Hyperlapse Settings

[mgelbach]

We had a great storm in Charlotte, NC last night and I went out for some lightning pictures.

With my Sony camera I normally just set it up to take a 2-second exposure every 2 seconds and let it run in the background while I enjoy the storm and comb through the pictures when I get back to my computer.

With this drone, I ended up having to set the exposure time to either 1 or 2 seconds and constantly mash the shutter button taking 7 shot bursts in hope of getting something! I looked briefly, but it looked like I couldn't set the hyper-lapse interval to the same as my shutter speed. I this right, or do I have my setting messed up somewhere?

 

[codex22]

I can't help you with your question, but that photo is mind-blowing! Great work!

 

[wco81]

That picture is a 2-second exposure?

How is there not blur?

 

[edcMavicPilots]

That picture is a 2-second exposure?

How is there not blur?

There is blur. Look at the car lights.

Drones are generally stable and at a normal distance from the main subjects the very slight movement of the drone is relatively VERY small and not noticeable even at 1:1.

 

[edcMavicPilots]

We had a great storm in Charlotte, NC last night and I went out for some lightning pictures.

With my Sony camera I normally just set it up to take a 2-second exposure every 2 seconds and let it run in the background while I enjoy the storm and comb through the pictures when I get back to my computer.

With this drone, I ended up having to set the exposure time to either 1 or 2 seconds and constantly mash the shutter button taking 7 shot bursts in hope of getting something! I looked briefly, but it looked like I couldn't set the hyper-lapse interval to the same as my shutter speed. I this right, or do I have my setting messed up somewhere?

My best guest is that you need the interval to be something slightly longer than the shutter speed so it has time to process the shot before it initiates a new one.

 

[MS Coast]

There is blur. Look at the car lights.

Drones are generally stable and at a normal distance from the main subjects the very slight movement of the drone is relatively VERY small and not noticeable even at 1:1.

With a two-second exposure, moving cars would certainly be blurred. What's amazing is that the static objects in the shot are so sharp.

Wonderful photo, by the way. Your manual technique paid off well.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

There is blur. Look at the car lights.

Drones are generally stable and at a normal distance from the main subjects the very slight movement of the drone is relatively VERY small and not noticeable even at 1:1.

Uum the trace left by the car lights is very sharp and in focus, I suspect that @wco81 is referring to the blurring caused by movement of camera.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

@mgelbach, do you happen to know if the 'traingular' building was hit by the strike/s 'radiating' towards it?

 

[edcMavicPilots]

Uum the trace left by the car lights is very sharp and in focus, I suspect that @wco81 is referring to the blurring caused by movement of camera.

Um yea did you read the entire thing? The relative movement of distant objects is small compared to drone movement if there is little wind.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

Um yea did you read the entire thing? The relative movement of distant objects is small compared to drone movement if there is little wind.

Yes I did read the whole thing. I also looked, as closely as I can, at the photo.
You cited the car lights, as far as I can see they are razor edge streaks.
Streaks because of the vehicles' movement and razor edge because there was no camera movement.
Given the road configurations we have car movement both across the picture and, on another road, up and down the picture. That I can see neither set of vehicle-light streaks show camera motion blur.
Nor do I see camera motion blur of the 'road' markings and lampposts in the foreground.
There is something peculiar with the ground level road markings this side of the bridge but that may be an artifact of my screen.

In short I think the gimbal/camera and perhaps onboard processing did a stunning job.

 

[dmcgrew]

Minimum hyperlapse interval is 2 sec on the standard Mavic 3. 1 sec on the Cine version.

Just had a thought though... obviously lightning strikes only last for a split second. You could theoretically have a very long shutter speed of like 5 seconds.. the lightning will not blur since it only appears in the frame for a fraction of a second. The rest of the shot might be blurry but you could combine the lightning strike with a shot that has everything else sharp in Photoshop.

 

[JoelP]

We had a great storm in Charlotte, NC last night and I went out for some lightning pictures…

Very nice image! I have been intending to learn to use the hyperlapse feature. Did you use an ND filter for this? If so which ND level?

 

[mgelbach]

Sorry for the late reply everyone!!

Luckily there was almost no wind that night, I was still terrified of there being some blur, and there was a tiny bit, but between sharpening in lightroom and DXO Pure Raw it's almost unnoticeable.

Unfortunately the hyperlapse delay adds 2 seconds to whatever the shutter length is, so when I tried to start it my minimum was 4 seconds and I already don't have great odds of getting lightning from repeatedly using the burst mode so I don't think I would've gotten anything.

As far as the lightning striking anything it was pretty far away, maybe 20 miles, if not more! This was the view from my camera that was set up of the same strike, behind the pointy tower is the ball of lightning

 

[R.Cowan]

What a great photo!!!

 

[Vlaak]

On a couple of my Sony cameras (A7III and A7IV) I can get away with having time lapses with the same interval and shutter speed. They write to the card so fast that it doesn't fall behind (and the buffer absorbs enough shots over the course of a long sequence that it doesn't slow down). However, on other cameras I have (or have had) like the A7RIV or Nikon D850, they can't write to the cards that fast, so they can't shoot that fast or they quickly run out of buffer and start to slow down the time lapse.

I've found my drone (M2P, but I assume the M3 is similar) just can't write to the cards very fast so they seem to have built in a delay where it wont let you try to set a shutter speed that approaches the interval time.

Also, that photo is quite awesome!

 

[RocketBrew]

This is where the SSD in the Cine may be beneficial. I will have to test it now!

The fast write speed of the SSD makes shooting 5-step RAW+JPG AEB photos a breeze, compared to writing the same to the SD card in the P4P.

Unfortunately the hyperlapse delay adds 2 seconds to whatever the shutter length is, so when I tried to start it my minimum was 4 seconds and I already don't have great odds of getting lightning from repeatedly using the burst mode so I don't think I would've gotten anything.