so ive been flying my Air 3 for about 4 months now and im finally trying to get more serious about the footage quality. been shooting everything on auto exposure which i know is bad but i just wanted to get comfortable with the flying first before messing with manual settings

anyway someone in a facebook group mentioned i should be looking at ND filters and i went down a rabbit hole last night. theres so many options its kind of overwhelming. polar pro, freewell, the official dji ones... the price difference is massive and i cant really tell from youtube videos if the cheap ones are actually noticeably worse or if people are just being gear snobs

im shooting mostly landscape stuff, some coastal flying, occasional golden hour. nothing professional just want it to look less like a gopro and more like actual video if that makes sense. does anyone have real experience with the third party ones on the Air 3 specifically

Freewell magnetic ones are what I run on mine and honestly have zero complaints. The magnetic system is way more convenient than you'd think especially when conditions change and you're swapping between ND16 and ND64 every few minutes. Build quality feels solid, no vignetting that I've noticed even at wider angles.

The DJI ones are fine too but you're paying a lot for the logo in my opinion. I had a set and sold them. Color rendering between the two felt basically the same to me but I wasn't doing any super scientific testing or anything. For coastal work you'll probably want the ND64 or even ND256 if it's a bright day, the ocean reflection can really blow things out faster than you expect

dont overthink the brand tbh. just make sure whatever you get is specifically cut for the Air 3 because the Air 2S filters dont fit properly and ive seen people buy the wrong ones on amazon by accident. also the 180 degree shutter rule is the thing that actually matters more than which brand filter you buy - once you get that dialed in even cheap NDs will make a difference