Fun fair at night planned camera settings?

Joined
Jan 15, 2017
Messages
1,401
Reaction score
343
Age
40
Location
Southampton United Kingdom
Not sure if this is the correct section ?

but im planning to film fun fair at night next week, and any base camera settings advice would be great?

Cheers

Darren
 
Man... you're keeping everybody busy here with your questions! Don't worry, though, we'll send you a cumulative invoice at the end of the month... name and address, please. :D

Actually, to be honest this is not the right subject for me to give you hard time as I don't have much to offer... I did a couple flights trying a bunch of options and - while I found some decent settings for taking still photos - I'm still not sure about what to do with videos. So let's hope others will give us some good info.
In Auto mode, probably the best results were at full resolution (2.7K), lowest framerate (24fps), and a fair amount of negative EV. The reason behind 2.7K - even if you are usually content with 1080p - is that by resizing to 1080p, some of the noise/grain goes away. Lowest framerate is to allow the camera to use longer shutter speeds (at 30fps camera can go up to 1/30s, at 24fps it's 1/24s... not much of a difference, but every little bit helps). Lastly, negative EV is to make the image darker (camera does not know it's night so it tries to give you a bright image).
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: kndll and Dazzauk
I've tried adjusting the ev but it doesn't seem to slide?
 
If I recall correctly, you must be in Auto mode for EV to be active.. in Manual mode you control ISO and shutter speed (but not EV). Maybe you're in Manual mode?

As a side note, I'd suggest you to read this guide: Dropbox - DJI Phantom P3 Summary Guide.pdf
It's not specific to the P3S and some stuff is now outdated, but it's a very good resource nonetheless.
 
Last edited:
If I recall correctly, you must be in Auto mode for EV to be active.. in Manual mode you control ISO and shutter speed (but not EV). Maybe you're in Manual mode?

Ah yes that's explains that then.

Yes only tries to move it in manual.

Thanks.
 
For video whatever ISO gives you a good looking image on the downlink with the shittervatbir above twice the frame rate. For stills in a hover keep your ISO as low as possible for a shutter speed up to 1 sec. Nobody can give you a starting base exposure setting for a scene of unknown brightness. I will say you can allow pointbsources if light to blow out in bringing up the shadows and darker areas without it looking off.
 
For video whatever ISO gives you a good looking image on the downlink with the shittervatbir above twice the frame rate. For stills in a hover keep your ISO as low as possible for a shutter speed up to 1 sec. Nobody can give you a starting base exposure setting for a scene of unknown brightness. I will say you can allow pointbsources if light to blow out in bringing up the shadows and darker areas without it looking off.

So video it would be..

Best ISO
Frame rate 24
Shutter speed 48

Pics

ISO 100

:)

Thanks
 
For video whatever ISO gives you a good looking image on the downlink with the shittervatbir above twice the frame rate.

Are you sure that the usual suggestion about shutter speed being twice the framerate still applies for NIGHT shooting, which is what the OP specifically asked? At 24fps, a shutter speed of 1/48s will inevitably drive the ISO to the top...
From my experience - and your comment about still photos confirms it - the P3S is very noisy at high ISO, so it's better to have a slow shutter (with the risk of motion blur) and a lower ISO, than a fast shutter and high ISO. For video, wouldn't we want to do the same, that is to forget about the "twice the framerate" rule and try to go as low as possible with the shutter, trading some motion blur for a lower ISO?
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: SkyHog and Dazzauk
Are you sure that the usual suggestion about shutter speed being twice the framerate still applies for NIGHT shooting, which is what the OP specifically asked?
i can't see where the OP specifically asked anything, seemingly he was after general suggestions, I offered what I know to be reasonable starting settings based on the conditions he will likely encounter and the performance constraints of the imaging system.

The phantom camera doesn't know is night time, considerations for night or day are the same. Any undesirable artefacts that might be created in the video attributed to the sensor scan rate being significant higher than twice the frame rate will occur regardless of the light source.
 
So video it would be..

Best ISO
Frame rate 24
Shutter speed 48

Pics

ISO 100

:)

Thanks
Video- lowest ISO setting that will give frame rate of at or above twice shutter speed. The video will likely be largely unusable if you run a shutter less than twice frame rate.

