Night photo settings

SHRED · Jul 28, 2022

Looking for night photo setting tips.

I want to take a pic of our lit up main street at night.

Can I leave the camera settings on auto with good results?

I have the DJI ND filter set also if that helps 16/64/256.

akdrone · Jul 28, 2022

You certainly don't want to use an ND filter and remove even more light. As for Auto-I would avoid that as it will bump up the ISO to huge numbers in order to keep a faster shutter speed than you may need. Of course there is dark and there is dark. The best advice I have is to set the drone for ISO 400 and see what you can see as you adjust the shutter speed into something reasonable. You will simply have to experiment and perhaps try some AEB to cover your guess. An HDR done after an AEB will probably be the best chance you have for a good exposure. Be sure to shoot DNG if you know how to do post processing on them.

edcMavicPilots · Jul 28, 2022

SHRED said:
Looking for night photo setting tips.

I want to take a pic of our lit up main street at night.

Can I leave the camera settings on auto with good results?

I have the DJI ND filter set also if that helps 16/64/256.

Bracket your shots
Shoot in RAW
No filters
The ISO selection is going to be largely dictated by the wind speed believe it or not. Lower ISO = less noise so desirable. You can get away with lower ISO values the less wind there is because you can use a slower shutter speed without blurring.

While you're in the air doing a set of shots with Auto won't hurt anything.

scro · Jul 28, 2022

Try not actually shooting at night, but rather at dusk, while there's still some ambient light.

MS Coast · Jul 28, 2022

The simple approach is to start with auto exposure. Auto exposure mode will try to make the scene look like normal daytime. So you'll probably want to reduce the exposure to make the result look more like nighttime. Start on auto and then try setting the EV (exposure bias) down in steps until you get something that looks good to you.

You can also tinker with the exposure by choosing the exposure target on the screen by pressing and holding. If the image on the screen looks too bright, select a brighter spot. That will close down the exposure. Conversely if the image is too dark, set the exposure point to a darker part of the scene.

If you're willing to tinker with the settings in Pro mode, try to keep the ISO as low as you can while keeping the shutter speed to 1/30 or so. If it's a very calm night, you can probably get away with an even slower shutter.

globetrotterdrone · Jul 29, 2022

The aesthetics and "laws" of photography also apply in the drone world. And it can be very wise to have a basic understanding of them to enjoy composing pictures on your later flights.

So a friendly tip, make you familiar with the technical side of photography to understand what shutter speed, aperture, ISO have in common (even with the fact that the aperture with the Mini 3 Pro is fixed at f1.7).

The Exposure Triangle: A Beginner's Guide

How important is exposure in photography? What are the components of exposure? What is the "Exposure Triangle"? These are the questions I will attempt to

petapixel.com

The most favourable conditions are often at dawn, dusk and the transition from/to the night as contrasts tend to be softened.

That said, there are however indefinite possibilities to be creative and sometimes ignoring all rules makes the image. Just try it out. Remember, you are essentially "painting" with light, so you should really care about.