HoverAir X1 Pro Max Tips: How I Capture Cinematic Shots While Hiking in Alaska

The HoverAir X1 Pro Max is kind of a ridiculously good little drone, especially if you want a super easy way to just capture great shots of yourself hiking, biking, or maybe walking along a not-so-tropical beach. You can just throw this drone in the air and capture some great shots. But if you really want to get the most out of it, there are a few simple things you can do to take your footage to the next level.

I want to say thank you to HoverAir for sponsoring this video.

Tip #1: Film in 8K

The first tip I have is film in 8K. The footage out of this drone in 8K looks amazing. There’s so much detail and a really good amount of dynamic range. It’s kind of shocking how good it is, even in auto exposure. But there are two things you can do to make it just a little bit better.

Use ND Filters and Manual Exposure

If you get the package with ND filters, use the ND filters and manual exposure for better control. ND filters are kind of like sunglasses for your drone. They help lower the shutter speed, which gives you a more natural-looking motion blur, which is important for making the footage look like our eyes and our brains want to perceive footage.

The basic rule of thumb is that you want your shutter speed to be about two times what your frame rate is. So selecting the right ND filter — like on a day like this where it’s bright and sunny out, an ND32 or ND64 — and then set your shutter speed to be two times your frame rate.

You can set your ISO as low as you can at around ISO 100 or 200. But honestly, you can even just leave it in auto ISO and the drone does a really good job. A tip if you’re going to use auto ISO is to set the EV exposure value compensation to minus 0.3. That will help protect your highlights on bright sunny days like this.

Use Image Optimization for Better Highlight Control

Another tip is to use image optimization. Basically, you can use the standard mode if you’re filming mountains and landscapes and stuff like that. But if you’re going to be filming close to people, then I highly recommend setting it to portrait mode. Portrait mode just gives you much nicer roll-off of highlights and much better control of the highlights, especially when you’re filming people or close to people.

The Beacon Gives You Full Control

Did you know that if you have the beacon, you can actually change almost all of the settings on there and just control it with this little thing? Which is super cool, because you even get a screen that shows you a preview of what the drone is seeing and what the drone is tracking, which is awesome. Just being able to use this little guy right here makes a huge difference.

The Perfect Hiking Companion

Now that we’re out here in the beautiful Alaska wilderness, let’s talk about how to actually use this drone. The best thing about this thing is that it’s tiny, small, lightweight, and compact. So hiking like this, you don’t even hardly notice you have it with you. But the best feature of this drone is that you can operate it without a beacon, without a phone, just using the buttons on the top. And you can make it do things that get you some amazing footage.

Using It as a Follow Drone

One of the best ways to use this drone is as a follow drone. This is a perfect spot to showcase just how well that works. It’s super easy to cycle through the modes — orbit, spiral, orbit, follow — just like that. Then you push the button, follow, and it does what you told it to do.

Turn On Omni Terrain Over Water and Uneven Ground

There’s another tip I haven’t given you yet. If you’re going to be flying over uneven terrain like I am now, or over water like I did earlier, you want to make sure omni terrain is on. You’ll get this little check signal — or it tells you, depending on how you’re looking at it — that omni is on. That will help you be much safer over water and help the drone deal with uneven terrain.

Dolly Track Mode and Other Quick Shots

Follow isn’t the only thing this drone is capable of. If you switch to dolly track — orbit, spiral, bird’s eye, dolly track, ski mode, dolly track — then you can set it to follow you from the front. Like any drone, it has very limited obstacle avoidance, especially from the rear. So you’ve got to keep an eye on it. That being said, I’ve crashed this quite a few times and it’s been fine.

Showing Off the Scale of an Epic Location

Now that we’re here, this is a great place to show off and use some of the other quick shots that HoverAir has put in the HoverAir X1 Pro Max. When you’re in a place like this, you want to be able to really show it off. So using things like the orbit or the zoom-out feature are really great ways to showcase both what the area is around you — the spectacularness of it, I don’t know how else to say it other than that it’s a pretty incredible spot — and to give an idea of the scale of the place that you might be in.

You want to switch to orbit mode. Then you can set your distance, the direction of rotation, and if you want to orbit high or orbit low or flat. Then push the button, let it go, and it will start doing its thing.

With orbit, it’s important to remember you want to start the drone pointing away from whatever you actually want to showcase, because it’s going to swing around and then come back to wherever you started it with. So if I point it out toward the mountains, that’s going to be the start and end point — which I don’t really want. I want to start it this way so that as it swings around, it gets this beautiful ocean and mountains behind us.

You do want to set the settings with the app, or you can use the beacon for some of those settings. But being able to set the distance and everything else with the app is super easy and super handy.

2x Mode for More Parallax

You can use things like 2x mode, especially on orbit shots. It gives you a lot more parallax. It’s really easy to do. You go into HoverAir settings, go into orbit, and then you can change all of your settings — of course, down to zoom — and you can go 2x zoom. It gives you a much different feel and changes the way everything moves around your subject.

Recording Audio With the Drone

Did you know that if you use your phone or the beacon, you can actually record audio to the drone and then synchronize it by downloading it to your phone? It will synchronize the audio and the video footage. Or, if you’re using the beacon, you can synchronize it in an editor in post. It even has settings to remove the prop noise. Right now, I’m talking to the drone — can you hear the prop noise?

Why This Is Still the Most Surprising Drone I’ve Used

I said last year that this was the most surprising drone I had used, and it’s true. It’s so small and lightweight. It takes up no space in my backpack, even with extra batteries and everything else. It just takes up almost no space. And it’s so lightweight, you don’t even really notice that you have it with you.

But it captures incredible shots with the touch of a button. It’s basically super easy to use and just really fun to have with you. Add that to the fact that you can use it with just the drone with a push of a button, you can use your phone, or you can use the beacon with the sticks or without the sticks — it just makes it a really versatile little device for capturing really great cinematic footage.

HoverAir Mother’s Day Sale Is Live

The HoverAir Mother’s Day sale is live, so you can get up to 29% off from May 1st to May 11th. Check the link down in the description.

Edit It Into a Short Story of Your Trip

After you capture all this footage, what do you do with it? You edit it together to create a really nice, really short story of your trip, your journey, or whatever it was that you filmed with this drone. That’s why I’ve been telling you to get the shots that you get as you’re going along through this journey — because then it gives you this really nice little story of you (or me) hiking in a place like this, hiking to a place like this, and enjoying some beautiful views on a beautiful sunny spring day.

If you want to see me push this drone to its limits, you’re going to want to watch the next video. As always, if you have questions, ask me in the comments below. Or you can join my live stream, which happens some Wednesday nights at 4:00 p.m. Alaska time / 8:00 p.m. Eastern, where we can have more of a conversation and I can answer questions that maybe I didn’t get to in this video.

For more drone tutorials and reviews, check out my Jake Sloan YouTube channel and read more of my articles on my DroneXL author page.