night photography tap to focus not working at all!

[RedDevils88]

as the title suggests, i have been trying to do some night shots (pitch black) but i had an extremely difficult time to do tap to focus. the camera just won't focus onto any subject even with the most light, i then found out that the tap to focus (auto focus) is worthless at night . i restarted the camera mid air and the picture came out perfectly focused. is this a common thing or something is wrong with my tap to focus? i have attached some photos where i got really bad focus and some with good ones. please let me know what have i done wrong. thank you!

 

[borislip]

I've experienced the same, but never attempted to restart the camera as a workaround, using manual focus instead.

 

[RedDevils88]

I've experienced the same, but never attempted to restart the camera as a workaround, using manual focus instead.

Manual focus wasn't working for me either image was still blurry on any point of the slider

 

[HFMan]

i restarted the camera mid air and the picture came out perfectly focused. is this a common thing or something is wrong with my tap to focus?

How did you "restart the camera mid air" ?

 

[EasyV]

How do you restart the camera?

 

[Cbslagle]

The sensor is too small to pull in enough light to take decent night shots.

 

[Lt Shanks]

If your camera is working properly you can increase your ISO so that your subject comes into view then focus. Once you obtain a focus you are happy with reduce your ISO and start shooting...

Happy Flying - Lt. Shanks

 

[Jenkins]

How do you "restart the camera"?

 

[Bazzam]

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[Jenkins]

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But he didn't film at night. Just edited to pretend he did.

 

[Bazzam]

But he didn't film at night. Just edited to pretend he did.

I know...but I'm thankful for the video.. I suppose that's what the experts who hopefully know the limitations of mavic use to obtain great "night" footage. After watching this I would not waste a bunch of time trying to get the same results in pitch dark...

 

[Lt Shanks]

As a side note coming from a photography background these conditions are no where near "pitch black". The Mavic can pickup most of the artificial light in his images with the right settings and practice... Just Saying - Lt. Shanks

 

[Mavman]

I noticed the "lock gimbal during capture" setting doesn't seem to work. You can move it during a long exposure shot creating streaks.

 

[RedDevils88]

How did you "restart the camera mid air" ?

Switching from pal to ntsc or vice versa forced the camera to restart. Not a proper way but the focus works right after the restart. And if I would accidently tap on the screen to focus. The images becomes blurry again and I won't be able to lock onto any subject.

Weirdly, the tap to focus worked the night before.

 

[RedDevils88]

Thanks for the advice. I hope that my camera is fine. My shots during the day seems OK

 

[borislip]

Maybe, just maybe, you have an AFC setting turned on, causing it to try and focus continuously. Just a speculation, but worth checking.

 

[borislip]

Have to note that the AFC on Mavic is absolutely terrible, it doesn't do focus tracking, but runs the entire focus scan again when it thinks it lost the focus.

 

[RedDevils88]

Maybe, just maybe, you have an AFC setting turned on, causing it to try and focus continuously. Just a speculation, but worth checking.

It was on and I turned it off but tap to focus didn't really focus very well either.

Yes I agree that afc is not working well on the mavic