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How to capture slow-motion shots with your drone like Johnny FPV

If you’re into FPV drones, you’ve probably seen Johnny FPV’s mind-blowing video for the new Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo. And if you have seen that video, you must have wondered: How did Johnny Schaer capture those rocks exploding into the camera in slow motion? We have the answers.

To say that Porsche’s campaign video for its new Cross Utility Vehicle is thrilling would be an understatement. That video takes FPV cinematic content creation to a whole new level.

As Johnny FPV zips his drone through two identical race tracks, one in the sandy desert of Abu Dhabi and the other on a snow-blanketed frozen lake in Finland, he ensures that one “wow” moment follows another – punctuated by breathtakingly beautiful slow-motion sequences.

Let’s just pause and marvel at those sequences again (at 1:19 and 2:19) before we get down to hacks that enable such stunning shots:

Capturing slow-motion shots with an FPV drone

If you aspire to fly like Johnny FPV, why not ask the man himself for advice, right? Lucky for you, Johnny is offering some behind-the-scenes golden nuggets in a series of short videos, explaining just how exactly he took on the Taycan Cross Turismo in the extremes.

The bare basic? You will need to get your hands on a FREEFLY Wave camera, which, ahem, costs a bomb. But the camera weighs only 700 g, which is pretty good for an 8- or 9-inch FPV drone setup.

What’s insane is that the Wave camera supports frame rates of 422fps in 4K and 1461fps in 2K. For the Porsche video, Johnny went with the 4K 422fps setting and that was slow enough to deliver those dreamy sequences we cannot get enough of.

Also see: Porsche’s hauntingly beautiful drone light painting shoot for 2021 Panamera

After that, it all boiled down to choosing the perfect moments where the car would be spitting up tons of dust or ice and planning the action around them. Listen to what Johnny says:

Now, if you’re interested to know how Johnny got all those transitions bang-on, here’s another behind-the-scenes video you could catch. Here, the drone pilot talks about intense pre-production planning as well just going with the flow – meaning, take in all of footage and look for shots that are similar in movement and framing. Take a look:

Suggested: Watch a DJI FPV drone take on Porsche and Mercedes-Benz on the race track

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Avatar for Ishveena Singh Ishveena Singh

Ishveena Singh is a versatile journalist and writer with a passion for drones and location technologies. She has been named as one of the 50 Rising Stars of the geospatial industry for the year 2021 by Geospatial World magazine.