All right, today we're going to talk about Freewell's Variable
ND MIST Filters. And you only need two of them they come in this tiny little box
we're going to talk about it right now so let's jump right into it
i'm really pumped because these are the first variable nd miss filters that i've ever used on
the drone and i got some pretty great results with them so i'm going to share that with you
today so i use these variable miss filters with my dji air 2s although you could use them with
the mavic 2 pro and the mavic air 2. these filters just came out but in the description below there
is a link so you can pick them up today so you may be thinking why variable nd filters and why
mist okay so let's first talk about the nd part or neutral density filter part of these filters all
right so neutral density filters or nd filters are really essential if you're shooting anytime but
sunrise or sunset because there's a lot of light coming into your camera and especially if you have
a drone like the air 2s it has a fixed aperture so you're going to want to put your shutter speed
double your frame rate so if you're shooting at 24 frames per second you're going to want
to use 1 50th of a second shutter speed if you're shooting at 60 frames per second you're going to
want to use 120th of a second so you always want to double the shutter speed to the frame rate and
this will make your footage look cinematic and not so choppy and it'll feel more like a film
so for video nd filters are absolutely necessary now with a variable nd filter you can use them any
time of day sunshine or clouds because you have all this different stops of light so the first
filter will give you five stops of light that will decrease and this is equivalent of
an nd4 all the way to an nd32 so it's like having individual nd filters all the way from nd4 to nd32
and then the other variable nd filter gives you stops from six to nine so those six to nine steps
of light is equivalent of nd 64 all the way to nd 512 so you have so many options with just two
filters you can use the nd 512 or maybe two nd 256 if you're shooting long exposures or hyperlapse
long exposures are great for shooting water so you can give water more of a blurry look
rather than seeing each individual drop whereas this is impossible during the daylight without
an nd filter with a high number on it and then the missed part of this variable nd miss filter
gives your footage a specific stylized look so a normal nd filter shouldn't change the color or
look of your image too much where this mist will change your image in camera and give it kind of
a nice character and i'm going to talk about that later in this video so let's first talk about the
pros and then we're going to get into the cons of having these filters so the first obvious pro is
having a variable nd filter you don't have to lug around all these filters it's essentially
nine filters in one or actually even more than that because you can make micro adjustments so as
you turn it ever so slightly it's getting darker and darker or you turn it the other way and it
gets lighter and lighter so you can always get the proper exposure just with a simple turn and this
will save you a ton of time because then you don't have to go into your bag take off the filter put
on a new filter all you got to do is just turn it slightly and then fly your drone now also
save you a lot of money because you're not buying so many filters right you only have two filters
but they do everything that these other filters do with just two filters now you may be thinking to
yourself oh if there are two filters it's kind of like having a zoom lens versus a prime lens
it's not going to be as good but after testing these out i was really pleased and freewell is
not paying me to say that and i'm going to talk about specifically why i like these variable nd
filters and why they're better than variable nd filters that i've used in the past i shot all
this footage in d-log and then added my lut to it in post-production but i added the same lut both
to the footage that i shot with the miss filters and without the miss filters so that way it was
a fair comparison one issue i've had in the past with variable nd filters on my normal camera is
that when you adjust it it causes some vignetting which means it under exposes on the corners so the
image is not the same exposure both in the corners and towards the center of the image and it creates
a specific look and you may not want this look and oftentimes it's not really that desirable
and it's kind of annoying to have however with these freewell variable nd filters there was no
vignetting that i noticed and you can see in the images i'm showing now there's no vignetting right
so this is with the variable nd miss filters and this is without the variable nd miss filters but
you can see they look different but there's no vignetting which is great now these variable nd
miss filters give your image a stylized look so it really makes it a little more saturated okay
makes your image kind of pop out which is really nice because i was shooting at this golf course
i thought it made the green look just more vibrant and a lot better it gave more detail
in the highlights they weren't quite as blown out as just shooting without a filter so having
these variable nd miss filters will give you more detail in the highlights we'll also add a
little more saturation and if you combine that it's really nice because these portable dji
drones that we fly with they don't have a really large sensor so even if it's a one inch sensor
that's not really that big in camera terms so it's better to get the image as close as you can to the
final image while you're shooting it rather than manipulate the image in post-production
and with these filters you get a great image just out of the camera so i really didn't have to do
much of anything in post-production it just looked great the way it was and the highlights weren't
super blown out which i really like because i like shooting into the sun into these situations where
there is clouds and mist gives it a more reddish golden hue to it and i really like that and one
other thing i noticed about these variable nd miss filters is that the detail remain the same both
without the filters on and with the filters so you're not sacrificing any sharpness or resolution
with these filters on which is really nice and i really appreciated that freewell made the mist
part very subtle so it's kind of equivalent of a 1 8 mist on a normal camera at least that's what
i could see from my eye maybe i'm wrong leave a comment below what you think but normal miss
filters come in like one eighth one quarter half missed and then full mist once you get towards
a half or full mist it becomes too golden and too soft and it has more of a dream like
retro feel but that's really not what you want in most video production when you're flying
your drone so the fact that it's very subtle gives you that nice stylized look but it's not overdone
now let's talk about the cons and i really only have one con about these variable nd filters is
shooting at night if you do shoot at night which i don't do that often but if you do just be aware
that with these variable nd miss filters it is gonna decrease the exposure so when you're flying
at night here's just normal with no filter on as you can see i shot at iso 1600 with the air 2s
i also lowered my shutter as low as i could to 125th of a second because i had no choice because
it was so dark and then i did the same thing with the variable nd miss filters but it just was too
dark you don't get any details in the shadows and although the street lights and lamps have
a little more of a warmth and a golden glow to it at night when you use the variable nd miss filters
it still doesn't look that great on a drone with a sensor this small and it's not really the variable
nd filter's fault so take this con with a grain of salt it's just that using a drone with a small
sensor is not going to be great at night and the fact that it decreases the exposure makes it even
more underexposed so when you try to edit that in post-production there's going to be noise or grain
in your image so my overall conclusion is that these variable nd miss filters by freewell are a
home run i'm gonna put them in my bag every time i fly now freewell also sent me this eight pack
but to me these are optional whereas these are a must-have these two filters for all the reasons
that i explained in this video i would definitely pick up whereas this eight pack has polarizers in
it which is great for making the blues and the greens really pop out and it also has nd 1000 nd
2000 for long exposures and for hyper lapses so i use that in very certain situations whereas these
variable nd miss filters are on my drone all the time so i appreciate you watching if you enjoyed
this video share it with a friend who you think might enjoy it also give it a thumbs up because
it's good karma and it helps the algorithm and before you go if you have a lot of questions about
your dji drone or just want to step up your skills i made a free training where i show you my top 7
secrets for flying dji drones i also answer a ton of questions that i get here on my youtube channel
as well as my facebook and my instagram page so you can check that out in the link below or
you can click right over here. I'm Brett Garamella, The Drone Pilot Pro, and remember, Fly Like a Pro!