Is blurring water/waves possible with the Air 2S?

dronerat · Oct 17, 2022

Hey pilots--One type of photo I wanted to take with a drone was a long exposure where you blur moving water/waves. Is this possible with an Air 2S? If so what's the best way to do it?

I know you can't step down the aperture, but can it be done with a filter? Or is it best to take a burst of photos or a video and somehow composite/stack the frames in post-processing? (kind of like how an iphone can composite a "live photo" to get the blur effect?)

waynorth · Oct 17, 2022

You will get best results with ND-filters. Buy a set of filters with different density and learn by trying.
It is possible to stack a burst of photos, but in my experience a long single exposure gives a more natural result.

Meta4 · Oct 17, 2022

dronerat said:
Hey pilots--One type of photo I wanted to take with a drone was a long exposure where you blur moving water/waves. Is this possible with an Air 2S? If so what's the best way to do it?

It's possible with any camera with an adjustable shutter speed.
You would need ND filters to reduce light levels to get correct exposure for a long exposure.

The attractive silky wave effects are done with a big camera on a tripod with exposures that could range from 30 seconds to many minutes.
You can't achieve the same thing with a drone.
What is the longest shutter speed you can get with the Air 2S?
I can't find any mention in the specs.

Most of the 2 second exposure drone shots of blurred waves just look like blurred movement and lack the misty visual appeal of longer tripod shots.

retiredNH · Oct 17, 2022

Meta4 said:
It's possible with any camera with an adjustable shutter speed.
You would need ND filters to reduce light levels to get correct exposure for a long exposure.

The attractive silky wave effects are done with a big camera on a tripod with exposures that could range from 30 seconds to many minutes.
You can't achieve the same thing with a drone.
What is the longest shutter speed you can get with the Air 2S?
I can't find any mention in the specs.

Most of the 2 second exposure drone shots of blurred waves just look like blurred movement and lack the misty visual appeal of longer tripod shots.

You often don't need to go as long as (even) 30 seconds for a blurred look. It all depends on what you want to achieve. With waterfalls you can get a cotton water look with times as short as a second, sometimes even less.

But yes, ND filters are the only way, short of shooting at dusk, to get the longer exposure times with a 2S.

BobaFut · Oct 17, 2022

Meta4 said:
It's possible with any camera with an adjustable shutter speed.
You would need ND filters to reduce light levels to get correct exposure for a long exposure.

The attractive silky wave effects are done with a big camera on a tripod with exposures that could range from 30 seconds to many minutes.
You can't achieve the same thing with a drone.
What is the longest shutter speed you can get with the Air 2S?
I can't find any mention in the specs.

Most of the 2 second exposure drone shots of blurred waves just look like blurred movement and lack the misty visual appeal of longer tripod shots.

Eh...the blur effect depends on the speed and volume of water. You can get good blur with less than a 1s exposure. For a fast-flowing waterfall, you could get blurred-water photos handheld if you have a camera or lens with good image stabilization. I took this photo this weekend and it was something like a 1/4s exposure. I had forgotten my tripod, so this is with my camera resting on my camera bag on the railing of a deck with tons of people walking on it. I would bet an Air2s is stable enough to replicate that in really calm conditions, but any exposure over 1-2 seconds probably not.

sbunting · Oct 17, 2022

How to Use Exposure Stacking for Daytime Long Exposures

Knowing about exposure stacking is important if you want to create stunning daytime long exposures. Exposure stacking is a technique that allows you to combine multiple exposures into a single image, resulting in dramatically improved image quality.

expertphotography.com

How to Simulate Long Exposure using Stacked Image Averaging

Want to simulate long exposure effects because you don't have an ND filter? Then try this handy technique of stacked image averaging in Photoshop!

