Any tips for night photos?

[robmacom]

Beautiful shot love it

 

[Maxheadspace]

as mentioned above, if you’re flying a MP, you’ll need to first set it to auto focus and find a bright spot approx 50m away to focus, then set to manual focus and leave it at that for the remaining of your flight. MA has fixed focus so there’s no need to worry about that.

So is there any benefit from flying in tripod mode? Or, I suppose that just slows down control response, not drift?

 

[ykwarks]

So is there any benefit from flying in tripod mode? Or, I suppose that just slows down control response, not drift?

tripod mode is good when taking videos during the day if you want to speed it up to get the time laps effect. for stills, it makes no difference as if you’re hovering, any mode will hover in the same manner while taking long exposure shots.

 

[hapkidojoe2000]

Night photography can be a challenge even using a regular DSLR...the general rule is low ISO to reduce noise, and keep the camera still. Take your time framing your shots, and take multiple shots. Set up your camera to shoot intervals say every 5-10 seconds, when you feel you have a decent shot or two, just reposition and reframe on a different subject...the camera is still shooting every few seconds so you might even get a good image while you're reframing. Keep playing with your settings so you can get an idea of what your MP/MA can actually do. If you post edit, be sure to shoot raw to be able to pull out more details, denoise, etc.

 

[CanadaDrone]

Honestly this just comes down to physics. If you want to do any night time photography with the Air, you are going to have to adjust your expectations greatly.

First, it uses a tiny 1/2.3" sensor which has average image quality at the best of times (relative to a larger sensor), and garbage image quality much beyond base ISO (Even base ISO is a little noisy). This has nothing to do with the Mavic Air specifically, it is a characteristic of virtually all sensors of similar size unless they employ other tricks like multi-image stacking (like the Google Pixel cameras). Also an F2.8 aperture is not even that bright when you're looking at a nightscape.

Second, you are going to need either very high ISO (will look horrible) or a longer exposure (probably blurry) to get a decent shot in the kind of light levels you show in your first photo. The gimbal is good, but it's no tripod - your image is going to be at least partially blurry even with a 1 second exposure, and that will of course be exaggerated at higher magnification and/or longer shutter speeds. Viewing at low resolution might be OK, depends on your expectations.

Everything is stacked against you, it's just the limitations of the hardware. Don't be discouraged if your night shots come out blurry or noisy, it's going to be very hard to avoid.

 

[Mossiback]

This was with 100 ISO and 2 second exposure. Very blurry!

The original post was on March 10th but I have not read anyone mention motion blur. The Air moving while the shutter was open is the cause of the blurry image. This is evident by the lights appearing as lines instead of spots and is exaggerated by the car turning the corner.

 

[CanadaDrone]

The original post was on March 10th but I have not read anyone mention motion blur. The Air moving while the shutter was open is the cause of the blurry image. This is evident by the lights appearing as lines instead of spots and is exaggerated by the car turning the corner.
View attachment 42321

My post above mentions it in detail

Also, a car turning a corner would be blurry even if his drone was stationary due to the long exposure time - the stationary subjects being blurry are a result of the drone movement.

 

[hko]

I tried capture panorama during blue hour and result is not so bad for that small noisy sensor. It is little bit better than i expected.

Aerial Czech Republic Velké Meziříčí

 

[Fmoots]

The best thing to do it is experiment with longer exposures (3 seconds plus) and keep the ISO down. Use the histogram to see how the longer shutter will affect the exposure of the photo. You want to do it in low wind though since any movement of the drone will cause blur.

The upcoming Mavic 2 Pro with the 1 inch sensor will be capable of significantly better night photos due to the larger sensor being able to take in more light. In saying that, the MA is still very capable if you make the exposure long enough & keep it still

Below is a 3.2 second exposure with the MA, ISO 100

 

[CanadaDrone]

The best thing to do it is experiment with longer exposures (3 seconds plus) and keep the ISO down. Use the histogram to see how the longer shutter will affect the exposure of the photo. You want to do it in low wind though since any movement of the drone will cause blur.

The upcoming Mavic 2 Pro with the 1 inch sensor will be capable of significantly better night photos due to the larger sensor being able to take in more light. In saying that, the MA is still very capable if you make the exposure long enough & keep it still

A larger sensor won't actually help you at all if you are doing base-ISO long exposures with regards to noise. At any given aperture, ISO, and shutter duration, the exposure is the same regardless of sensor size. There may be small differences in tonality and base noise levels but nothing major.

If you want to raise the ISO and get a normal shot in lower light, that is where a larger sensor will help you (assuming lower pixel density among other things), but it won't really help out base ISO long exposures in terms of noise The sensor's ability to take in more light is not necessarily determined by it's physical size, but rather it's well capacity and the individual pixel size.

 

[ash2020]

View attachment 33310 this was taken using the MA iso100, 1.3sec in slightly windy condition.
i have more difficulties getting decent results if longer than 2sec with the MA even in very low wind conditions. they usually comes out a bit blurry. with the MP, i can do much longer.

Wow! Fabulous picture!

 

[SSurogate2017]

Night flight

 

[MQuinn]

Sport mode, manual focus 4 seconds, manual while balance Iso 400 2.5 second exposure

 

[Mike4884]

Mavic pro manual focus, auto wb 3, 6, and 8 sec expos, iso 100

 

[Prmath]

Mavic pro manual focus, auto wb 3, 6, and 8 sec expos, iso 100

Very nice. This Mav2Pro has one helluva camera that has a remote firing mechanism. Even sitting on a solid object, unbelievable possibilities.

 

[Mike4884]

Very nice. This Mav2Pro has one helluva camera that has a remote firing mechanism. Even sitting on a solid object, unbelievable possibilities.

Yes this was with original mavic Pro I'm sure the mavic Pro 2 is even better

 

[fegan]

Sport mode, manual focus 4 seconds, manual while balance Iso 400 2.5 second exposure
View attachment 51685

Manual Focus? The Mavic Air is a fixed focus lens.
Was this shot with another drone? If so, please share that info.