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New EVO 2 Pro 6K Owner Here - Professional Videographer / Photographer

herein2021

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Hello everyone, I just ordered my EVO II Pro 6K drone after using DJI's products since 2014. Two weeks ago my DJI Mavic Pro in the middle of a flight suddenly decided it was in a no fly zone and forced auto landing right in the middle of the ocean. Previous to this I had flown over a thousand hours without incident on various DJI drones over the years; but after an incident like that its impossible for me to ever trust DJI again. I am a professional videographer and photographer who uses drones to supplement my ground video and photography work on a nearly daily basis and I was very fortunate that it did this over the ocean and not over people, cars, or an expensive property.

I am a part 107 licensed pilot, I obtain LAANC permission whenever needed for the airspace I will fly in, and have created aerial drone video and photography content for everything from promo videos to weddings to music videos, large events, and more. So I signed up here to see what I have gotten myself into with this new drone ecosystem and am already concerned about the battery issues, stability issues, and other problems that I see reported on this forum not to mention the common theme which seems to be a complete lack of support from Autel. It looks like I will need to do a lot of testing before I use the EVO on a professional job, in the meantime my DJI P4 Pro is still the best drone I have owned to date just not as portable as the Mavic Pro was.

If I ever trust the EVO 2 enough to use it on professional shoots I am definitely looking forward to working with the 10bit footage, LOG profile and 4K60FPS which are all things the Mavic Pro did not have. I will admit, the completely hideous orange shell really made me think twice about getting one, but DJI and Autel are the only options available for now.
 
Welcome to the growing user base of autels. I’ve been using mine for a couple of months now and very happy. Have owned and flown pretty much the entire DJI fleet (still use them for training) and very happy with the autel 2 pro.

not a lot of action on these forums compared to the manic guys, but still a good resource
 
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welcome. well, at least the evo 2 won't simply land itself in the middle of the ocean. the orange color of the evo 2 is absolutely beautiful. just wait until you open your new purchase; one of the best looking drones you'll ever see. LOL
 
Our stories are about the same, but my rub with DJI was the geofencing. I did a job at Schneider's headquarters, which is right next to Green Bay's international airport. After waiting over 140+ days for FAA approval and obtaining flight unlock codes from DJI, I flew up to Green Bay to do the shoot. You can guess what happened next. The drone would not take off as the app said I didn't have permission. Thankfully I had my gimbal, cameras, and was able to fly at their other campus. That started my look for an alternative. I went with the Parrot Anafi as a backup.

Did another job at the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport and was hit with the same issue. I flew that entire job using the Anafi and it held it's own.

As soon as the Evo ii pro was released I ordered one. It is now my go to drone and I've had no real issues with it thus far save for the horizon drift, but that's easily fixable in post if it doesn't self correct in the air.

I recently did a large job at the port of Memphis which literally butts up to a very busy airport in class G airspace (I still called them and worked with them to mitigate risk to named aircraft). Planes were coming in about every 7 minutes. I used the EVO ii for the job and was thankful for it's long battery life and distance. I had zero issues on that job. I'll link a video and a photo to show you how high the planes were. 2 new photos by Jeremy Rasnic

Enjoy your new drone! I think you'll come to find it's a great primary drone.
 
welcome. well, at least the evo 2 won't simply land itself in the middle of the ocean. the orange color of the evo 2 is absolutely beautiful. just wait until you open your new purchase; one of the best looking drones you'll ever see. LOL

I have it on hand now, charging all of the batteries looking forward to my first flight, the orange isn't that bad in person but I will probably get a vinyl wrap for it. I've worked many jobs for clients where they want the drone to be a bit more discreet and the orange does not help for those types of jobs. Nothing illegal...just things like clients planning on selling their commercial properties but the employees don't know, surprise proposals and the bride to be doesn't know.....etc.

I will admit it looks and feels better in person than in the pictures, it is definitely heavier than the Mavic Pro.

