Photographing Lightining with the Mavic Air 2?

Josiah S · Jun 3, 2021

Howdy. I was wondering if someone could please give me the full runaround on how to take pictures of lighting at dusk/dark with the Mavic Air 2. I attempted it tonight and I will tell you what I got. I positioned the drone about 20ft above me. I had an nd16 lense on. I had my ISO at 100, and shutter speed at 8 sec. (The longest you can do) I noticed that the drone does not hover near as good with no obstacle avoidance, but that should not effect the lightning cause it is far away. Whilst the camera was shooting the 8 sec. long exposure, almost everytime I would see lots of lightning going on in the cameras frame. Taking the drone down at 10 percent i was very excited to see the results. Not a single photo that i can make out any lightning at all. Please if someone could help me learn how to do this the right way and the professional way. Thanks very much. By the way, the photo below I distinctly remember several large lightning bursts will the camera was shooting.

Thomas B · Jun 3, 2021

Shoot movies and extract frames in post production. This avoids the electronic delays.

Josiah S · Jun 3, 2021

Does this make it lower quality though? You can get better low light stills than videos.

Aoraki · Jun 4, 2021

Your photo is under exposed, a lot. I would remove the ND filter as it shouldn't be required in dusk/dark conditions, also, iso 100 may have been to low.

VenomXts · Jun 4, 2021

Josiah S said:
Does this make it lower quality though? You can get better low light stills than videos.

Fact is it is like winning the lottery or at least getting 5 out of 6 of the numbers of pulling the trigger at the right time for a still with lightening. I take a lot of storm shots and if i am hunting for lighting with my air 2 i shoot in 4k 60 fps and just scan around or sit it in a spot that will look cool if it happens. Then go back and pull the still out of the video as others have mentioned.

Here is one of mine albeit the HDR on it is a bit blown out from the edit.

Josiah S · Jun 4, 2021

Aoraki said:
Your photo is under exposed, a lot. I would remove the ND filter as it shouldn't be required in dusk/dark conditions, also, iso 100 may have been to low.

Ok. I will try it tonight ahain if there is lightning which there should be...

Dale D · Jun 4, 2021

Josiah S said:
Howdy. I was wondering if someone could please give me the full runaround on how to take pictures of lighting at dusk/dark with the Mavic Air 2. I attempted it tonight and I will tell you what I got. I positioned the drone about 20ft above me. I had an nd16 lense on. I had my ISO at 100, and shutter speed at 8 sec. (The longest you can do) I noticed that the drone does not hover near as good with no obstacle avoidance, but that should not effect the lightning cause it is far away. Whilst the camera was shooting the 8 sec. long exposure, almost everytime I would see lots of lightning going on in the cameras frame. Taking the drone down at 10 percent i was very excited to see the results. Not a single photo that i can make out any lightning at all. Please if someone could help me learn how to do this the right way and the professional way. Thanks very much. By the way, the photo below I distinctly remember several large lightning bursts will the camera was shooting.

you do mean rundown, not runaround?

Josiah S · Jun 5, 2021

Dale D said:
you do mean rundown, not runaround?

Sorry in my definition runaround is just explaining how to do something. Maybe I should have been more clear.

Josiah S · Jun 5, 2021

I tried it again last night and got a bit better results. I will be doing it every night that I can because it is pretty fun and I would like to get good results. The settings for this shot were iso 1600 or maybe 3200 i cant remember...Shutter 8 sec. I forgot and left an nd4 filter on it and never noticed so I probably could have got better results if I wouldnt of forgotten. Anyway at least I am getting better results.