How To Avoid/Remove Prop Flicker From Drone Videos

Max Wales

Oct 14, 2024• Proven solutions

It is really a joyful task to record videos using drones and posts them on various social media sites to impress others. But the most annoying situation occurs when we spend many hours recording our videos in the air and finally realize that maximum shots are suffering from prop flickering issues. This collection remains of no use with such unwanted distortion elements. If you are also facing the same issues with your drone camera then it is good to search for some effective ways to avoid prop flickering. The article below will provide you complete details about how to remove prop flickers from videos.

How to remove prop shadow from aerial videos?

What causes the prop shadow?

Prop shadows are commonly observed as light flickering or shadows and they occur due to the movement of propellers during flight recording. This problem generally occurs when the camera lens is pointed towards Sun and the blades get naturally positioned somewhere between sun rays and the camera lens. The ultimate result is that users find various intermittent shadows in their recorded footage and sometimes it can be a high-speed rotation.

How to Fix it?

If you are facing prop flickering issues and most of your important videos have become unusable then it is the right time to follow some useful tips to fix this issue. Yeah! You can get rid of this distortion and your videos can become impressive again. Here are a few useful tips to complete this task:

1. Adjust the shooting position:

One of the simplest and easy to implement tricks for avoiding prop flickering issues is to adjust your flight directions in such a manner that your drone is not going to face sun and the camera can keep on recording without finding blade shadows in between. It demands strategic planning for flight directions and one need to have active control on all movements.

2. Using ND Filters:

In case if it is necessary to shot in the peak sun hours or during bright sun shines then it is advised to mount a Natural Density Filter on GoPro camera unit. These ND filters are actually specially designed dark glass type filters and they can cut the maximum amount of light that tries to affect camera sensors during recording process. These filters automatically adjust the shutter speed to the lower side and it ultimately reduces the prop blur effect on videos.

3. Lens Hood:

One can also think of installing a lens hood on their GoPro camera that is connected with the drone unit. This technique is rarely used by professionals because these lens hoods are heavier devices and they add up much weight to drones after installation. Hence they cause decay in Gimbal performance as well as can cause reduction in flight time due to additional load.

4. Post Production:

All above techniques can help you to avoid prop flickering at the time of recording but in case if you have recorded your videos already and now want to get rid of this prop flickering issue then it can be achieved with advanced post-production techniques. There are so many tools that can help you remove it with Flicker-Free plugin.

• After Effects:

  This software tool is commonly used by professionals due to its classic interface and rich feature set. You can easily remove prop flickers using After Effects and it generates the best results within a few minutes.
• Final Cut Pro:

  FCP is able to process almost all media file formats hence it is widely used for post-production needs. This tool can create Hollywood style results with easy noise removal.

Max Wales

Max Wales is a writer and a lover of all things video.

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