Our stories are about the same, but my rub with DJI was the geofencing. I did a job at Schneider's headquarters, which is right next to Green Bay's international airport. After waiting over 140+ days for FAA approval and obtaining flight unlock codes from DJI, I flew up to Green Bay to do the shoot. You can guess what happened next. The drone would not take off as the app said I didn't have permission. Thankfully I had my gimbal, cameras, and was able to fly at their other campus. That started my look for an alternative. I went with the Parrot Anafi as a backup.

Did another job at the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport and was hit with the same issue. I flew that entire job using the Anafi and it held it's own.

As soon as the Evo ii pro was released I ordered one. It is now my go to drone and I've had no real issues with it thus far save for the horizon drift, but that's easily fixable in post if it doesn't self correct in the air.

I recently did a large job at the port of Memphis which literally butts up to a very busy airport in class G airspace (I still called them and worked with them to mitigate risk to named aircraft). Planes were coming in about every 7 minutes. I used the EVO ii for the job and was thankful for it's long battery life and distance. I had zero issues on that job. I'll link a video and a photo to show you how high the planes were. 2 new photos by Jeremy Rasnic

Enjoy your new drone! I think you'll come to find it's a great primary drone.

The DJI drones are amazing...but the geofencing has become so invasive that it ruins otherwise perfect drones. I would rather the drone just not take off then decide midair that it shouldn't be in the air.

Those pictures are pretty cool, I've had to work in really crowded airspace like that before as well. I was filming one of the biggest events in my area and was literally swapping places back and fourth with news helicopters who were also filming the event.....a bit stressful I will admit but it was pretty cool as well; I'd fly in and get my footage, then get out of the way for the news helicopters to get theirs. I was the only one that day that had official approval to film the event......but I saw at least 3 other drones flying around; they worried me more than the helicopters.

I'm also looking forward to putting together a cinematic reel with this drone...most of the footage on YouTube out of this drone is shockingly bad; overexposed or under exposed, shutter speed/framerate mismatches, terrible drone camera movements, improperly color graded (or not graded at all), etc. I know its camera with that 1" sensor, a LOG profile, and 10bit footage can do better.
 
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I have it on hand now, charging all of the batteries looking forward to my first flight, the orange isn't that bad in person but I will probably get a vinyl wrap for it. I've worked many jobs for clients where they want the drone to be a bit more discreet and the orange does not help for those types of jobs. Nothing illegal...just things like clients planning on selling their commercial properties but the employees don't know, surprise proposals and the bride to be doesn't know.....etc.

I will admit it looks and feels better in person than in the pictures, it is definitely heavier than the Mavic Pro.



The DJI drones are amazing...but the geofencing has become so invasive that it ruins otherwise perfect drones. I would rather the drone just not take off then decide midair that it shouldn't be in the air.

Those pictures are pretty cool, I've had to work in really crowded airspace like that before as well. I was filming one of the biggest events in my area and was literally swapping places back and fourth with news helicopters who were also filming the event.....a bit stressful I will admit but it was pretty cool as well; I'd fly in and get my footage, then get out of the way for the news helicopters to get theirs. I was the only one that day that had official approval to film the event......but I saw at least 3 other drones flying around; they worried me more than the helicopters.

I'm also looking forward to putting together a cinematic reel with this drone...most of the footage on YouTube out of this drone is shockingly bad; overexposed or under exposed, shutter speed/framerate mismatches, terrible drone camera movements, improperly color graded (or not graded at all), etc. I know its camera with that 1" sensor, a LOG profile, and 10bit footage can do better.
It can do it. Here's a video I did last fall on a very tight timeline. The only guidance I had was to include the Court House, a cotton field, the lake, and the winery, oh, and I had 3 days to deliver it.

I wish the cotton field wasn't in there, and I had more to work with, but the color and lighting capture was great. It was all shot in manual with manual flight.


Good luck with your new drone!
 
Welcome aboard! What's the problem, you don't like our flying carrot??? :)

I have had mine since Father's Day and have had a mostly positive experience. As TN said above, yes, we're still dealing with some horizon issues, but a keyframe or two in post and you'll be fine. Not a perfect world, but easily manageable.

