Pro DJI Mavic pro night photo

[Kywon McCain]

Below is a Mavic pro photo I took... I don't know when.

I'm finally back after a few weeks. I needed a break to clear my head. I'll just be posting photos of what I find in my files until I can get my gimbal repaired, which should be soon. And then we go on from there.


Whoever said to replace the dish modification with the original antennas I'm following your advice.

I hope you like this photo. This is outside the apartments across from my condominiums house. Some apartments that are beautiful at night. Do you see that large patch of light in the corner? I wanna fly down there. The antennas should be able to handle it. I wonder what's over there. I will try it the night my new pair of antennas come in the mail, and at around the same time, I will fly there to see what it is for myself and post it here.

 

[TheParaPilot]

Hi, thanks for sharing, was it set on auto ? have you had a play with the exposure settings? I think you could manage to lighten up those darken areas to reveal more of the shot if you had a play with the manual, any excuse to burn up a few batteries is a good one in my book, have a play, what's the worse that'll happen, you end up deleting some shots. You got all the friends you need here bud

 

[Rchawks]

Welcome back kiddo, I can say that I’m 62

 

[Kywon McCain]

Welcome back kiddo, I can say that I’m 62

Happy birthday!

 

[Rchawks]

 

[Kywon McCain]

Hi, thanks for sharing, was it set on auto ? have you had a play with the exposure settings? I think you could manage to lighten up those darken areas to reveal more of the shot if you had a play with the manual, any excuse to burn up a few batteries is a good one in my book, have a play, what's the worse that'll happen, you end up deleting some shots. You got all the friends you need here bud

I don't really mess with it that much. Only at night I do. But I didn't really mess with it this time because I was so exited to get it in the air to range test it after I replaced some wiring.

 

[Prop Wash]

Good to see you back on Kywon!! I see you changed your screen name too! Nice!

It's good pic - I agree a bit dark, but it's a good place to start. Good advice in here you can use in future pics.

 

[Meta4]

I hope you like this photo. This is outside the apartments across from my condominiums house. Some apartments that are beautiful at night.

Cameras don't photograph darkness well.
If you want to photograph at night, it's a good idea to have a subject to focus on, rather than a lot of darkness with a few small points of distant light.
Or try shooting when there is still some colour in the sky, before it turns black.
Think Low Light rather than No Light.

 

[Mugginz]

Hi Kywon,
Good shot, some nice details in the light. Agree with other comments on having a subject in focus, and using manual mode. Doing this will enable you to set long exposure in there (some nice light blur if cars are in the shot), reduce iso (less noise).
I can also recommend exposure stacking (bracketing) . Take 5 EV (exposure value) shots, you can then combine them in post to make a nice raw hdr image file.
Happy shooting.
M

 

[Dale D]

Below is a Mavic pro photo I took... I don't know when.

I'm finally back after a few weeks. I needed a break to clear my head. I'll just be posting photos of what I find in my files until I can get my gimbal repaired, which should be soon. And then we go on from there.


Whoever said to replace the dish modification with the original antennas I'm following your advice.

I hope you like this photo. This is outside the apartments across from my condominiums house. Some apartments that are beautiful at night. Do you see that large patch of light in the corner? I wanna fly down there. The antennas should be able to handle it. I wonder what's over there. I will try it the night my new pair of antennas come in the mail, and at around the same time, I will fly there to see what it is for myself and post it here.
View attachment 140227

Kywon:

I am really sorry to be critical, but this photo is absolutely not good at all. You will not gain knowledge by gratuitous nice compliments in the forum, only by some constructive advise.

The exposure here is far too dark, and the details in the shadows are not retrievable in Photoshop. You need a higher ISO, and you need to shoot using a histogram and be careful not to clip the shadows on the left side of the histogram. I tried very hard, with all of my years of expertise, to recover some details in the shadows and all I could get were huge blocks of pixels, but no details. Try to shoot using manual setting, watch the histogram so as not to clip the shadows on the left side, and increase your ISO until you can see the shadows better.

Dale
Miami

 

[OdysseyShane]

Hi Kywon,

In the camera settings>photos menu, there is an AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing) setting that may help get single night-time shots without playing with the manual settings too much. Give it a try. You may like it.

Have fun!

 

[Kywon McCain]

Kywon:

I am really sorry to be critical, but this photo is absolutely not good at all. You will not gain knowledge by gratuitous nice compliments in the forum, only by some constructive advise.

