How to Edit Your DJI Mavic 2 AERIAL HYPERLAPSE Raw Images 

Awesome! See...I knew there were ways to improve. But you don't know what you don't know. Now I know. :-)

Thank you. I'm glad it's helpful!

Blue Mantle Films agreed really appreciate your sharing!

You're welcome! I'm glad they're helpful for you.

I bought and learned LRTimelapse when I was working on my Pinnacles National Park time lapse video, and I do like that program, particularly when it's necessary to keyframe the metadata, but overall if I'm able to use fewer programs, I prefer to do that.

Awesome! Yes, A LOT can be salvaged from the hyperlapses so long as you did save the raw files!

You’re welcome!

Thanks! I’ve been so busy with working through a backlog of client projects, but I’m hoping to get back into YT videos very soon!

So I finally tried this this morning. Pretty cool, but I actually wish they also had the same masking option for noise reduction. I mostly want to reduce the grain in the otherwise-uniform-gradient sky, and I'm not as bothered by noise in high-detail areas. By following your suggestion I'm able to not re-introduce sharpening to the sky (which is good, obviously!) but do you know if there's a way to (easily, not by manually creating masks) mask the sky for noise reduction?

Blue Mantle Films only thing I could suggest for this is to use a gradient filter or adjustment brush and just brush the whole sky section and then you’ll have a noise reduction slider just for the brushed part of the photo. Not the easiest fix though but that’s the way I do it

I know, right? Isn't it crazy how much better it looks?

Yes it is a massive difference in quality. Thank you again for this lesson.

You're welcome! Glad it was helpful.

You’re welcome!

Awesome! Yeah, it's been a busy week, but I was anxious to get this online.

Awesome! Happy to have you here. :-)

I use a JPG sequence until I'm done editing the full clip, but if I were to turn it into a video while still working on the sequence I'd use ProRes HQ 422, in the native resolution (so don't make it a 4K-only clip, because then it crops the top and bottom). Once I'm done doing all my edits (color, stabilization, etc.) I usually export the clips in ProRes 422, both at a full native resolution (5.6K), and a 4K resolution with the cropping that I want for it.

You're welcome!

I have the same question, how did he managed to repeat the exact same path?

@@RodrigoPolo Since he is creating his own hyperlapse from the raw files, he doesn't necessarily need to use the hyperlapse feature. In the camera settings, you can set it to take photos every 2 seconds (other durations available). Combine this with saved waypoints and you can recreate the same flight paths for a timelapse. That said, I need to try this!

@@RodrigoPolo using way point

Thanks, Erik!

Thanks for the feedback, and I'll try to keep that in mind. Generally I'd say my tutorials aren't geared toward those completely unfamiliar with a program, so I do cut corners sometimes. Sorry that I lost you for a portion of this one. Regarding the Auto Scale, basically when you use Warp Stabilizer, with the more it tries to smooth out the image, the more it also needs to scale the image so that you're not seeing the edges coming into the frame. The 102% is the scale that I try to stay at or under, because as that number gets bigger, it means Warp Stabilizer is pushing the image around more. This is more of a problem with wider lenses, and I haven't tested that percentage to see what's acceptable specifically with the Mavic 2 Pro with its 28mm equivalent focal length. I think you could probably get away with that percentage being higher, but I got used to trying to stick to 102% when working with some wider lenses.

You're welcome! Thanks for watching.

You're welcome!

Thank you for the kind words on my videos! There has definitely been a positive response to these videos, so I hope to keep making them. To answer your question: to be honest, the M2P is not for everyone, and if you don't personally see the benefit of having the Pro, then in my mind that's the surest reason to not buy the Pro. The Zoom, from what I can see (I haven't used it myself) can make really good imagery when used well. The Pro can make better imagery when used well, but it also requires more work to get that better imagery. So for ANYONE who doesn't distinctly know that they want the Pro, my default is to suggest the Zoom. My hope for the next Mavic is that it incorporates the zoom feature of the Zoom with the sensor and color science of the Pro, giving us the best of both worlds. That might be too much to ask, but that's what I'm hoping for. In the meantime, for myself, the M2P is my favorite drone. But I still think that the M2Z is the right drone for many people.