With respect to the 10bit H265 log profile, wow!!! I am blown away by the color depth and extra latitude it offers for color grading. As I'm sure you know, skies are always a torture test for banding and false contouring, and as long as I keep the bitrate high, it is silky smooth.

Here is a sample video for your review. I always attempt to massage my video as little as possible with the goal of trying to replicate reality, what my eye saw. Also, again as you know, youtube compresses the videos (translation: expect to see some banding), so this still isn't a fair example of the actual output but at least you can see it in 4K.


I am only an amateur photographer/videographer, so you may not approve of my work, but I am hoping to help assure you this is the real deal IMHO!

Enjoy!
 
That tower! Did your pulse speed up just a bit?! I always make sureof my surroundings and test distances before I film, but even still (and knowing objects are further than they appear), it still gives me a little healthy fear :)

Nice example of what it can do in low light, with a backlit scene that has high contrast. Great job!
 
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Thanks very much! Yes I had a side view Of that tower with respect to the drone so depth perception was not being tested. But yes it is pretty funny to see that thing fly by! It was not as close as it appears. I am only allowed to climb to 250 feet In the Uptown area because of Class B Restrictions. I am in the middle of my 107 Studies right now and I am aware that if you are within 400 feet of a structure you can fly above it , but I am not sure if that is applicable when you are also in class B airspace, still trying to find that out. Otherwise I would have been more than happy to fly above that tower LOL!
 
Thanks very much! Yes I had a side view Of that tower with respect to the drone so depth perception was not being tested. But yes it is pretty funny to see that thing fly by! It was not as close as it appears. I am only allowed to climb to 250 feet In the Uptown area because of Class B Restrictions. I am in the middle of my 107 Studies right now and I am aware that if you are within 400 feet of a structure you can fly above it , but I am not sure if that is applicable when you are also in class B airspace, still trying to find that out. Otherwise I would have been more than happy to fly above that tower LOL!
When you are not in class G, and need additional approval, that structure rule goes out the window unless you specifically ask for it while showing how you will mitigate risk when flying above the limit that is allowed.
 
When you are not in class G, and need additional approval, that structure rule goes out the window unless you specifically ask for it while showing how you will mitigate risk when flying above the limit that is allowed.
Well that answers that, thanks for the clarification . What had me wondering is I have seen numerous YouTube videos with drones flying above the skyscrapers which average between 800 and 900 ft here in Charlotte the tallest ones. And in addition to that, they are flying after dark way past the 30-minute twilight rule. So unless the FAA is passing out a lot of waivers, I guess a lot of people around here are flaunting the rules.
 
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It can do it. Here's a video I did last fall on a very tight timeline. The only guidance I had was to include the Court House, a cotton field, the lake, and the winery, oh, and I had 3 days to deliver it.

I wish the cotton field wasn't in there, and I had more to work with, but the color and lighting capture was great. It was all shot in manual with manual flight.


Good luck with your new drone!
Very nice color grading, I new the camera could do it.

Welcome aboard! What's the problem, you don't like our flying carrot??? :)

I have had mine since Father's Day and have had a mostly positive experience. As TN said above, yes, we're still dealing with some horizon issues, but a keyframe or two in post and you'll be fine. Not a perfect world, but easily manageable.

With respect to the 10bit H265 log profile, wow!!! I am blown away by the color depth and extra latitude it offers for color grading. As I'm sure you know, skies are always a torture test for banding and false contouring, and as long as I keep the bitrate high, it is silky smooth.

Here is a sample video for your review. I always attempt to massage my video as little as possible with the goal of trying to replicate reality, what my eye saw. Also, again as you know, youtube compresses the videos (translation: expect to see some banding), so this still isn't a fair example of the actual output but at least you can see it in 4K.


I am only an amateur photographer/videographer, so you may not approve of my work, but I am hoping to help assure you this is the real deal IMHO!

Enjoy!

