Photographing floodlights

[Lambda]

Hi All
I have been asked to take a series of aerials of new sports floodlighting installation
They also want some sunset shots with lights on
Any advice on aperture settings will be very much appreciated

Many thanks

 

[zocalo]

If you want the "starburst" effect you'll need to try stopping down as much as possible, but that will depend on the drone (and camera/lens) used. I've managed to get a few decent results with my M2P, but results may be better if you fake them in Photoshop or whatever depending on what you are going to be using.

The lights will obviously be bright, so I'd recommend shooting in raw to give yourself as much DR as possible to playwith in post, and take a series of shots at each location with different exposure compensation settings. That will give you the maximum possible flexibility for either HDR or blended images to deal with any deep shadows. If you have the lights proper in the image, they're going to blow out as highlights, but you can mitigate that with varying degrees of negative exposure compensation, so give yourself plenty of options to find what works best for a given shot.

Experiment with different angles that don't involve the lights shining directly into the lens; e.g. try a shot from behind the lights looking down on the stadium so the light is just a silhouette. Might be worth doing a daytime recce flight to shoot video around the area before the proper shoot so you can review the images and identify some angles that might work well once the lights are on.

 

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

Yup. Even using a camera with the best dynamic range, the floods are going to blow out if you don't compensate. If you compensate (using either EV comp, or just changing the exposure) to reduce the exposure for the floods, everything else will go dark. RAW will help you recover shadow details, but it depends on how far you push them down. The range could be too much and you'll have noise where you pushed it up.

I recommend exposure bracketing. Put the camera into AEB mode set for 5 (not 3) with full 1 stop increments.

The sunset could be tricky as well. If the sun is still up, it's another bright spot that can blow. If you let the sun set beyond the horizon, you will have my favorite kind of sunset sky and no sun to blow out, but now that light is much lower than the flood lights. So once again, AEB.

If you're new to blending AEB shots (they call it HDR these days and as you may have seen, some people overdo it), you might ask them to turn on the floods the night before so you can take some test shots and have something practice with back at the computer.

My favorite HDR workflow is to start in to start in Lightroom, then shell out to HDR Pro in Photoshop, then do the tone grading in ACR (not using the HDR Pro sliders). Let me know if you want the details of this workflow.

Chris

 

[DRONO]

+1 for bracketed exposure/HDR, this is an ideal scenario for doing so.

 

[zocalo]

The sunset could be tricky as well. If the sun is still up, it's another bright spot that can blow. If you let the sun set beyond the horizon, you will have my favorite kind of sunset sky and no sun to blow out, but now that light is much lower than the flood lights. So once again, AEB.

Yeah, the "Golden Hour". I suspect someone at the stadium knows about this and that's why they've requested the shots be taken then. I'd actually hang around a bit longer and take some shots in the "Blue Hour" that follows, e.g. early twilight, when the sun is completely gone but there is still some colour left in the sky. For architecutural shots, particularly in urban settings, that can often look a lot more impressive that a straight sunset, especially with a clean deep blue sky.

 

[Robert Prior]

I've done a lot of sunrise photography with my Mavic. Typically I need more exposure bracketing than AEB can deliver. Five shots 1 stop apart might work, depending on the scene, but I'd practice first.

This shot needed four exposures, each 2 stops apart, so six stops.

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[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

I've done a lot of sunrise photography with my Mavic. Typically I need more exposure bracketing than AEB can deliver. Five shots 1 stop apart might work, depending on the scene, but I'd practice first.

This shot needed four exposures, each 2 stops apart, so six stops.

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Great shot! I was going to say that you can do a manual AEB with more stops (then if you need to, use Auto-Align in PS). But you did a manual AEB in a 180 pano, which is just fantastic. Nice work.

Chris

 

[Robert Prior]

Great shot! I was going to say that you can do a manual AEB with more stops (then if you need to, use Auto-Align in PS). But you did a manual AEB in a 180 pano, which is just fantastic. Nice work.

