Night camera settings

[mandyjr]

Hello I've been trying to get nice shots by downtown with no luck. I've been twice first time 1600 ISO 30 shutter and fluorescent White balance. When I pull up the video the building are blurry and a lot of noise. Went again saw some videos that said 800 ISO so that's what I did 800 ISO 30 shutter and same white balance. All this shot 4K at 30 frames. Video quality the same. Can anyone help me out with this?

 

[Cyberpower678]

Hello I've been trying to get nice shots by downtown with no luck. I've been twice first time 1600 ISO 30 shutter and fluorescent White balance. When I pull up the video the building are blurry and a lot of noise. Went again saw some videos that said 800 ISO so that's what I did 800 ISO 30 shutter and same white balance. All this shot 4K at 30 frames. Video quality the same. Can anyone help me out with this?

Focus is harder to do at night. I personally use 100 ISO and increase shutter time to at least 2 seconds.

 

[mandyjr]

Would that be a dark image

 

[mandyjr]

Idk I've read on ppl using 800 with great results and my video is unusable

 

[Cyberpower678]

Idk I've read on ppl using 800 with great results and my video is unusable

Are you doing videos or photos. Obviously 2 second shutter speed is not feasible for videos.

 

[mandyjr]

Videos

 

[Cyberpower678]

Videos

Night time videos are very difficult to accomplish with the Mavic. You need to manually focus the camera.

 

[Strafe1]

Videos

I've seen other peoples videos look good if ISO is 400 or less.

 

[Mako79]

Strictly speaking of videos:
Use the lowest fps (24fps), and try to keep shutter speed low as possible (allow as much light in as possible). Use cloudy setting to stop changes in colour temps.
ISO should be max 400 otherwise you will get considerable amount of artefacts.
Record in 4K and then downsample to 1080p. This will reduce artefacts.

For focusing issues, set the ISO to highest possible. The mavic will now be able see more 'contrast' to help focus. Tap to focus and then go back to your preferred ISO setting and start recording.

 

[mandyjr]

Strictly speaking of videos:
Use the lowest fps (24fps), and try to keep shutter speed low as possible (allow as much light in as possible). Use cloudy setting to stop changes in colour temps.
ISO should be max 400 otherwise you will get considerable amount of artefacts.
Record in 4K and then downsample to 1080p. This will reduce artefacts.

For focusing issues, set the ISO to highest possible. The mavic will now be able see more 'contrast' to help focus. Tap to focus and then go back to your preferred ISO setting and start recording.

I'll try this tonight thank you!

 

[mandyjr]

I'm thinking at 400 ISO I'm not going to be able to see a thing on my iPhone lol

 

[No1much]

Higher ISO can increase the chances of noise, slower shutter speed can increase the chance of blurriness, but both those things make it easier to see at night.

Best of luck with your night videos- photos are a lot easier, with shutter speeds up to 2 or 4 seconds still resulting in okay (though not perfectly crystal-clear) pictures.

 

[mandyjr]

Higher ISO can increase the chances of noise, slower shutter speed can increase the chance of blurriness, but both those things make it easier to see at night.

Best of luck with your night videos- photos are a lot easier, with shutter speeds up to 2 or 4 seconds still resulting in okay (though not perfectly crystal-clear) pictures.

So what do you recommend

 

[HFMan]

I found Auto at night seems to work very well (especially if you are talking downtown videos). I just reviewed one I took on Auto, and it's surprisingly good.

Here's just a random photograph taken during the video.

 

[SRJ_Mavic_PRO]

Where in Hotel World are you stuck in Mr. HF?

 

[HFMan]

LOL, was in SLC that weekend. All kinds of Hotels clustered in that location. This was just a quick test to make sure it was all good before the adventures further west over the weekend.

 

[mandyjr]

LOL, was in SLC that weekend. All kinds of Hotels clustered in that location. This was just a quick test to make sure it was all good before the adventures further west over the weekend.

Thank you. Yea the mavic is just not so good with low light

 

[SRJ_Mavic_PRO]

LOL, was in SLC that weekend. All kinds of Hotels clustered in that location. This was just a quick test to make sure it was all good before the adventures further west over the weekend.

Road trip!

 

[No1much]

So what do you recommend

I haven't even figured out where to begin with night videos, unfortunately. For photos, I use ISO 100-200 and shutter speeds of 1-2 seconds, up to 4 seconds if the winds are very low. (DNG format of course- it gets even more visible after Photomatix adjusts it.)

 

[KiterTodd]

Strictly speaking of videos:
Use the lowest fps (24fps), and try to keep shutter speed low as possible (allow as much light in as possible). Use cloudy setting to stop changes in colour temps.
....

Can others comment on what settings they use?

I had mine up at night recently and "cloudy" resulted in photos that were yellower than in real life.
I switched to "incandescent" and the photos were much better.
In reality, the actual color was somewhere between the two, but certainly closer to incandescent than cloudy. I think if I had to adjust an image/video in post, incandescent would be a better starting point.

That said, I was shooting scenes lit by artificial light. If you were shooting natural light (post sunset glow, moonshine, etc.) I'm not sure what to use.

Good thread. I was just about to ask the same thing!