Stills lowest ISO you can get away with to give you an exposure less than 1sec in a hover (1 sec is a reasonable lowest shutter speed to give you a good % of usable images without noticeable motion blur)
 
i can't see where the OP specifically asked anything, seemingly he was after general suggestions, I offered what I know to be reasonable starting settings based on the conditions he will likely encounter and the performance constraints of the imaging system.

It's in the title and on the first post: he's specifically asking about filming a fun fair at night...

The phantom camera doesn't know is night time, considerations for night or day are the same.

I disagree with this statement. Because of the "performance constraints of the imaging system", as you just called them, the settings you use on a bright day are completely different than what you use at night. On a sunny day, you have options. Shooting in low-light or at night is always a compromise, even with a DSLR equipped with much faster/better lenses.

For still photos, we agreed that the best combination is to keep the ISO low, and go for longer shutters. That's not much of a surprise, if you are into photography, but it's good to know it holds true even on the P3S, which is not a tripod.

For videos, I'd like to understand what's the best compromise...
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Dazzauk
It's in the title and on the first post: he's specifically asking about filming a fun fair at night...



I disagree with this statement. Because of the "performance constraints of the imaging system", as you just called them, the settings you use on a bright day are completely different than what you use at night. On a sunny day, you have options. Shooting in low-light or at night is always a compromise, even with a DSLR equipped with much faster/better lenses.

For still photos, we agreed that the best combination is to keep the ISO low, and go for longer shutters. That's not much of a surprise, if you are into photography, but it's good to know it holds true even on the P3S, which is not a tripod.

For videos, I'd like to understand what's the best compromise...
My point was he didn't ask about shutter speed, I didn't miss the considerations were for night shooting (low to very low light levels presumably).

With your shutter set at fps (or to be practical 1/25s for 23.976 fps) the noise introduced by increasing the ISO one stop is likely to be less objectionable than the muddy look you get from such a low shutter speed (excessive motion blur). That has been my experience.

As to my max one second or less suggestion for stills shutter speed increasing the ISO can produce less noise than extending the exposure time. This applies to some Olympus and high end canon SLR's I use also.

There are always compromises.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dazzauk
Darren, a quick update on the subject as I've done a couple tests. For flying at night over a typical residential neighborhood (pitch-black sky, scattered houses, average street lights... really low-light conditions) my best configuration for straight-out-of-the-camera videos is:

- 2.7K (then resized to 1080p or even 720p)
- 24 fps
- Auto mode
- EV -3.0 (max negative)
- White Balance: incandescent (debatable, give it a try and see for yourself)

Be very gentle with camera movements and avoid panning altogether.

I also did some encouraging tests with Avidemux and a couple filters, but I want to play with the P3S camera options a bit more (contrast, profile, etc) as the settings that work best for post-processing are completely different from what you need to get good videos straight out of the camera.

To be continued...
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dazzauk
Darren, a quick update on the subject as I've done a couple tests. For flying at night over a typical residential neighborhood (pitch-black sky, scattered houses, average street lights... really low-light conditions) my best configuration for straight-out-of-the-camera videos is:

- 2.7K (then resized to 1080p or even 720p)
- 24 fps
- Auto mode
- EV -3.0 (max negative)
- White Balance: incandescent (debatable, give it a try and see for yourself)

Be very gentle with camera movements and avoid panning altogether.

I also did some encouraging tests with Avidemux and a couple filters, but I want to play with the P3S camera options a bit more (contrast, profile, etc) as the settings that work best for post-processing are completely different from what you need to get good videos straight out of the camera.

To be continued...


any sample video buddy?
 
Da
Not sure if this is the correct section ?

but im planning to film fun fair at night next week, and any base camera settings advice would be great?

Cheers

Darren
Darren,

Are there any restrictions on night flying in the UK? Here you'd need a COA to allow flight after dusk?
 
any sample video buddy?

I wish I had something worth sharing, but I really don't. I need to play a bit more with the camera settings, although I think we just have to accept that in very low-light conditions, we will have noise and some motion blur. The image below is a screen grab from a video straight out of the P3S, taken at 2.7K, 24fps, Auto mode, EV -3.0:

P3S Night Run Original.jpg
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Dazzauk

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
143,055
Messages
1,467,298
Members
104,920
Latest member
stovebayen