@@BlueMantleFilms Thank you for the reply! I'm still learning composition, so I have to agree with you. The footage and cinematics I am still able to achieve with the Zoom definitely works for now. And maybe when I am ready to make the advancement, Dji will have incorporated the best of both worlds by then! Thank you again for your insight and the great content!

Thanks! I've got a video coming out shortly that has a bunch of hyperlapses from around Miami. Pretty excited by what this drone can do if used properly.

Don't watch my next video, then! That one will lose you for sure. :-) But in all seriousness, I'm sorry that I lost you. I try to make these tutorials engaging and keep them moving. I know when I'm watching a tutorial that I hate it when they drag on, so I make these tutorials in the way that I would want to consume tutorial content, and sometimes that means I move a bit fast. Hopefully if you watch it again and have the program open it'll make sense. But yes, be forewarned, the next video will likely lose you. I'm honestly geeking out a little bit as I edit it together because it's a really detailed and advanced tutorial. I hope to have it published within the next 24 hours.

I didn't know this feature existed. After digging into a little, it seems this only works to balance exposure changes due to changing camera settings. It seems like it basically calculates the change in stops of light based on the metadata concerning camera settings to match your selected frame to match. In this case, no settings change, just the natural lighting, so lightroom doesn't have anything to calculate from and no changes are made when attempting this method. I wish it worked though!

Panasonic GH5 (it’s my workhorse! I’ve been shooting with it since it was released in April 2017) and a Voigtlander 10.5mm lens. Also had a Fiilex light kit for lighting this one. I still use the same camera and lens for most of my tutorials, but I now have a Godox SL-200w light - much stronger and has a bigger softbox, and I’ve also just gotten myself an external recorder, the Atomos Ninja 5. Just used that for my most recent video.

Blue Mantle Films Thank you very much. Great work.

I've gotten this question quite a bit on Facebook. Currently there's no way to save hyperlapses, but DJI has indicated they are going to add that feature to a future firmware update. In the meantime the way I've done it just by remembering and/or taking notes on where my waypoints were (including altitude) and then trying my best to setup the same waypoints when I would go back later. It has worked for me, but it's not perfect.

You're welcome! I'm glad it was helpful. If you're shooting in Manual mode (which I suggest in my hyperlapse tutorial specifically so that you can avoid flicker) then it will be locked by default since you manually control all of the settings and you set those settings before you started the hyperlapse. AE Lock is for when you're NOT shooting manually, but you want to lock exposure until you tell the app/drone that you don't want exposure to be locked anymore.

I do one clip at a time. When doing timelapses or hyperlapses I have a unique timeline for each clip, and export those. If I'm doing regular drone footage, usually I'll have a timeline with all of my clips from a particular shoot, and then I'll highlight the area I want to export (in Premiere it's called the "work area", I think) and then export just that, then move the work area to the next clip, and export that, and so forth and so on.

Overall I've been impressed with how many of these clips can get by with just using Warp Stabilizer in Premiere for stabilization. I have learned that a big part of it is how the footage was shot...anytime the camera is expected to stay facing in one direction with only waypoints, for example, there's a lot of side-to-side movement, but if you give the drone some programed panning movement, it ends up being much more stable. There have been a few clips where Warp Stabilizer wasn't sufficient, and I'm actually working on a video right now (literally, I was editing it and then switched over to RU-vid real quick to respond to comments, then I'll be going back to editing it) that goes into some advanced post processing techniques, including using After Effects for stabilization when Warp Stabilizer just won't cut it. So that should be out in the next day or two, so please come back for that.

