Canyon Walls

OOO · Feb 24, 2018

One of the friend here asked me to film the walls of this canyon. The colors of the rock walls seems beautiful to me. But, I'm a colorblind person and I might be wrong about the colors. Please let me know your thoughts, critics and advices. Thanks.

alokbhargava · Feb 24, 2018

Excellent. How did you do it? It’s beautiful. You are a great artist.

OOO · Feb 24, 2018

alokbhargava said:
Excellent. How did you do it? It’s beautiful. You are a great artist.

Thank you very much! Recorded and uploaded at 4K@30 FPS with very slow stick moves in some of the flights to get all details of those rock walls and to avoid filming artifacts (jello effect, rolling shutter etc.). I usually don’t fly that slow and with this flight I’ve realized that it is extremely difficult to fly very slow and smoothly.

Edit:
1) VPS and OA turned off in most of the flights
2) ND4 and ND8 polarized filter for some shots
3) D-Cine
4) -1/-1/-1
5) No additional sharpness in post
6) Simple color correction

ghutch · Feb 24, 2018

Cool place and very well filmed! Nice work...

OOO · Feb 24, 2018

ghutch said:
Cool place and very well filmed! Nice work...

Thanks! I like your photos and color correction work. Do you see any problem with the colors?

ghutch · Feb 24, 2018

OOO said:
Thanks! I like your photos and color correction work. Do you see any problem with the colors?

Not much, very natural looking. If I was going to nitpick, I'd put in a little more saturation and also try to get the greens a little greener...

OOO · Feb 24, 2018

ghutch said:
Not much, very natural looking. If I was going to nitpick, I'd put in a little more saturation and also try to get the greens a little greener...

Thank you for the feedback. That’s what I want (natural look).

African wildlife · Feb 25, 2018

007: Well done again, but I know that isn’t what you want from me.

The subject matter, as usual, is good. That said, it can’t sustain a film length of 3.45 minutes. (I would say 2.30 minutes maximum.) You start to repeat very similar shots after about 1.30 minutes. So, remembering “less is more”, I would suggest you cut out some of the “okay” or “good” footage, keeping only the best.

I hope you’ve got your DSLR.

African wildlife · Feb 25, 2018

007: One clip appears to be oversaturated; it’s at 2.50 minutes or thereabouts. All the rest are fine.

As a general observation, many enthusiasts in the US go for the well saturated colours look. In stills photography, they usually like HDR. By comparison, in the UK, we tend to favour a less saturated approach to colour - and HDR is somewhat frowned upon, even by the new generation of photographers.

OOO · Feb 25, 2018

African Wildlife:
Thank you very much for the feedback!
1) Length issue: I agree!
2) Similar shots after 1:30: They looks similar but in each clip I'm approaching to a different section of the wall. But if it still doesn't work I'll change my habit of doing this. Actually I’ve a lot of usable and very good shots from this place but I wanted to show those rock formations a bit more.
3) Oversaturated clip at 2.50: Overall color work took only 5 minutes. For most of the clips exposure was OK straight out of the camera. Thus, in post, I only added 40% saturation to all clips. No sharpness and other improvements. It was around sunset time (2.50) and the sun was facing directly to the that wall of the canyon. I didn't understand why it looks oversaturated but I'll double check the original footage.
4) How did you find those slow and relatively smooth shots of the rock wall. It was extremely difficult to go that slow and keep the drone stable.
5) DSLR: I've decided to go with full frame DSLR. Still reading and studying basics of the photography. I can't resist to get one of these cameras

1) Nikon D850, 2) Sony Alpha 7R III.

African wildlife · Feb 25, 2018

007: Yes, I could see the sun on the rock, but the sky above looked over done.

I like your footage. And that’s the problem when it comes to editing; you have to be ruthless. We’ve got in excess of 400 separate bits of video, most with more than one usable clip. It’s all been narrowed down to about 65 bits of the very best footage for the short film we’ve been working on for the past three months. The rest is on the cutting room floor, to use a pre-digital expression, even though a lot of it is nevertheless really good.

OOO · Feb 25, 2018

African wildlife said:
007: Yes, I could see the sun on the rock, but the sky above looked over done.

I like your footage. And that’s the problem when it comes to editing; you have to be ruthless. We’ve got in excess of 400 separate bits of video, most with more than one usable clip. It’s all been narrowed down to about 65 bits of the very best footage for the short film we’ve been working on for the past three months. The rest is on the cutting room floor, to use a pre-digital expression, even though a lot of it is nevertheless really good.

Sky issue:
I think it is directly related to the incorrect use of polarized filter. This was the first time that I’ve used a CPL filter. I rotated the filter until the sky turned blue (that’s what I was told to do).
If you don’t mind may I ask what kind of film are you currently working on and when it’ll be ready? I’m really very interested to watch that film. Once again, thank you so much for the advices and encouragement.

African wildlife · Feb 26, 2018

007: If you were using a polariser and then increasing saturation by 40% in post production, which is a lot, that would explain it. We always use the ND/PL filters.

We’re suffering the worst prolonged drought in approximately 400 years, which is the film’s subject. (I’m sure you’re getting news about Cape Town not being far away from running out of water. They’ve had more than us!) It will be 6 minutes in length. We’ve got two final sunrise golden hours with light winds to make any final improvements, before we fly back to the UK, but we’ve already got what we need.

OOO · Feb 26, 2018

Sorry, I forgot to mention I used a Polar Pro ND/PL filter for those shots. Thanks for the info. Looks like a documentary film. Congratulations! I would love to watch this film.