Aviation 3D aerobatic R/C flying

[Jeff A]

I have been a Sony Alpha owner or just shy of 3 years, but have never shot any video, other than my cat.

Last week, I attended an R/C aircraft even and shot some video, a first attempt as it were. I thought the subject matter was interesting, so I’ll post a link here to my YouTube Channel. The event itself was called a 3D Throwdown which didn’t mean too much to me, but it was an aerobatic event. The skills and the equipment were amazing so I thought I would share.
Enjoy.

 

[etiennescamera]

I'm interested: did you shoot handheld or on a tripod or gimbal? What camera and lens combination?

 

[FowlersFreeTime]

Some impressive piloting skills!
Looks like you were handheld to keep up with that RC plane, pretty stable footage considering that. What focal length were you at?

 

[Jeff A]

I'm interested: did you shoot handheld or on a tripod or gimbal? What camera and lens combination?

Shot with my A7 IV and a Sony FE20mm f/1.8 G lens with a Freewell ND8 filter.
All handheld but seated in a chair.
File Format: XAVC S 4K
Movie Settings: 60P: 150M 4:2:2 8bit
Record Settings: 200M 4:2:2: 10bit
Picture Profile: PP-11 S-Cinetone
Focus Mode: Continuous AF
Aperture: f/5.6 or f/8.0? Maybe both.
For Audio Recording I used a DJI Mic (with unwanted music on the PA in the background).
The movie was edited and produced with CyberLink PowerDirector 18 software.

A couple of notes. To me, the video on YouTube did not look sharp (It said it was 4K) but when I played the processed video on my PC (Not from YouTube), it was very sharp. It was all shot in 4K 60 and rendered in 4K 60.

When I posted to YouTube, I immediately got a Copyright violation from one of the songs playing on the PA system at the flying field. The song in question was "Jerusalem" by a US artist named Matisyahu. It is under review.

 

[FowlersFreeTime]

Shot with my A7 IV and a Sony FE20mm f/1.8 G lens with a Freewell ND8 filter.
All handheld but seated in a chair.
File Format: XAVC S 4K
Movie Settings: 60P: 150M 4:2:2 8bit
Record Settings: 200M 4:2:2: 10bit
Picture Profile: PP-11 S-Cinetone
Focus Mode: Continuous AF
Aperture: f/5.6 or f/8.0? Maybe both.
For Audio Recording I used a DJI Mic (with unwanted music on the PA in the background).
The movie was edited and produced with CyberLink PowerDirector 18 software.

A couple of notes. To me, the video on YouTube did not look sharp (It said it was 4K) but when I played the processed video on my PC (Not from YouTube), it was very sharp. It was all shot in 4K 60 and rendered in 4K 60.

When I posted to YouTube, I immediately got a Copyright violation from one of the songs playing on the PA system at the flying field. The song in question was "Jerusalem" by a US artist named Matisyahu. It is under review.

Ah Matisyahu, Jewish Reggae singer if you can believe that! And yes, copyright notices are very common unless you either remove music, use YouTube library music, or a service like Epidemic Sound (subscription based) for royalty free music.

The rendering could look less than sharp on YouTube because it has a variable quality for replay (based on bandwidth detected) if you leave it on auto. If you go to settings and select to replay it in 4k, it should do so.

 

[Jeff A]

Ah Matisyahu, Jewish Reggae singer if you can believe that! And yes, copyright notices are very common unless you either remove music, use YouTube library music, or a service like Epidemic Sound (subscription based) for royalty free music.

The rendering could look less than sharp on YouTube because it has a variable quality for replay (based on bandwidth detected) if you leave it on auto. If you go to settings and select to replay it in 4k, it should do so.

So, I wasn't playing the music, the organizers of the event were. I don't have the Tech Savy to remove the music and keep the aircraft sounds.
Thanks for the playback advice. I'll try that.

 

[etiennescamera]

Shot with my A7 IV and a Sony FE20mm f/1.8 G lens with a Freewell ND8 filter.
All handheld but seated in a chair.
File Format: XAVC S 4K
Movie Settings: 60P: 150M 4:2:2 8bit
Record Settings: 200M 4:2:2: 10bit
Picture Profile: PP-11 S-Cinetone
Focus Mode: Continuous AF
Aperture: f/5.6 or f/8.0? Maybe both.
For Audio Recording I used a DJI Mic (with unwanted music on the PA in the background).
The movie was edited and produced with CyberLink PowerDirector 18 software.

A couple of notes. To me, the video on YouTube did not look sharp (It said it was 4K) but when I played the processed video on my PC (Not from YouTube), it was very sharp. It was all shot in 4K 60 and rendered in 4K 60.

When I posted to YouTube, I immediately got a Copyright violation from one of the songs playing on the PA system at the flying field. The song in question was "Jerusalem" by a US artist named Matisyahu. It is under review.

Thanks, very informative.
Impressive stability for handheld.

 

[Jeff A]

Thanks, very informative.
Impressive stability for handheld.

Honest response, I had a good chair. I suppose IBIS hand a hand also. These days, at my age, I am anything but stable.

 

[FowlersFreeTime]

So, I wasn't playing the music, the organizers of the event were. I don't have the Tech Savy to remove the music and keep the aircraft sounds.
Thanks for the playback advice. I'll try that.

I wouldn't have been able to separate the music from aircraft sounds either; that would have required them to be recorded on separate channels. It is what it is unfortunately, YouTube is ruthless about music copyrights. I used to like using popular songs for my kayaking/fishing videos but so many of my videos ended up being marked for copyright that I stopped altogether.

 

[Jeff A]

Sounds can be separated, but it takes some decent equipment. Back in the day we'd use graphic equalizers with 32 or more bands to cancel the frequencies we didn't want to hear. It wasn't perfect but it did an okay job.

If it were me I'd post the video to Flickr since you already have an account.

I'll wait and see the outcome, but that is an option.