Shoot 1 - Camera Settings: 4K30 by Default, Manual Exposure Off the Histogram, the 180-Degree Shutter and ND Math, Manual Kelvin, Log Profiles, and Six Per-Drone Settings Recipes

'I generally shoot in the highest resolution that I can, which on most drones is going to be 4K' - above 4K only if the computer can edit it; below 4K 'the footage for most drones starts to get soft' (the one exception is the original Mavic Pro, whose 4K bitrate is so low he shot 2.7K on it). Frame rates: 24, 30 and 60 in North America (25/50 elsewhere). 24 is the most cinematic for historical reasons but 'you absolutely need to use the 180-degree shutter rule' at 24 or it looks jittery; 'I personally shoot most of my videos at 30 frames per second because it gives me more flexibility with shutter speeds'; 60 only 'if I want the option to slow it down to half speed.' In the later per-drone lessons he softens this into a hedge: 60 fps as the default has 'really no significant downsides besides larger file sizes' on the Mavic 4 Pro and Mini 5 Pro, and slow-motion modes (4K100/120) carry crops or lose dynamic range.

Shutter speed, ISO and aperture make 'the exposure triangle'; one stop doubles or halves the light, in third-stop steps (shutter 1/50 → 1/60 → 1/80 → 1/100; aperture f/2.8 → 3.2 → 3.5 → 4; ISO in whole stops 100 → 200 → 400 → 800). Noise depends on sensor size: on a half-inch sensor 'ISO 400 and up is pretty much unusable', on one-inch-plus sensors ISO 800-1600 survives with denoise in post. His order: ISO as low as possible, then aperture (wide open in low light, f/5.6-f/11 goes soft), then shutter to match the 180-degree rule, and an ND filter when that combination is too bright. Judge it on the histogram, 'independent of screen brightness and ambient light': shadows left, highlights right, keep the data centred, a peak touching either wall is clipping. When you must clip, decide which side holds the subject - let highlights go for a dark subject, let shadows go for a sunset sky.

'The shutter speed should be twice the frame rate you are using' - 1/60 at 30 fps, 1/50 at 24 (1/48 is not offered), 1/120 at 60 - because each frame is exposed for half the interval, '180 out of 360 degrees.' A third of a stop either way 'you can still get pretty natural motion blur', which is how he fine-tunes exposure on a variable ND. The rule matters most with motion - parallax, low and fast - and hardly at all for a slow high shot. Filter types: fixed NDs in sets, ND-PL (polarisers 'don't work very well with drones' because you can't rotate them in flight), and variable NDs. Math: 'an ND4... the light is reduced by two stops, and each time you double the ND number you lose an additional stop' - ND8 three, ND16 four, ND32 five. Method for fixed filters: expose without a filter, drop the shutter to the 180 value, count the stops of overexposure, pick that filter. Kit: 'a 4, 8, 16 and 32 set will cover most lighting conditions'; his own: 'PolarPro 2 to 5 stop variable NDs on my drones and I almost never take them off', plus a stronger one for bright days. Fit filters with the drone powered off - doing it live 'can cause gimbal errors.' The DroneND Calculator (ndcalc.flyingfilmmakerpro.com) does the count for you: current shutter in, target shutter in (default 1/60), closest filter out; save it to the phone home screen and it works in airplane mode.

Candlelight 1,000-2,000 K, tungsten 2,500, sunrise/sunset 3,000-4,000, sun 5,600, overcast 5,600-8,000. 'The lowest color temperature light sources are the warmest light' - and on the dial 'higher numbers make the colors in your shot warmer' because you are correcting for cooler light. Auto is rejected twice over: 'the colors of the shot can change between the beginning and the end' and 'it still gets the white balance wrong a lot of the time.' His numbers: 5,800-6,000 K in daylight because DJI drones run 'a bit too cool', 6,500-7,000 K under cloud, and at golden hour he keeps 5,800-6,000 'to capture all that warmth.' The per-drone lessons repeat the pattern (5,600 sun / 6,300 cloud / 5,600-or-warmer sunrise) and add a trick: tap Auto once to get a starting value, then switch back to manual to lock it.

Log is 'a flat color profile that records more information and doesn't have a lot of contrast or a specific look baked into it', preserving dynamic range Normal clips away. Not every drone has it (Mini, Mini 2 don't; the Air 2 has the less-flat D-Cinelike). D-Log M is 10-bit - 'one billion possible colors versus only 16 million for 8-bit' - so gradients hold under grading. Costs: it 'doesn't look as cinematic and inspiring' until graded, slightly more shadow noise, and 8-bit log can band. Log preview adds contrast to the live view while recording flat; he often leaves it off to judge clipping honestly. HLG is the halfway house he generally skips - easier to grade with more midtone 'pop', but on the Air 3/3S/Mini 5 Pro both HLG and Normal 'shift contrast and brightness mid-shot', which is why he lands on D-Log M. On the Mavic 4 Pro, true D-Log (flatter, softer highlight roll-off, Resolve colour-space-transform workflow, same as the Inspire 3) is his pick. Normal on the Air 3S / Mini 5 Pro is now 10-bit and usable straight off the card.

