so ive had my Air 3 for about three months now and overall really loving it but the hyperlapse stuff has been confusing me since day one. specifically the circle mode. every time i try to set it up it either flies way too close to whatever im trying to orbit or the interval is so short the final clip looks choppy. i watched a couple youtube videos but they seem to be on older firmware or something because the menus dont match what i have on screen.

my main thing right now is trying to do a sunset hyperlapse over a lake near my house. the drone locks on fine and starts moving but the exposure is all over the place even with ND filters on. im using the ND16 that came in the fly more combo. maybe i need a stronger one for golden hour? or is there a setting in the camera menu im missing. also not sure if i should be shooting in normal or d-log m for this kind of thing, feels like every answer i find online contradicts the last one.

the exposure jumping around in hyperlapse is a known thing with auto exposure ? you pretty much have to lock your exposure manually before you start the sequence otherwise the drone just keeps adjusting as the light changes and it looks terrible in the final edit. go into your camera settings before you start the hyperlapse and lock AE, theres a little padlock icon when you tap the screen. for golden hour id actually go up to ND64 or even ND256 if the sun is still fairly high, the ND16 is probably not doing enough to slow your shutter down to where it needs to be for smooth motion blur between frames.

as for d-log m vs normal, personally i shoot everything in d-log m now because the color grading flexibility is just so much better but it does require more work in post. if youre just sharing straight to instagram or something then normal is totally fine. dont stress too much about that part.

oh man i had the exact same confusion when i first got mine. the circle hyperlapse specifically took me forever to figure out ? i think the key thing that nobody explains well is that the radius you set at the beginning is really sensitive, like a small adjustment makes a huge difference to how close it flies. i always set mine from at least 30 meters out now and it looks way more cinematic anyway.