Night time filming

[VK Mavic]

Hey, new mavic owner here.
We love getting videos/pictures at night but not sure on the best settings to use.

Do you guys mind sharing what the best settings are for night time filming and taking pictures?

Thank you

Viv

 

[Robbyg]

For both of them it really depends on what your nightime shots are going to be of. If your in a bright city it will be a lot easier than if your in a small town trying to film a street intersection.

For video leave it in Auto mode and the ISO will probably go up to 1600. Your going to have to then flip to manual and see what is the lowest ISO you can get with a reasonable shutter speed. I cannot put a number on it because it depends on the lighting in the area. For focusing just use a single light source at 60ft away and focus on that and do not touch it again.

For pictures pretty much the same deal except you will have more play with the shutter speed. try to get the lowest ISO, like 200-400 and keep the shutter speed around 2 seconds and see how the picture looks. If you try for ISO 100 your going to need a fairly well lit area. Remember that the longer the shutter speed is the more critical it is that the drone stays perfectly still during that shot. When you get into 4 second and above range your going to have a lot of blurring in the photo. Higher ISO and slower shutter speeds both introduce more and more noise. You have to find a middle ground that introduces the least amount of noise and blur yet works for your lighting conditions.

Rob

 

[VK Mavic]

For both of them it really depends on what your nightime shots are going to be of. If your in a bright city it will be a lot easier than if your in a small town trying to film a street intersection.

For video leave it in Auto mode and the ISO will probably go up to 1600. Your going to have to then flip to manual and see what is the lowest ISO you can get with a reasonable shutter speed. I cannot put a number on it because it depends on the lighting in the area. For focusing just use a single light source at 60ft away and focus on that and do not touch it again.

For pictures pretty much the same deal except you will have more play with the shutter speed. try to get the lowest ISO, like 200-400 and keep the shutter speed around 2 seconds and see how the picture looks. If you try for ISO 100 your going to need a fairly well lit area. Remember that the longer the shutter speed is the more critical it is that the drone stays perfectly still during that shot. When you get into 4 second and above range your going to have a lot of blurring in the photo. Higher ISO and slower shutter speeds both introduce more and more noise. You have to find a middle ground that introduces the least amount of noise and blur yet works for your lighting conditions.

Rob

Thanks so much!

I will give this a try. Ian finding that the images are blurry so I'll try these tips and see if it helps