A tab-by-tab walk of the app. Safety: RTH altitude above every obstacle around (his is above 400 ft for local hills); signal-loss behaviour RTH when far, Hover under trees or indoors. Control: gimbal mode Follow not FPV, and switch on 'upward gimbal rotation', which is off by default. Camera: MP4, colour profile log/D-Log/D-Cinelike by drone, white balance manual. General: histogram on, grid at least centre marker plus thirds, zebra and focus peaking off as 'distracting.' Then the main-screen pro settings: ISO 100 unless dusk, shutter at double the frame rate, 4K30 as standard. Much of it 'will also apply to older drones that use DJI Go.'

Only Auto exposure unlocks the Air 3S's '14 stops of dynamic range', in every profile including D-Log M - so he sets everything in Pro, then flips to Auto with exposure lock for high-contrast shots. ISO 100; wide camera to 800, the smaller-sensor 3x under 400. 4K30 (2.7K vertical for vertical), 60 only for slow-down; 4K120 exists, 1080p240 'not recommended.' Zoom 'only 1x or 3x'; digital zoom between 'will give you terrible image quality', so he disables the RC2's second wheel. Gain/expo tuning, Normal: max angular velocity 75 deg/s, yaw smoothness 15, braking 100; expo 0.25 up/down, 0.15 yaw, 0.15 pitch/roll; gimbal 15 deg/s, smoothness 10. Sport: 120 deg/s, yaw smoothness 12, expo 0.3/0.15/0.25, gimbal 20 deg/s, smoothness 15. Sharpness/NR to -1 if the default looks processed. Subject focusing auto-tracks people and animals only; tap to focus for anything else. Freewell split NDs equalise wide and tele exposure.

Mavic 4 Pro: base ISO 100 in most profiles, 'base ISO 400 in D-Log for best dynamic range'; wide to 800 (3200 with denoise), teles under 800; aperture f/2-f/4 sharpest, f/8-f/11 soft but with sunstars; shoot 6K on the wide (4K on the teles) - 'even on a 4K monitor the 6K footage has more fine detail' - and 6K60 as the hedge; vertical either by gimbal flip (10 degrees of tilt) or the 9x16 mode; true D-Log; Normal-mode tuning 75/15/100, expo 0.25/0.15/0.2, gimbal tilt 15 (smoothness 10), roll 10; Sport 120/12/100, expo 0.3/0.15/0.25, tilt 20 (15), roll 12; Adaptive Camera Motion on Adaptive; NR default in 6K D-Log, -2 in Normal. Focus must be nailed inside ~50 ft on the big sensor. Mini 5 Pro: ISO 100, clean to 800; Fly More NDs come in only three strengths; the dual-ISO trick - ISO 100, shutter at double the frame rate with ND, then switch ISO to Auto so 'dual ISO can work its magic', then lock exposure; 4K max; Normal is 10-bit; HLG and Normal shift mid-shot so D-Log M; 1x or 2x only; Normal tuning 75/15/100, expo 0.25/0.15/0.2, tilt 15 (13), roll 7; Sport 120/15/100, expo 0.3/0.15/0.25, tilt 20 (15), roll 10; sharpness and NR to -1 because default NR turns shadows 'into a big, mushy, blurry mess'; and 'at least with the current firmware' the autofocus is 'very, very sensitive' - tap to focus, then toggle AF off before flying past foreground objects.

Avata 2 (FPV): manual exposure, ISO 100 (200-400 in the dark), 1/60 at 30 fps with ND; 4:3 aspect almost always (more top/bottom view, vertical crops later), 16:9 only to unlock 4K100; 4K60 rather than 4K30 because 30 'creates a more choppy video feed' in the goggles - he shoots 4K60 at 1/60 and edits on a 30 timeline; field of view must be Wide or 'it won't record any gyro data'; Auto-ISO cap 400-800; EIS off to post-stabilise in Gyroflow, which gives 'a lot better results' than RockSteady; D-Log M with Color Display Assist on for the goggles; Enhanced Display on, grid off, centre marker on; Record With set to Both so a crash still leaves the goggle feed; anti-flicker Auto; FPV RC3: C1 = ESC beeping to find a lost drone, third switch position = Manual, M-mode attitude limit off. Air 3 / Mini 4 Pro: ISO 100, try not to exceed 400; 4K, vertical 2.7K mode instead of cropping; 60 as hedge, 4K100 slow-mo but above 100 fps the sensor drops dual-gain so he stays at 60; 'the first drone that I've used that keeps almost all of the dynamic range in the normal color profile', yet D-Log M for predictability; 1x/3x only, second wheel disabled; Normal tuning 75 deg/s, yaw smoothness 5, expo default 0.25 (yaw 0.2), gimbal 15 (8); Sport 89, smoothness 11, expo 0.3/0.19/0.35, gimbal 25 (18); sharpness +1 / NR -1 optional; pinch to 9x on the tele to check focus, then back to 3x.