ok so ive been flying my dji avata 2 for about 3 months now and im starting to get into actual cinematic stuff instead of just flying around my backyard. watched probably a dozen youtube videos about the 180 degree shutter rule and nd filters and now im going in circles. half the people say you absolutely need them and the other half say the auto settings are fine when youre starting out and you wont notice the difference anyway

i mostly fly in the afternoon when its pretty bright out and a lot of my footage does look a little harsh and choppy on fast pans, which i think might be the shutter speed issue? i dont know though, im also not great at post yet so maybe its a me problem not a gear problem. a full filter kit is like 60-80 bucks and i dont want to spend that if im not gonna see a difference

short answer yes they make a real difference especially in bright conditions. the choppy panning thing you described is almost definitely shutter speed being too high, nd filters fix that by letting you actually follow the 180 rule without overexposing everything. nd16 and nd64 are probably all you need to start, dont need the whole kit right away

honestly i held off on filters for almost six months and kind of wish i hadnt. once i started using them the footage looked noticeably smoother almost immediately and it wasnt even that hard to figure out which one to use once i got used to checking the light conditions before takeoff. the 60-80 dollar kits are fine to start, i got a polar pro one eventually but the cheaper stuff works perfectly well while youre still learning. dont stress too much about brand at this stage

the one thing ill say is make sure you get filters made for your specific drone because the avata 2 lens geometry is a bit different and generic ones can sometimes cause weird vignetting in the corners. learned that the slightly annoying way lol