digital-photography-school.com

The beauty of photography is often achieved by experimenting. If you can’t achieve what you want with one exposure with ND filters, perhaps 50 to 100 could achieve the same effect. The drone can be a pretty stable tripod, but try for near zero wind. ”Film” is pretty cheap nowadays, unlike when I started out a half century ago. See what you can create….

sbunting · Oct 17, 2022

BobaFuct said:
Eh...the blur effect depends on the speed and volume of water. You can get good blur with less than a 1s exposure. For a fast-flowing waterfall, you could get blurred-water photos handheld if you have a camera or lens with good image stabilization. I took this photo this weekend and it was something like a 1/4s exposure. I had forgotten my tripod, so this is with my camera resting on my camera bag on the railing of a deck with tons of people walking on it. I would bet an Air2s is stable enough to replicate that in really calm conditions, but any exposure over 1-2 seconds probably not.

View attachment 155979

Blackwater Falls… one of my favorite places!

Elthree · Oct 17, 2022

For beach/rock waves, a simple rule of thumb I keep in mind that a 10-stop ND filter (an ND1000) would darken a 1/100s scene down to a 10s exposure.

Baredogs · Oct 18, 2022

I set a slightly longer exposure combined with an ND 2000 filter.

MavicAir2Marc · Oct 18, 2022

This was an 8 second exposure (the max for my X-Star) back in 2018. It's pretty steady for that long of an exposure. You can see the taillight streaks of cars on the left side. So drones CAN do longer exposures. Sometimes you have to get lucky (like I did).

Dale D · Oct 18, 2022

waynorth said:
You will get best results with ND-filters. Buy a set of filters with different density and learn by trying.
It is possible to stack a burst of photos, but in my experience a long single exposure gives a more natural result.

I am quite familiar with long exposure neutral density filters which I use for many hears on a DSLR and a Lee Filter system with a 10 Stop ND filter (called the "Big Stopper). These exposures are usually 15 seconds with the shutter open!. The drones normal fluctuating movements in the air, even at stand still are not as stable as if the same image were taken on a tripod. I would go the longest shutter you can get with the densest ND filter you can get. Here are two examples.

Dale
Miami

offtheback · Oct 18, 2022

Try anything from 1/2 sec to your slowest shutter speed.Try multiple shots of same scene.Some will be much better at the same shutter speed than others.Good luck!

retiredNH · Oct 18, 2022

Dale D said:
I am quite familiar with long exposure neutral density filters which I use for many hears on a DSLR and a Lee Filter system with a 10 Stop ND filter (called the "Big Stopper). These exposures are usually 15 seconds with the shutter open!. The drones normal fluctuating movements in the air, even at stand still are not as stable as if the same image were taken on a tripod. I would go the longest shutter you can get with the densest ND filter you can get. Here are two examples.

Dale
Miami

I wonder if this is true? DJI's gimbals work miracles for stabilization. I also know from my gopro that electronic stabilization can work miracles too - don't know if dji uses it too?

At any rate, someone just needs to try. No need to compare, since still camera tripod long exposure photography is a completely different genre from drone photography.
I don't have any ocean shore or waterfalls near me, or I'd give it a try...

offtheback · Oct 19, 2022

dronerat said:
Hey pilots--One type of photo I wanted to take with a drone was a long exposure where you blur moving water/waves. Is this possible with an Air 2S? If so what's the best way to do it?

dronerat said:

Hey pilots--One type of photo I wanted to take with a drone was a long exposure where you blur moving water/waves. Is this possible with an Air 2S? If so what's the best way to do it?

I know you can't step down the aperture, but can it be done with a filter? Or is it best to take a burst of photos or a video and somehow composite/stack the frames in post-processing? (kind of like how an iphone can composite a "live photo" to get the blur effect?)

Click to expand...

Here's a few examples of slow shutter.Mavic 2 Pro.1st-5 secs 2nd-4 secs 3rd 3.2 seconds.after regular processing in Lightroom ran them through Photoshop "sharpen for camera shake".Took multiple shots of each composition+picked best one.