Motion Blur, Focal Length and Shutter Speed

[Chapperz]

So I read that there's a rule that to reduce/stop motion blur, your shutter speed should be at least the length of your lens/focal length.

Does this still apply to drones or other cameras that have an 'equivalent' focal length. For example, the mini 3 Pro has an equivalent focal length of 24mm. Obviously it doesn't have a 24mm lens with a full frame camera so how would/can that still apply?

What do you guys use and for what drone? Do you apply the above rule to stop motion blur?

Thanks in advance


Regards

 

[Meta4]

So I read that there's a rule that to reduce/stop motion blur, your shutter speed should be at least the length of your lens/focal length.

Does this still apply to drones or other cameras that have an 'equivalent' focal length. For example, the mini 3 Pro has an equivalent focal length of 24mm. Obviously it doesn't have a 24mm lens with a full frame camera so how would/can that still apply?

What do you guys use and for what drone? Do you apply the above rule to stop motion blur?

If you are talking about appropriate shutter speeds for hand-held cameras to avoid blur due to camera shake, that doesn't apply at all to drone photography.
Your gimbal can hold the drone camera much steadier than you can hold a camera.

Exhibit A
A panorama made of 1 second exposures
The individual images are all acceptably sharp.

 

[Chapperz]

If you are talking about appropriate shutter speeds for hand-held cameras to avoid blur due to camera shake, that doesn't apply at all to drone photography.
Your gimbal can hold the drone camera much steadier than you can hold a camera.

Exhibit A
A panorama made of 1 second exposures
The individual images are all acceptably sharp.

Niiiiice.... Thanks for the info... How about for moving objects like trains etc. Is there a minimum speed you use?

 

[Meta4]

Niiiiice.... Thanks for the info... How about for moving objects like trains etc. Is there a minimum speed you use?

There's no simple rule of thumb.
It's all going to depend on how fast the moving object is and how far away it is.
Closer to the camera and/or faster motion will require a faster shutter speed.

Sometimes I've tried a trick when shooting a moving subject in low light and I can't lower the shutter speed any further.
This shot was done at 1/30th by moving the drone to stay with the subject in early morning light.
I usually have several attempts and hope that I get at least one good one when I do this.

 

[Chapperz]

Ahhhh right... I've been trying to increase iso but that doesn't seem to be working.

That's a really nice shot... I'm guessing relatively long exposure so you get motion in the bowl waves but moving at the same pace as the ship keeps it in focus?

 

[Ralph thompson]

You can also increase ISO (1 ISO stop equals 1 shutter speed increment). Post processing SW has great noise reduction algorithms today.

 

[AlanL]

A lot depends on the wind speeds around your drone when you are shooting. If it's windy I go out of my way to bump the shutter speed as high as I can and still keep the ISO below 800 or so. I use DxO PureRAW to fix high ISO noise which it does quite well.

If I am shooting waterfalls (I do a lot) I use burst mode to collect 5 or 7 captures and then blend the shots in Photoshop to smooth out the falling water and pretend I had a slow shutter speed.

 

[MS Coast]

If I am shooting waterfalls (I do a lot) I use burst mode to collect 5 or 7 captures and then blend the shots in Photoshop to smooth out the falling water and pretend I had a slow shutter speed.

Great idea. Thanks.

 

[Droning on and on...]

You can also increase ISO (1 ISO stop equals 1 shutter speed increment). Post processing SW has great noise reduction algorithms today.

Very true, and sound advice.

Along with this be aware that noise reduction necessarily destroys some detail, so as a rule of thumb it's always best to prioritize for lowest ISO, when the application doesn't require lower shutter speeds for some reason.

The subject of this thread would be one of those

 

[MS Coast]

You can also increase ISO (1 ISO stop equals 1 shutter speed increment). Post processing SW has great noise reduction algorithms today.

I don't think that's a good rule of thumb for these drones. For the Mavic 3 Pro, manual photo mode, the adjustment increments for ISO are one full f-stop, i.e. ISO doubles or is reduced by half with each step. But the shutter speed increments are 1/5 to 1/3 stop. So three or more shutter speed steps correspond to one ISO increment to maintain the same exposure value.

• ISO values: 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400
• Shutter speed values: ... 1/30, 1/40, 1/50, 1/60, 1/80, 1/100, 1/120, ...

Full f-stop shutter speed increments would be ... 1/30, 1/60, 1/120, 1/240, ...

Without looking, I'd guess something similar is true of the other DJI models.