Help me improve my nighttime photography

[shutterup]

This image was a 0.6 second exposure yet it's not Sharpe and there is motion blur

I'm using a P2P and if love to be able to take 8 second long exposures but despite a lack of wind the craft just isn't stable enough.

Is there anyway to increase the exposure time without getting motion blur?

As I say there was no wind

 

[adcimagery]

There's not a lot of ambient light here, but I'd imagine you get set a higher ISO and shutter speed to get some more brightness. If it's blurry, it might just have been too windy for the drone's gimbal to keep up. Also, motion blur is somewhat random - you can try shooting a couple photos back to back and pick the sharpest.

 

[THE CYBORG]

It’s the nature of photography, if the camera moves slightly especially on a long exposure you will get blur.
Where a photographer can use a tripod & a cable or remote shutter release to stop any movement of the camera all we as drone pilots can do is hover and hope.
My advice for what it’s worth is take multiple shots then chose the best out of the bunch.
Pretty decent picture by the way

 

[shutterup]

Thanks man, ima pro by trade this is just for fun

I assume there's no other way to keep this thing more stable then?

It’s the nature of photography, if the camera moves slightly especially on a long exposure you will get blur.
Where a photographer can use a tripod & a cable or remote shutter release to stop any movement of the camera all we as drone pilots can do is hover and hope.
My advice for what it’s worth is take multiple shots then chose the best out of the bunch.
Pretty decent picture by the way

 

[macfawlty]

Well, the general rule in photographing from a distance is to use faster shutter speeds for sharpness. You’ve got several things working against you here. #1) it’s a night shot, necessitating a longer exposure; #2) you’re far from your primary subject... more distance=less sharp; #3) it’s a camera floating in the air, not on a tripod and is likely moving around even though you say there was no wind, there probably was at altitude; #4) these drones have decent cameras, but not great cameras. If you push the boundaries of the camera and sensor, don’t expect DSLR/Mirrorless results; #5) anything with bright lights is gonna look softer due to the glare of lights and contrast. Lenses and sensors always get weird shooting directly into lights. Perhaps tripod mode would yield a sharper image to start with? Also, bracket by taking multiple series of images at different exposures. In Lightroom, you can dampen the highlights, lift the shadows a bit along with a little noise reduction, lower the black point to remove some of the resulting noise in the black, then add sharpness (masked to about 85%) to compensate for the shadow lift and NR. Also, crop off the black at top and bottom which is just dead space. With an image like this, the casual viewer doesn’t expect it to be super sharp or completely free of noise. They’re not viewing it printed on a wall or movie screen.

 

[shutterup]

I shot 5x burst mode as that's how I shoot standard, but yes I think your right for this sort of stuff I need to be using bracketing.

Thanks

Well, the general rule in photographing from a distance is to use faster shutter speeds for sharpness. You’ve got several things working against you here. #1) it’s a night shot, necessitating a longer exposure; #2) you’re far from your primary subject... more distance=less sharp; #3) it’s a camera floating in the air, not on a tripod and is likely moving around even though you say there was no wind, there probably was at altitude. #4) anything with bright lights is gonna look softer due to the glare of lights and contrast. Lenses and Sensors always get weird shooting directly into lights. Perhaps tripod mode would yield a sharper image to start with? Also, bracket by taking multiple series of images at different exposures. In Lightroom, you can dampen the highlights, lift the shadows a bit along with a little noise reduction, lower the black point, then add sharpness.

 

[SmilingOgre]

There are cameras out there that will now capture some pretty clean shots at some very high ISO settings. Problem is you would need a drone that would gimbal at least five pounds of camera. I would guess something like a Nikon D850 with a Tamron G2 lens would snag that shot.

 

[macfawlty]

Thanks man, ima pro by trade this is just for fun

I assume there's no other way to keep this thing more stable then?

Assume instability and take several series of multiple images at different exposures. I would also get closer to the roller coaster and do a series of panoramas manually with 70% overlap. It’s obviously a piano shot so you may as well shoot it that way. Edit the best series in LR>merge to pano in Photoshop (reposition method)>round trip back to LR for any cross processing and crop. Easy enough to content-aware fill the black. You’ll be starting with much higher resolution images from a closer focal distance to edit in post and a very high rez final image as a result.

 

[Johnmcl7]

This image was a 0.6 second exposure yet it's not Sharpe and there is motion blur

I'm using a P2P and if love to be able to take 8 second long exposures but despite a lack of wind the craft just isn't stable enough.

Is there anyway to increase the exposure time without getting motion blur?

I can't see what iso setting you're using but if you're not already maxed out I'd try increasing it, you'll have more noise in the image but that's more workable than a motion blurred image.

 

[shutterup]

But I want the car lights to show blue too, maybe I want it all [emoji23]

 

[Meta4]

I assume there's no other way to keep this thing more stable then?

No .. there's no trick to solve the issue, when the camera is hanging in the air.
You just take your chances with air movement and when you have a great shot, shoot it multiple times to improve your odd of getting something worth keping.

Perhaps tripod mode would yield a sharper image to start with?

Tripod mode to start with.

Don't be confused by the name.
Tripod Mode does nothing to hold the camera any more steady than other modes.
If DJI had a way to hold the camera steadier, they already would be using it.
Tripod Mode only slows the joystick sensitivity and flight speed for more gentle handling.

 

[macfawlty]

No .. there's no trick to solve the issue, when the camera is hanging in the air.
You just take your chances with air movement and when you have a great shot, shoot it multiple times to improve your odd of getting something worth keping.


Don't be confused by the name.
Tripod Mode does nothing to hold the camera any more steady than other modes.
If DJI had a way to hold the camera steadier, they already would be using it.
Tripod Mode only slows the joystick sensitivity and flight speed for more gentle handling.

Yeh, I expected as much... wasn’t certain, but it was a minor point. Whether filming or photographing, I always shoot multiple series, frames, exposures, compositions. I don’t assume I know the best shot while filming. I just make sure that if it’s an important clip or photo that I have full coverage.
I’m certain that if you follow the advice I provided, you’ll have a lot to work with in LR and PS.

It’s more challenging with hyperlapse as you have to ensure the entire series of images is good. I’ve found that you don’t really need long exposures to get good light trails and motion blur. It’s more important that your images are not blurry than how long your light trails are. Don’t expect to get detail from the dark. Expose for the lighting in the scene. DaVinci Resolve and Premier can add to the motion blur.

 

[Mossiback]

You could try stacking several short exposure photos. This will combine the light from all the photos into one with less motion blur and noise. This is used a lot for astrophotography. A good explanation is HERE.