@@BlueMantleFilms thanks- maybe the complex movement helps to not notice the minor instability

You're welcome. Question: would you be interested in a 'deep dive' into the post production process? I just finished editing a hyperlapse that I went into a lot of nitty gritties to make it look the way I wanted, and thankfully (I've learned the hard way by not doing this in the past) I was screen recording while I did it, so I'm planning on putting that together within the next few days. So if you're interested, please come back soon. :-)

I'm not even sure what you mean by "full scale". Do you mean the actual native resolution (~5.6k)? If so, I process everything in the native resolution. So I use Lightroom (and sometimes Photoshop) to process the raw images at their full resolution, then when I'm working on the video side of things I work in a timeline (in Premiere) and/or a comp (in After Effects) that is the same resolution as the images. Then when I go to export, I export at the same resolution as the timeline. So the files end up being really big, but they maintain the full resolution that way.

For me: because I don't know how to use Resolve. I've heard really good things about it, so I want to learn it, but I just don't have the time to learn a new program right now. Does Resolve work with DNG sequences?

Not sure. But one can always convert the DNG to TIFF which is universal. I also use Avid wit the Ultimate option which has sophisticated color grading. Lightroom has simplistic color in comparison to Avid or Resolve. Just download Resolve and look at their color corrector and you can see just how good their tools are. It's free too for HD. 4k costs extra.

This is a result/problem with the latest firmware...it used to be that you could set exposure below 1/30 and then go into hyperlapse mode and it would keep the shutter speed. They did away with that ability on the last firmware. If you're on an iOS device, there is a workaround by using the 5-direction joystick (if you're uncertain on that, check out my latest video, "How to change shutter speed for hyperlapses"). Using that method should give you the ability to still do long shutter speeds. Yeah, the night hyperlapses simply wouldn't be possible to this degree without being able to do long exposures. Even with long exposures I'm bumping the ISO up pretty high and have to do noise reduction. These shots would look terrible if I had to do this just with ISO rather than with long exposures.

@@BlueMantleFilms got it, i will go learn from it, thanks for ur answer sharing..

Lightroom can compile the video, as far as I know, but then I wouldn't be able to do stabilization. I'm not sure how FCP reads files, but I feel like there must be some option to import as an image sequence so that it is interpreted as a video file. If you'll be doing timelapses frequently then yes, I do recommend LRTimelapse. I bought a couple of years ago when I was shooting a lot of timelapses, and it's nice to have. When it's possible to edit without LRTimelapse I prefer that (fewer steps) but there are some things I can't do (such as keyframing the raw metadata) without it, so it's a good program.

I don't always export JPG, no. I've used TIF sometimes, which I don't think technically is "raw" (I don't know enough about it to know for sure, but I think I've heard TIF is a lossless format, but not raw....anyway). So, I have used TIF before, but I haven't noticed a significant difference in quality, but did notice a significant difference in performance. So it would take longer to load a TIF sequence, and especially to run Warp Stabilizer on it, and when I would export I didn't notice a bump in quality from the ones that I used just a JPG image sequence. So it didn't seem worth it to me..

So you can still follow this process for the Lightroom portion, and when you go to import into FCPX *I think* it imports as individual images rather than as an image sequence, so you'll need to set the still frame duration default to 1 frame (should be in Preferences or Settings), so then when you drop them on the timeline each image will be 1 frame long. Then *again, I think* you can select all the images and turn them into a compound clip, then use FCPX's stabilization.

I first make a sequence that’s exactly the same dimensions as the images by just dropping the image sequence onto the “new sequence” button in Premiere. That’s what I do any corrections and Warp Stabilizer on, so that I can have the highest resolution possible for that stage in the process. Then I put that into a 4K sequence (3840x2160) and downscale/crop it until I like the fit. I can go as low as 69% without losing resolution, if I want to use the full width of the image sequence, but other times I want to be able to play with the crop a bit, so I do something like 75% or 80% and then use the position attributes to move it around as I’d like. And I also sometimes keyframe the position, most specifically when I want to “tilt” the image up or down to see more of the top or bottom of the image.

I'd use a lossless format, rather than lossy. I haven't done a ton of research on which specific lossless format I'd want to use, but my first inclination is TIFF just because I'm familiar with it, so I'd probably go with that. But the file sizes are big and when trying to play them back as a video they were too processor-intensive for my computer. I've since upgraded my computers, but haven't done many hyperlapses lately, so haven't actually tried TIFF.