That low light performance looks great; I'm definitely looking forward to working with it. I got mine out today to do some quick test flights; mainly I wanted to test the camera and color grading process. Of course the verdict is that it is great; ALOG is way more reasonable than DLOG was on any of the DJI drones that I have owned. Below is a quick test in a high dynamic range scenario to see how ALOG performs. I was able to grade it to Rec.709 within seconds so it is very easy to work with and the highlight rolloff is pretty impressive.
 

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This looks great! Glad you are happy so far. I think you might have just taught me something, I was under the impression this drone could not shoot 10-bit at 4K 60 But based on your post now you got me wondering. Time to check it out! :)
 
This looks great! Glad you are happy so far. I think you might have just taught me something, I was under the impression this drone could not shoot 10-bit at 4K 60 But based on your post now you got me wondering. Time to check it out! :)

You are correct, I stand corrected; there is something strange going on with their HEVC codec implementation. Within Davinci Resolve it shows that the video files are HEVC Main 10 Profile Level 5.1 which is supposed to be used for 10 bit footage, but in 5K player it shows it is only 8 bit footage. So they are using a 10 bit compression profile but only inputting 8 bits of data. I read this was a bug with the Autels but thought it was fixed. Their marketing material says 10 bit but the video file metadata shows its only 8 bit.

The good news is 8 bit is plenty for most scenarios unless you are doing an extreme color grade or trying to fix the white balance later. Where 8 bit really falls apart is when you try to push the mids without losing saturation; 8 bit will fall apart every time. You might run into this scenario when flying towards the sun with a mountain between you and the sun....you will have the highs and the lows thanks to ALOG and the sensor's DR but if you try to improve the exposure of the mountain (mids) 8 bit will lose saturation whereas 10 bit will retain the proper color for a little longer.


Media file meta data
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ID : 1
Format : HEVC
Format/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile : Main [email protected]@Main
Codec ID : hvc1
Codec ID/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Duration : 41s 834ms
Bit rate : 105 Mbps
Width : 3 840 pixels
Height : 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 60.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.211
Stream size : 524 MiB (100%)
Title : Autel.Video
Language : English
Color range : Full
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709
Mastering display color primaries : R: x=0.640000 y=0.330000, G: x=0.300000 y=0.600000, B: x=0.150000 y=0.060000, White point: x=0.312700 y=0.329000
Mastering display luminance : min: 0.0000 cd/m2, max: 0.0000 cd/m2
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
I guarantee you 4K 30 or 24 is 10-Bit. I've run the same tests you just posted on those, so as long as you can live without 60fps, you will have full 10 bit.
 
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I guarantee you 4K 30 or 24 is 10-Bit. I've run the same tests you just posted on those, so as long as you can live without 60fps, you will have full 10 bit.

Well thank you, I just learned something new and that makes sense. It probably doesn't have the processing power for 10 bit at 4K60FPS due to the sensor size. I typically shoot everything at 4K60FPS since I never know if I will need to slow it down later but I'll definitely drop down to 30FPS in the future if I need 10 bits.

I have yet to see a codec chart from Autel that breaks down all of the different modes and codecs available; usually a chart like that is right on the vendor's website under specifications.
 
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Yes I encountered the same mystery and started hunting and pecking. It was months before I finally realized how to find it! Although part of my delay in discovering it was indeed that bug you had heard about. So for awhile it was totally unavailable.
 
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Yes I encountered the same mystery and started hunting and pecking. It was months before I finally realized how to find it! Although part of my delay in discovering it was indeed that bug you had heard about. So for awhile it was totally unavailable.

Found a new bug today....it does not save any custom color profile settings. What's worse is it resets them even if you leave on the tablet and the remote and just change the battery in the EVO...very annoying, now I have to remember to set the profile settings every flight and waste valuable battery life each time.

Oh and another thing that I haven't seen documented anywhere is there appears to be a crop when shooting 4K60FPS, I'd estimate its a 1.2x or 1.3x crop but its definitely a crop factor. That must be how they are getting away with 4K60FPS which is fine but they definitely do not advertise these limitations.
 
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