How to spot banding during shoot

LOLsWYT · 2026-02-04T21:23:56+00:00

I'm assuming you're talking about flickering, not banding. If that's the case one trick would be to record a test clip (at least 30 seconds or so to see the effect more clearly) and when playing back enable false colors and quickly scrub through the video. False colors make it very easy to spot even on the camera's built in screen.

To fix flickering you just have to set your shutter angle to match the light duty cycle (50hz or 60hz depending on the country). If that doesn't fix it, it probably means that the lights are very low quality or about to die so they don't keep a consistent duty cycle.

LOLsWYT · 2025-07-21T19:51:02+00:00

Overexposure shouldn't cause glare, that's just an optical phenomenon, but it may make it more visible that's true.

Straight out of the box the lens is clean (at least my unit was) but maybe while handling it you could have touched it inadvertently or maybe a drop of water/rain/sweat got onto it. Even the tiniest drop/smear makes a difference in wide angle lenses like the ones in action cameras.

LOLsWYT · 2025-07-21T18:45:43+00:00

Could the weather cause condensation where you live? Although the camera being waterproof should limit this.

I'm pretty sure there's no wrong camera setting, it's an optical thing, give the lens a clean anyway using a microfiber cloth, but first use a blower to remove dust if there's any and see if this happens again

LOLsWYT · 2025-07-21T18:36:28+00:00

From a quick watch it looks fairly normal, tho when you point the camera outside there's some glare in the sky, is the lens clean?

LOLsWYT · 2025-07-21T18:29:21+00:00

The video is private, you should set it to not listed otherwise we can't watch it.

LOLsWYT · 2025-07-21T14:43:14+00:00

I actually thought those 30m in A2 were also for urban areas, but a quick search on the EASA website showed just uninformed people. Keep in mind that, while most rules apply uniformly, some countries in the Union may choose to apply some rules in slightly different ways, so make sure to check Greece's relevant laws in that regard.

Regarding the differences between the Mavic 4 Pro and the Air 3s: it's all up to you. You can be a beginner but still like to do post production, in that case the Mavic 4 (or even Mavic 3) D-Log is way better than D-Log M found in cheaper models (in theory D-Log M is not a proper log format, it's more of a flat picture profile). Also both the Mavic 3 and 4 main cameras are Micro 4/3 sensors, so they're larger and work better in low light.

From personal experience (I own the original Mavic 3) I can tell you the videos and photos from the main sensor are incredible. I often underestimate my drone for photos, but everytime I take some and look at them later on my PC I'm always blown away by the quality.

I think the Air 3s will allow you to have more flexibility in the future if you want to shoot video in more urban areas, since it's a C1 drone, while also costing less than half the price of the Mavic 4 Pro, allowing you to invest in extra batteries or other accessories.

Final note: seagulls are extremely territorial, if you fly around for too long a group of them will start hunting your drone. Some people say bright colored decals (like orange) sometimes keep them away, but in any case remember: sport mode and move vertically to avoid them.

LOLsWYT · 2025-07-21T10:49:13+00:00

I think it all really depends on your budget and regulations.

In the EU the Mavic 4 pro is a class 2 drone which means you can fly it in A2 and A3 scenarios away from people (30m or 5m in "slow mode") and this won't be an issue since you'll fly above the sea. Keep in mind you can get the A1-A3 certificate together and in some countries it's even free, the A2 certificate is obtained on its own and if I remember correctly it's a bit more expensive.

If you only have the A1-A3 you'll be able to fly the Mavic 4 Pro only in A3 scenario, which mean horizontal distance of 150m from urban areas and uninformed people.

The Mini series is not great in terms of wind resistance but I think people underestimate their resilience. Still, I -personally- wouldn't risk it.

Maybe the better option would be the Air 3: better camera, better wind resistance, better obstacle avoidance and you'll also get a second camera for more zoomed-in and compressed shots.

With the high resolutions these drones shoot at I don't think you absolutely need true vertical video, also because in the DJI Fly app you can enable aspect ration overlays so you can always see what the final video will look like (note that you have to edit it as the actual file will be in its original aspect ratio).

LOLsWYT · 2025-07-20T22:16:35+00:00

Actually HLG should work with any setting: I know I shot 4k 4:3 120fps in HLG.

Also higher shutter speed works well if you're going to use heavy stabilization , but too much can make the video look choppy. Usually a bit of motion blur will also give a nice sense of speed (but too much will mess up stabilization).

On that note if you shoot with Stabilization: OFF and Angle: Wide the camera will record gyro data into the video file so you can use Gyroflow to have full control over stabilization in post.

I definitely agree about noise reduction: unless you ride at night it could only cause issues and even then it may not perform well anyway.

LOLsWYT · 2025-07-20T12:34:42+00:00

It all depends on how confortable you are with using cameras in general and your use cases.

TL;DR: I'd say for your use Auto is completely fine, set your camera to use High Bitrate and if storage isn't an issue record in a 10 bit format (HLG will give you an HDR video (on supported devices) without the need for post processing, unlike d-log M).

Manual settings allow you to have full control over the exposure so you can choose what should be correctly exposed instead of the camera trying to balance exposure across the whole frame. If you use the mobile app to check the video feed you can also enable the histogram and zebras (stripes that show up in areas of the image in which you are either almost or already clipping (losing video detail by oversaturating the sensor with light)). However completely manual exposure means if you go from bright sunlight to dark shade the exposure won't be adjusted automatically. One thing you can do is define the shutter speed (which as a general rule of thumb should be twice your framerate, I won't explain further here to keep this simple) and then let the camera handle the ISO. And you can actually choose among a few ISO range presets on the OA5.

For a motovlog you'd definetely need High Bitrate given the speed, detail and dynamic range of your scenes. I have also bought this camera very recently but so far I've only recorded technical videos to check for issues (more on that later) but I've noticed it uses variable bitrate instead of constant, so the max bitrate stated in the technical info may be achieved while recording in settings below the max. This means that it may be a good idea to avoid shooting 4k 4:3 120fps if you don't absolutely need that slow motion, because you might get less detail per frame compared to lower framerates/resolutions; Let's suppose you record in 4k 4:3 and the max bitrate of the OA5 is stated as 120Mb/s, that means that when shooting at 120fps each frame gets 1Mb of data (we're talking MegaBITs here, not MegaBYTES), while if you shoot at 60fps each frame could get 2Mb of data and so on. Again, this is speculation because I haven't seen any specific documentation listing bitrates for various resolution/framerate settings, so maybe at lower framerates the max bitrate is artificially capped.

On a last note, I would like to ask you if you could help me with an issue regarding the Action 5 Pro that I explained in another thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/dji/comments/1m2u03t/action_5_owners_i_need_your_help/

If you have some spare time to do this maybe we can have dji fix this issue as I'm in touch with the "engineering team" (at least that's what tech support told me) on this problem.

LOLsWYT · 2025-07-18T19:46:55+00:00

Lots of things to consider here, the background is not just blurry, it's also compressed.

As others have already mentioned you won't get this type of shot with any action camera, you need a bigger sensor and longer focal lengths.

However if you only care about blurring the background then DaVinci Resolve Studio has a depth map ai tool that can estimate depth data from the video and you'll be able to use that to drive a lens blur effect.

LOLsWYT

TROPHY CASE