Drone & Aerial Quiz

The 180 degree rule sets the shutter speed to one over twice the frame rate, about 1/50 second for 24 fps and 1/60 for 30 fps. That gives each frame enough motion blur for movement to look smooth on playback. A much faster shutter, like 1/1000, makes motion look choppy.

Slow shutter speeds in daylight let in too much light even at the lowest ISO, and drone cameras often have small or fixed apertures. ND filters reduce the incoming light so the shutter can stay slow for natural motion blur. High ISO or a larger aperture would add light, not reduce it.

Visual line of sight refers to the requirement that the operator keep the aircraft in unassisted, direct visual contact at all times during flight. This regulatory condition limits how far a remotely piloted aircraft may travel from the operator.

Intelligent flight modes automate the aircraft's movement to follow programmed paths: orbiting a fixed point, following a moving subject, or flying in a straight line at constant altitude. The automation handles the flight control while the operator concentrates on camera position and timing.

DNG is an openly documented raw format, and most drone cameras save their raw files in it. It keeps the sensor data unprocessed, so exposure and color can be adjusted later. CR2 and NEF are also raw formats, but each is tied to one particular camera maker rather than common on drones, and JPEG is not raw at all.

A rolling shutter sensor reads pixels sequentially from top to bottom. Vibration during this scan displaces each row slightly before the next is read, producing an undulating or wobbly distortion in footage that has come to be called the jello effect.

Looking straight down flattens the scene into two dimensions, because there is no horizon and little sense of depth. That turns fields, roads, rooftops and shorelines into graphic shapes, lines and repeating patterns. Showing the horizon and sky is what an angled shot does, not a top-down one.

Return to Home is a safety function that automatically flies the aircraft back to its recorded launch point when triggered manually, when the signal link is lost, or when battery level drops to a threshold. The aircraft then lands at or near the home point.

Sport mode raises top speed and makes the controls more responsive, and on most drones it switches off obstacle avoidance at the same time. The pilot is then fully responsible for avoiding anything in the flight path. It also uses the battery faster, not more efficiently.

A polarizer works strongest when the camera points at about 90 degrees to the sun and weakest when it points toward or away from it. As a drone yaws or orbits, that angle keeps changing, so the sky can darken and lighten in uneven bands across a single shot or clip. The filter itself is light enough for a drone to carry.