Chris

Thanks.

I've done a few of them…

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[CanyonRunVideos]

Hi All
I have been asked to take a series of aerials of new sports floodlighting installation
They also want some sunset shots with lights on
Any advice on aperture settings will be very much appreciated

Many thanks

Hey there Mate, It's important to think about what the client is looking for in the fully edited photos. I would recommend to never point directly into the flood lights on this type of shoot. After all, your not flying for the lightning manufacturer on this shoot so I would as another member requested is to stay behind and above the lights. The photos should show what the lighting is doing for the field itself. Then you want to shoot in manual mode with with the lowest ISO possible and a shutter speed and f/stop as if it were daylight. Even if you wanted to shoot directly into the lights, use an ND filter that will allow you to take the photos with a more cinematic look as if you were shooting directly into the Sun. But hey, this is what I would do in your situation. Kent Part 107 Pilot from Southern California.

 

[Lambda]

Hey there Mate, It's important to think about what the client is looking for in the fully edited photos. I would recommend to never point directly into the flood lights on this type of shoot. After all, your not flying for the lightning manufacturer on this shoot so I would as another member requested is to stay behind and above the lights. The photos should show what the lighting is doing for the field itself. Then you want to shoot in manual mode with with the lowest ISO possible and a shutter speed and f/stop as if it were daylight. Even if you wanted to shoot directly into the lights, use an ND filter that will allow you to take the photos with a more cinematic look as if you were shooting directly into the Sun. But hey, this is what I would do in your situation. Kent Part 107 Pilot from Southern California.

Thanks for this. I only ever use M, RAW and use LR/PS all the time, so thanks for the reinforcing my thoughts. However, in this instance, I am doing this for the light manufactyrer, but I will definitely follow your advice. Many thanks

 

[Lambda]

Yup. Even using a camera with the best dynamic range, the floods are going to blow out if you don't compensate. If you compensate (using either EV comp, or just changing the exposure) to reduce the exposure for the floods, everything else will go dark. RAW will help you recover shadow details, but it depends on how far you push them down. The range could be too much and you'll have noise where you pushed it up.

I recommend exposure bracketing. Put the camera into AEB mode set for 5 (not 3) with full 1 stop increments.

The sunset could be tricky as well. If the sun is still up, it's another bright spot that can blow. If you let the sun set beyond the horizon, you will have my favorite kind of sunset sky and no sun to blow out, but now that light is much lower than the flood lights. So once again, AEB.

If you're new to blending AEB shots (they call it HDR these days and as you may have seen, some people overdo it), you might ask them to turn on the floods the night before so you can take some test shots and have something practice with back at the computer.

My favorite HDR workflow is to start in to start in Lightroom, then shell out to HDR Pro in Photoshop, then do the tone grading in ACR (not using the HDR Pro sliders). Let me know if you want the details of this workflow.

Chris

Thanks for this Chris. I am also a pro photographer, so definitely understand HRD and AEB, but it's always good to get advice from others to help me. Thanks very much

 

[Lambda]

Great shot! I was going to say that you can do a manual AEB with more stops (then if you need to, use Auto-Align in PS). But you did a manual AEB in a 180 pano, which is just fantastic. Nice work.

Chris

I am glad to see that I'm not the only nutter who likes 360 panoramas. I always use a 360 aerial pano when doing virtual tours -

I've done a lot of sunrise photography with my Mavic. Typically I need more exposure bracketing than AEB can deliver. Five shots 1 stop apart might work, depending on the scene, but I'd practice first.

This shot needed four exposures, each 2 stops apart, so six stops.

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Download the RoundMe app: Dive into the action and experience your matches fully immersed from your living room with Virtual Reality!

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Here is one of myVT starting with drone 360 --

Sea Lake Motel

 

[pchaps]

Also, to say the obvious, for light sources in the image area, make sure that your lens is super clean. Filters can cause internal reflections too. Let me know what approach works for you!