The exposure here is far too dark, and the details in the shadows are not retrievable in Photoshop. You need a higher ISO, and you need to shoot using a histogram and be careful not to clip the shadows on the left side of the histogram. I tried very hard, with all of my years of expertise, to recover some details in the shadows and all I could get were huge blocks of pixels, but no details. Try to shoot using manual setting, watch the histogram so as not to clip the shadows on the left side, and increase your ISO until you can see the shadows better.

Dale
Miami

Well... At least you was honest...

 

[BigAl07]

Kywon:

I am really sorry to be critical, but this photo is absolutely not good at all. You will not gain knowledge by gratuitous nice compliments in the forum, only by some constructive advise.

The exposure here is far too dark, and the details in the shadows are not retrievable in Photoshop. You need a higher ISO, and you need to shoot using a histogram and be careful not to clip the shadows on the left side of the histogram. I tried very hard, with all of my years of expertise, to recover some details in the shadows and all I could get were huge blocks of pixels, but no details. Try to shoot using manual setting, watch the histogram so as not to clip the shadows on the left side, and increase your ISO until you can see the shadows better.

Dale
Miami

^^^^

Very nicely said Dale.

 

[Dale D]

Well... At least you was honest...

Kywon:

I call tell from your reply that you did not think well of my comment. The point of this forum is to learn from each other, from a great bunch of enthusiasts who love this pastime, and I am always happy to contribute my small amount of expertise, NOT to hurt feelings. That is the farthest from my mind in what I write.

So tonight, go outside and try the same shot again (increase the ISO and keep the histogram in the middle, or at least from the left side) and publish your results here. I, for one, would love to see your progress.

Good luck!
Dale
Miami

 

[Kywon McCain]

Kywon:

I call tell from your reply that you did not think well of my comment. The point of this forum is to learn from each other, from a great bunch of enthusiasts who love this pastime, and I am always happy to contribute my small amount of expertise, NOT to hurt feelings. That is the farthest from my mind in what I write.

So tonight, go outside and try the same shot again (increase the ISO and keep the histogram in the middle, or at least from the left side) and publish your results here. I, for one, would love to see your progress.

Good luck!
Dale
Miami

What's a historygram?

 

[BigAl07]

What's a historygram?

DJI Guides - DJI Store (United States)

Online shopping for a great selection of at the official DJI Online Store.

store.dji.com

 

[Kywon McCain]

Kywon:

I call tell from your reply that you did not think well of my comment. The point of this forum is to learn from each other, from a great bunch of enthusiasts who love this pastime, and I am always happy to contribute my small amount of expertise, NOT to hurt feelings. That is the farthest from my mind in what I write.

So tonight, go outside and try the same shot again (increase the ISO and keep the histogram in the middle, or at least from the left side) and publish your results here. I, for one, would love to see your progress.

Good luck!
Dale
Miami

I'm sorry if I come off as offended. I'm having a tough time right now.

 

[Dale D]

What's a historygram?

Not a history gram-...a histogram. Go to Google and read about Histograms. In your drone settings, you can turn on the histogram to appear on your screen during flying. It can be moved around on the screen by dragging it. You want to keep the peaks in the middle, and not cut off the highlights (details in the bright areas) on the right side of the box and keep the darks away from the left margin, so as not to cut off the details in the dark lowlight areas. If you shoot in RAW, the sensor will have files than can be recovered in both the highlights and the dark areas. Not so much if you shoot in JPG. Here is a good link to read.I have also attached a graph for guidance
Understanding Histograms in Photography

Don't be afraid to ask any questions.
Dale

 

[Kywon McCain]

DJI Guides - DJI Store (United States)

Online shopping for a great selection of at the official DJI Online Store.

store.dji.com

So I'm supposed to keep the histogram thing in the middle? Isn't that the auto exposure's job?

 

[Dale D]

So I'm supposed to keep the histogram thing in the middle? Isn't that the auto exposure's job?

Yes-Kywon- the auto exposure does do that but the auto exposure is many times not ideal when there is a high dynamic range (HDR). What that means is that you will be trying to capture an image with both very bright and very dark areas and the auto-exposure will read the brightest areas and compensate for those, thus underexposing the darker areas. This is most often seen when shooting the sky, where the bright sky will overpower the sensors and read the bright areas but greatly underexpose the darker areas. If you compensate for the exposure manually, you can still keep some of the sensor information in the dark and light areas and bring them out in post processing of a RAW (all pixel information) files.

If you look at enough images on this forum you will quickly see where the drone's sensors have been fooled in automated mode. The sky might be perfect but the foreground is so dark there are no details. Most sunrises and sunsets show these problems. The histogram is your friend! The more you use it and try to keep the peaks in the center or even to the right, the better off your eventually images after post processing will be.

Please try to read big A 107's attachment and examples in that article.

Dale