Air 2s Some night shots with ND4 filter

[Daniel2300]

ND4 filter, night shot, ISO1600, shutter speed 1/16

 

[slup]

Why use a ND filter at a night shot..? It only forces either the shutter to be slower risking motion blur or pushing the ISO to higher values inducing noise.

 

[Meta4]

ND4 filter, night shot, ISO1600, shutter speed 1/16

Your ND4 filter cuts 75% of the light.
It doesn't look like you were trying for any particular effect that required a longer shutter speed and you let the ISO vary to compensate for the dark filter.
The higher ISO will always give poorer image quality.
You are only hurting yourself by leaving the filter on for stills.

A couple of tips for better night shots:
If you are going to include the sky in the photos, the images will look better if you shoot while there is still colour in the sky .. before it goes black.

Instead of an image that's largely black with a bunch of distant points of light, find a definite subject that is lit and get in closer so the subject takes up more of the image.

 

[GFields]

The above two posts took the words out of my mouth.

 

[Daniel2300]

ND filter also protects your lens from dust.

 

[Felix le Chat]

ND filter also protects your lens from dust.

If you're using the filter as a lens protector and not specifically for the purpose of cutting just over one full stop of light from hitting the sensor: try using a UV filter that has good quality optical glass (K&F Concepts UV filter). With night shots, the more light hitting the sensor: the better.

With my Mavic 2's and the mini 3 pro, I keep the ISO at 100 to minimize noise and expose for up to 1.5 seconds (less with the mini because of the f/1.7 fixed aperture). You get some lovely little light trails.

During the colder months, the UV filter also acts as a thermal baffle which cuts down lens fogging with the mini 3 pro.

 

[Meta4]

ND filter also protects your lens from dust.

That's completely unnecessary since your Air2S already has a clear filter that protects the lens.

 

[Daniel2300]

OK, I will try night shot again without ND filter.