MAVIC AIR 2 - The best settings for NIGHT VIDEO!

[flakey1977]

Hi guys, I took my Mavic Air 2 out to test its video settings at night and here are my findings. Hopefully useful to some of you?

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[zeusfl]

Sadly the Mavic Air 2 has a small sensor and do not help too much in dark environments. The Mavic 2 Pro is much better on this. I hope DJI upgrade nicely the Mavic 3 camera. I hope for 4K 60 fps with at least ISO 3200 usable and F2 will be great. Forget to mention, and a TRUELY 1 inch sensor.

 

[flakey1977]

Sadly the Mavic Air 2 has a small sensor and do not help too much in dark environments. The Mavic 2 Pro is much better on this. I hope DJI upgrade nicely the Mavic 3 camera. I hope for 4K 60 fps with at least ISO 3200 usable and F2 will be great. Forget to mention, and a TRUELY 1 inch sensor.

It's definately not the perfect drone for shooting at night. the purpose of the video was more to show what settings work best if you really wanted to shoot at night with the MA2. Agreed the 1/2 inch sensor does limit you

 

[zeusfl]

It's definately not the perfect drone for shooting at night. the purpose of the video was more to show what settings work best if you really wanted to shoot at night with the MA2. Agreed the 1/2 inch sensor does limit you

I agree those the best settings without get an excessive noise. The rest can be fix in post production.

 

[flakey1977]

I agree those the best settings without get an excessive noise. The rest can be fix in post production.

Thanks for taking the time to watch and comment my friend

 

[zeusfl]

Thanks for taking the time to watch and comment my friend

Thank you for taking the critics constructive !!

 

[GadgetGuy]

You certainly don't want to double the frame rate to reduce the shutter speed of video at night on the MA2! You are losing a full stop by doing so. Shoot at 30fps in Auto Exposure and your shutter speed will be 1/30 second at up to ISO 3200, as needed, for a better exposure. The ISO will adjust itself linearly, as needed. You can also still use Exposure Adjustment to override the auto ISO as needed, until you reach ISO 3200. You can reduce some of the resulting noise in post with Neat Video, but you can't recover underexposed areas from a 1/2 inch sensor. To shoot night video at ISO 6400, you need to be in Manual mode, so select 30fps and 1/30 second and ISO 6400. Shooting while there is still some light left, during civil twilight will be far better than shooting in total darkness. Also, be aware that flying at night by VLOS can be very disorienting! Good luck!

All the above also applies to the M2P, as well, which cannot shoot 4K any faster than 30fps. Don't use zoom on the M2Z at night, as it will lose almost another full stop while zooming in, and just get even darker! The optical 2x zoom on the M2Z is not a fixed aperture zoom.

 

[Thomas B]

As above ... VERY noisy video

 

[contatox]

Tried flying with the Air 2 tonight - around 10 PM - and results weren't good.

Set ISO to maximum 6400, but the final video was way too noisy. I was flying over downtown.