@@BlueMantleFilms thank you. I’ll give it a try on my new M1 MacBook.

@@TheBanksFamily Let me know how it goes. I always prefer to maintain as much quality as possible through the process so that the finished result is as high of quality as possible, but sometimes tradeoffs (time vs. data storage vs. quality) are necessary. But with a fast-enough computer then "tradeoff" might be a relatively moot point.

I use Lightroom for still photos also (and technically these hyperlapses are just a series of still photos), but I don't do stills very often.

Checkered Flag Films I haven’t tried auto (I hate letting something else control my settings) but I have adjusted exposure in fast-changing light scenarios...you can use the 5-d joystick and top right scroll wheel to change exposure settings on-the-fly. Check out my advanced hyperlapse post processing to see about that.

Checkered Flag Films I import and finish as 29.97 for stock footage, but if I’m working on a more film-like project, such as our travel films, I interpret the footage as 24 and edit in that.

@@BlueMantleFilms thanks...when your importing the jpg into premiere pro cc...what is your sequence setting in ppcc? Just a quicktime 29.97 setting? I know what you mean about control over various settings.

@@checkeredflagfilms I don't set the sequence settings...I just have the preferences such that image sequences are imported as 29.97, then when I drag it on the the new sequence icon it creates a sequence with the same framerate and resolution as the image sequence. Since the timeline/sequence is essentially just a placeholder until I export I don't need to worry (at least I don't think I need to worry) about video settings (Quicktime, codecs, etc.) at this stage. When I go to export then I actually care about the settings, but even then not too much. I have some presets that I've made over the years (I actually can't even remember the settings I have on them) and I just use those for exporting.

It is, yes. I was pleasantly surprised by that, because I was assuming it would be the same, that you'd need to do a 5-second interval to be able to capture raw.

Thanks for the feedback. I hadn't even realized the disproportionate time I spent between Lightroom and Premiere. Admittedly, overall my tutorial videos are often geared toward those who have a working knowledge of the programs. Anyway, I hope you were able to figure it out and get results you were happy with.

Yes, I have a friend that really knows Premiere, and he watched your video, and figured out hte way to do it. I thank you for this video. One way or the other, I learned something new throuh it!

I would do some tests, but likely I'd use TIFFs since that's a lossless format and still works with Premiere. I don't think I can import DNGs into Premiere, otherwise I would consider that as well.

Fantastic thankyou for the quick reply :D

Making notes (mental and on my phone) about where I setup the waypoints...basically trying to line up the drone with some noticeable landmark on the map. Screenshots are great for this to reference where you had your waypoints set up. Also, you can access the flight logs and see it if you wanted. You would need to also take note of the altitude at each of the waypoints so that you get it the same. Eventually DJI is going to implement the ability to save waypoints, but as it is right now, I just do it manually.

@@BlueMantleFilms thanks buddy. Wanted to make sure I hadn't missed something simple

If you're using a Mavic 2, the yes: POI is one of the hyperlapse modes. If you're using a different drone, and it has POI, and you can do interval shooting, then you should be able to combine the two and make a POI hyperlapse.

why yes sir I'm using that mav pro2 baby very excited about having one.

Which drone are you using? Previous DJI drones had the 5-second interval limit if you wanted to shoot raw, but on the Mavic 2 it allows 2 seconds with raw.

I think you are using time lapse mode so it will keep raw as a saved file but if you go to choose interval 5 seconds then no raw format will be available I am using Mavic 2 now, thanks for your reply!

I don't quite follow. I was filming in hyperlapse mode (if that's what you meant by time lapse mode, then yes, I was) and it has the options to do 2, 3, 5, and many more intervals, and all of them allow saving both the drone-generated video file and the raw images that you can edit like in this video. The other method, which more closely mimics the way drone hyperlapses were made with older drones, such as the Mavic 1, is to use interval shooting rather than hyperlapse mode, and I think in that case the availability of raw is limited to either 5 or maybe even 10-second intervals.

