavic 3?

[@JakeSloan]

16 or 32

[@nonyab3237]

​@@JakeSloan Thank you for that and all your videos on the Mavic 3. I love your parallax shots and the snow covered forest shots look so good! You've motivated me to trade-in my Air 2s. I guess I just need to buy the drone and try it out for myself!

[@mikehrenak1390]

First air 2 s army out

[@JakeSloan]

Cheers Mike!

[@Phuong.Nguyen-]

Another cool video with pretty snow and good introduction that’s very helpful, thanks for sharing, hopefully u enjoy my video too, and have a good weekend my friend :)

[@JakeSloan]

Thanks have a great weekend too!

[@вечная_мерзлота]

never understood why we want to emulate motion blur. who sais we want to emulate and why? I always shoot without filters. the sharper the better. each frame could be used as a photo. absolutely no problem.

[@JakeSloan]

True

[@TylerNally]

You mention the 180° & 90° rules but never, that I can detect, tell us what the rule is. I'm surprised you referred to shutter speeds with both numerator and denominator. That like someone talking about 3D printing filament in terms of milimeters cubed (when talking about volume of filament) used per second. Milimeters cubed describes the units of measure but isn't a true unit of measure. The pro move is to use the the unit of measure called 'cubic milimeters'. For shutter speeds, just add the 'th' to the end of the denominator to make 60th, 100th, 120th, etc of a second. We know the people flying drones see the full fractional number in the control app. But, dumbing it down keeps people from becoming intelligent photographers able to talk the same lingo with someone that still uses film. Even the viewfinders of these cameras never show the fractional shutter speed but the denominator of the fraction.

[@JakeSloan]

Really? All my cameras show shutter speed in a fraction unless I’m using my cinema cameras which have a shutter angle setting vs actual shutter speed. Saying it this way helps people start to connect shutter speed and frame rates. Very people use film anymore and the next generation probably won’t at all. I want to help them understand how to film correctly in the digital age.

[@robweaver9953]

I don’t believe you need motion blur for landscapes unless you are flying very low.

[@JakeSloan]

I explain that in this video... fast movement = need motion blur regardless of subject. Slow movement = not needed as badly

[@EdCatlett]

There is no drones or cameras for that matter, without an aperture. There are a lot without variable aperture. Without an aperture you have no light and no camera.

[@JakeSloan]

Correct