Best settings to photograph people with Air2S

[cknipp]

Hello folks!

This may seem like a silly question, but what are the best settings to photograph people with your drone, Air2S specifically. I use the auto bracketing mode most of the time for landscape photography. I find it does not work best with people because when merging photos they almost always look blurry because people can’t stay still, ha ha.

I found myself trying to get some unique shots with people lately using my drone and they seem to be blurry.

In the past I’ve taken some shots of people that looked pretty good. Not sure why I’m getting blurry results lately. Maybe I was not using auto exposure bracketing in the past.

Anyways, any best settings/tips for photographing people will be helpful.

Thanks folks!
Chris

 

[slup]

Bracketing is a method to increase the dynamic range in a static motif ... not the best if shooting moving objects. A enough fast shutter speed is needed in order to "freeze" possible motion in the motif (if that's desired).

If the motif have a wide dynamic range making certain areas pitch black & others pure white you need to chose what to expose for ... either you go for the highlights or the shadows. Use raw & manual exposure settings when you shot. And use the histogram so you know how the cameras dynamic range is placed between the totally black & pure white ... set the exposure so the highlight are very close to being overexposed (this to lighten up the shadows & generate as little noise there as possible)... & then later in post bring the highlight down.

Another method if you have one raw exposure is to "develop" that single one in several versions in the raw converter (like Adobe Lightroom) ... make one copy each with -2, -1, 0, +1,+2 exposure & then you merge them into one.

 

[retiredNH]

Few drone pilots are photographing people, I'm afraid. Note that photography itself is a complex topic, as the previous post suggests.
It sounds like your problem is blur? If so, shutter speed can take care of that. On a bright day, you could get good results with speeds of 1/250 seconds or so. The camera can do as short as 1/8000, but that would take pretty bright light.

I'm quite certain AEB is not helping. Turn it off, and use auto exposure before trying manual settings. With a fixed aperture lens, it's easy to get bad results with manual shutter settings unless you know how to read a histogram.

 

[Meta4]

what are the best settings to photograph people with your drone, Air2S specifically. I use the auto bracketing mode most of the time for landscape photography. I find it does not work best with people because when merging photos they almost always look blurry because people can’t stay still.

You've confused AEB with merging multiple images to create a single HDR image.
Bracketing is just shooting a series of images at different exposure settings.
It's commonly done to provide more exposure options when shooting in tricky lighting situations.

Merging those images to create a single image is a much overused technique, that's usually unnecessary unless you are shooting a static subject that has a bigger dynamic range than can be captured in a single exposure.
It's best to avoid merging images unless there is a good reason to go that way.

There's no simple setting to use for shooting people.
Shoot with whatever settings are appropriate for your subject and lighting.

 

[GFields]

Use extreme caution using a drone to photograph people. Drones are flying cameras and are designed for that purpose. If push comes to shove and I use one of my drones for groundwork I don't start the motors. I also have a handheld device for my Mavic Pro and Zoom. Nothing is safer than using a good DSLR or the latest iPhones.

As a professional photographer for over 30 years, I can tell that there is no one that can give you those "perfect" settings you ask about. Study basic concepts like exposure, shutter speed, and ISO and how they interact with each other. The Air 2s has a fixed aperture so you will need to know how the EV (exposure value) helps with lighting.

 

[SethB]

All the posts above are good guidance, and…

If you’re using an ND filter for stills when hovering, and people are blurry but backgrounds are not, take off the ND so you can get a higher shutter speed.

Also beware of dusk and morning/evening twilight. You need a fast shutter speed to freeze motion, more light helps!

If you are shooting in low light you may need a higher ISO setting to avoid slow shutter speeds.

 

[retiredNH]

You've confused AEB with merging multiple images to create a single HDR image.
Bracketing is just shooting a series of images at different exposure settings.
It's commonly done to provide more exposure options when shooting in tricky lighting situations.

Merging those images to create a single image is a much overused technique, that's usually unnecessary unless you are shooting a static subject that has a bigger dynamic range than can be captured in a single exposure.
It's best to avoid merging images unless there is a good reason to go that way.

There's no simple setting to use for shooting people.
Shoot with whatever settings are appropriate for your subject and lighting.

Good points! HDR is in fact done with a series of images, often generated by AEB, but is a separate process. And HDR, unless you want a seriously over-baked, over processed look like you see with Instagram sunset pictures, is rarely necessary if you shoot raw with a decent sensor like the Air 2S.

 

[offtheback]

Hello folks!

Shoot people pics in cloudy bright conditions.Can't miss