ok so this has been bugging me for a few days. i put together a short video from a coastal shoot i did, maybe 90 seconds long, mixed some stills in there with the video clips and honestly i thought it turned out pretty solid for a beginner. posted it to a couple facebook groups and like half the comments are people saying it looks cgi or that i must have used a simulator or something

i dont really get it because i didnt do anything crazy in the grade, just used a free lut from youtube and bumped the clarity a little in lightroom on the photos. is there something about aerial footage that makes it look fake to people who arent used to seeing it? or did i actually overdo something without realizing. genuinely cant tell anymore after staring at it for so long

yeah that happens a lot actually, aerial stuff can look surreal even when its totally straight out of camera. the combination of smooth gimbal movement plus the perspective from up high just doesn't look like anything people are used to seeing. if you also cranked clarity on top of that it might be pushing it into uncanny territory. not necessarily a bad thing though depending on what you're going for

facebook drone groups are rough man, half those people will say anything. id take it with a grain of salt. that said clarity is one of those sliders that feels great at like 20 and then you save and come back the next day and its like oh no. happens to everyone