been flying my mini 3 (not pro, just the regular one) for a few months now and i want to get into actually making the footage look decent instead of just the raw out of camera stuff which honestly looks a bit harsh in bright daylight. ive seen people talk about nd filters a lot but theres like a million options on amazon ranging from 12 dollars to 80 dollars and i genuinely have no idea if the cheap ones are fine or if youre throwing money away. im not doing this professionally or anything, mostly just flying at the beach and some hiking trips. does the brand actually matter or is this one of those things where the mid range ones are basically the same as the expensive ones

honestly for casual stuff the mid range ones are totally fine. i use the Freewell set on my mini 3 and they work great, no noticeable color cast or sharpness issues. the really cheap unbranded ones on amazon can introduce a slight color shift which gets annoying in post even if its subtle. Freewell and PolarPro are the two names i see recommended most, PolarPro is the more expensive one and yes the glass quality is genuinely better but for beach and hiking footage where youre not pixel peeping on a monitor its probably overkill. id just grab the Freewell kit with the ND4 ND8 ND16 and ND32 and call it a day

just make sure you get ones specificaly made for the mini 3 and not the mini 3 pro, the lens covers are different and the wrong ones wont sit flush. learned that the annoying way when a set i ordered turned out to be for the pro version and they just sort of wobbled on there. had to wait another week for the right ones to arrive. also worth looking up the 180 degree shutter rule before you buy so you know which nd strengths to actually get for the conditions youll be flying in, makes more sense once you get the concept