Thanks very much for your reply! Actually I am using litchi interval shooting so there is no raw format for 2 seconds, I learned from you and will use hyperlapse mode. Your works are so beautiful !

I don't quite understand this. Does it essentially keyframe the differences so that the relative changes are mild/slow across the whole sequence? If not, I would be afraid that using edits that aren't consistent across the whole sequence would end up introducing flicker into the timelapse.

They are consistent and you can see the changes across the thumbnails. So if you are creating a series with increasing or decreasing light you can ensure the final scene wont be too dark or bright. However it is not graduating the changes like LRTimelapse.

Is there a RU-vid video you can recommend that explains this process and shows samples? I'm intrigued and want to try it.

I feel like I must be misunderstanding something. I just tried it on a sequence I'm editing, stayed in the develop module and selected all the images in the tray, then enabled Auto Sync, then did my edits to one photo at first, and it synced it exactly the same across all of them. This is definitely a faster method of editing (not needing to copy and paste settings) so that's good, but from your first comment it sounded like you were saying the syncing will affect the images differently depending on the subtle changes in the image.

I think he means you can preview any change you make across all the images. For example, you might end up rising the exposure on one photo and it looks terrible on another. Auto sync will mean you can see this straight away in the filmstrip at the bottom

Yeah, I think the longest I've gotten is 20 seconds also. In theory if I knew ahead of time what I wanted to do and wasn't trying to figure out the movement for the first 3-4 minutes of the flight, and if I used something like CourseLock instead of Waypoints, then I think I could get like a 22 second hyperlapse, but that would be pushing it, I'm sure.

Premiere Pro for the regular video editing.

@@BlueMantleFilms could i do this on an ipad pro?

@@luis21alba You could do some of it, yes. I know there's Lightroom for iPad, so that's easily doable. I also know there are a lot of different video editing apps, so you'd be covered there as well. The one thing I think that would be lacking from editing on the iPad (though I might be mistaken on this) would be robust video stabilization abilities. I'm not sure if there's an equivalent to Warp Stabilizer on any of the editing apps, and these hyperlapses pretty much always need stabilization in post.

@@BlueMantleFilms thanks man i be using your advice 👍

Love automatic for anyone wondering

Awesome! I started doing this on the latest hyperlapses that I've been processing. Thanks for the tip!

Curious how this is done? Can you give me a quick run down Niall?

Do you mean for shooting or for exporting? Shooting is just at the native resolution of the sensor (~5,600 x ~3,700). For editing I edit in the native resolution, then once I’m completely done with edits I export two versions of my clips, one in the native resolution and one at 4K. This tutorial is supposed to be watched in conjunction with the broader hyperlapse tutorial I made, and in that one I mention exporting at native resolution and 4K.

楊智勝(洋森) Adobe Premiere Pro

I figured an 11-minute video was long enough. More details and it would have been 20-30 minutes.

Which part? What questions do you have and maybe I can answer them? I try to keep my videos moving along because I don't like watching slow tutorials. I know they're not for everyone (if you think this one was fast, don't watch my latest video!) but I hope there's still value in them for some people.

Blue Mantle Films I’ve don’t time lapse with Premier before but the not raw. I was able to I Import one photo but not the series in light room . I don’t know how you got that import button to come up. the one you used in your video. I attempted after effects. But some how am not getting it to render the full time lapse. Well the part be for the render if that make sents?

sbcfilm Have you worked with raw files before? I always get significantly better results from my raw files than I do from the auto-generated video. But I’ve said many times: the point of this or any other tutorial I make isn’t to tell you you have to do it this way. It’s to show what I think is the way to get the best results possible. If you don’t care to get the best results possible, and want to just do something quick and easy, then speeding up video is fine (though inefficient since you’re recording 30fps and most of those frames will be thrown away).

@@BlueMantleFilms plus that miserable render time!!! great tutorials on hyper lapses!!