photo shutter speed help....

[Dazzauk]

Hey all,

i tried to take some pics of a moving jet ski today and they all came out nasty, blurry etc,

Im struggling with knowlage..

I know that you need a slower shutter speed to capture motion for sports etc, what i dont understand too much is the phantom 4 shutter speeds, its just a lot of numbers lol,

when i read about shutter speeds i read 1/1000, 1/25 etc etc,

when im filming video i seem to understand it better for example when i shoot 4k at 30fps i know my shutter should ideally be 60 but for pics i dont know how to relate the 1/ something to the numbers i see on my dji go app

also when i went higher in the numbers to try and take a photo of the jet ski the image was just getting darker and darker an i still seemed to get blur??

any help

cheers

 

[Deleted member 62848]

Hey all,

i tried to take some pics of a moving jet ski today and they all came out nasty, blurry etc,

Im struggling with knowlage..

I know that you need a slower shutter speed to capture motion for sports etc, what i dont understand too much is the phantom 4 shutter speeds, its just a lot of numbers lol,

when i read about shutter speeds i read 1/1000, 1/25 etc etc,

when im filming video i seem to understand it better for example when i shoot 4k at 30fps i know my shutter should ideally be 60 but for pics i dont know how to relate the 1/ something to the numbers i see on my dji go app

also when i went higher in the numbers to try and take a photo of the jet ski the image was just getting darker and darker an i still seemed to get blur??

any help

cheers

,,good tip on shutter speed
View attachment 93284,,,and don't forget your dad's smokes (duty free)

 

[Helihover]

Set your camera to auto, then look at the settings. You could then adjust from there. I gotta be honest though, shooting in auto during the day is fine. If your shooting at night or on the water it might call for a different setting. If your over water and shooting auto, just bump the EV down (on sunny days this will just increase your SS) and then bring up the darker areas in post.

 

[Rncotton]

As an action sports photographer, I'll weigh in here a little. Regarding shutter speed, you said "slower for action" and that's not entirely accurate. I'll try to help you make sense of it all.

You have what's called the Exposure Triangle, which is made of of ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture (f/stop) If you go away from Auto, any change you make to one has to be compensated for in one of the others. For example, you increased the shutter speed, and the image got darker. To compensate, you have to either increase ISO or lower your Aperture. Here's what each does:

ISO - how sensitive to light your camera sensor is. In the old days, this was film speed. More sensitivity means you can use faster shutter speeds, but the penalty is an increase in noise / grain in your image.

Shutter Speed - How fast your shutter opens/closes. The faster the speed, the more it can freeze action. So if you're shooting a jet ski, and you shoot at 1/1000 shutter speed, you'll freeze the action, including water droplets. However, you may want to freeze the jet ski, but allow the water spray and whitewater underneath to have some blur, which shows motion. (hence the reason it's referred to as motion blur) So lowering the shutter speed until the jet ski is barely frozen can let the water and wake show that it's in motion and not just frozen in time.

Aperture - How wide the opening is to let light into the lens and sensor. The lower the number, the wider the opening, letting more light in. So as you increase shutter speed, you can decrease the aperture to let more light in. This solves your problem of the image getting darker when you increased your shutter speed. The trade off is depth of field. The lower the number, the more shallow the depth of field, meaning ... how much of your image is in focus. From a professional standpoint, you generally want only your subject in focus, with the background having blur from depth of field (different than motion blur)

Remember, as you change something, you have to compensate somewhere else. Fortunately, clicks are the same. So if you increase the shutter speed 4 clicks ... you need to either lower your aperture 4 clicks, or increase your ISO 4 clicks. Everything is directly proportional. You can even split it up ... say you can only decrease aperture 2 clicks, just increase ISO 2 clicks and you've accounted for all 4 clicks you need to make.

That's a super brief explanation .... Google for "Exposure Triangle" and you can find a ton of info. Meanwhile, shoot in Auto for a while and see what the camera chooses. Then you can decide how you want to artistically change it. If the camera chooses 1/1000 in auto mode, and you want to add motion blur, adjust shutter to 1/500 and lower your aperture to match. Not enough motion blur? Lower shutter to 1/250, and adjust aperture to match.

Let's see some pics when you dial it all in!

 

[bsartist]

Rncotton’s explanation is excellent and very thorough. I’d like to pull out one particularly relevant concept and expand on it for your situation. That’s the part about freezing the jetski and letting the water blur. With regular terrestrial photography, this is done by panning with the subject as you squeeze the shutter. You have to be pretty good at keeping the camera locked on the subject so the subject stays pretty locked in the frame. So the water is moving by quickly relative to the frame but the subject is not.

In the case of a drone following along with a jetski and snapping a picture or if holding stationary and panning with the stick as the ski goes by, your sharpness of subject depends on how steady the jetski is held in the frame by either the drone’s tracking ability or your sticking to keep it locked in position relative to the frame. The higher the shutter speed the better chance you have of freezing the ski in frame for a sharp ski. But go too high and you start freezing the water. So as Rncotton essentially says, go high enough to freeze the jetski in frame but no higher.

The faster the jetski moves the faster you are panning the camera so the water is moving by faster relative to the frame. So you can actually use a faster shutter speed than if the jetski is moving slowly. In other words the greater the difference between the subject speed and speed of the background, the higher shutter speed you should be able to use.

Also, not sure if this was covered if the phantom is showing a video shutter speed setting of 30, for example, it’s shorthand for 1/30 sec. they drop the “one over.”


Edit: it occurs to me that you can obviously also come at shutter speed from the other direction. Start with a high shutter speed and slow it till where you are ok with the motion blur of the water and stop. Chances are you are higher in shutter speed than the method mentioned above. This will give you more assurance of a sharp ski. Probably a better method. In other words go lower on the shutter speed till you get just enough motion blur - but no lower.

 

[Helihover]

The P4 has no aperture adjustment. You can fake it with filters, but you do not want to use filters on stills unless your trying to capture motion blur from a stationary object (waterfall).

So your really only left with ISO and SS. In the day light, there is no reason to increase ISO, so that stays at 100. Now all that’s left for daytime shooting with a P4 is SS. If all your shooting is going to be at 0 EV, there’s no need to shoot manual.

 

[bsartist]

The P4 has no aperture adjustment. You can fake it with filters, but you do not want to use filters on stills unless your trying to capture motion blur from a stationary object (waterfall).

So your really only left with ISO and SS. In the day light, there is no reason to increase ISO, so that stays at 100. Now all that’s left for daytime shooting with a P4 is SS. If all your shooting is going to be at 0 EV, there’s no need to shoot manual.

Just curious. Why not use filters on stills unless doing a stationary object?

 

[Helihover]

Just curious. Why not use filters on stills unless doing a stationary object?

Because you just putting another lens for light to travel through before it hits the sensor. Your introducing more of a chance for contamination. There is simply just no need for one when you can just increase shutter speed. If the shutter speed is too high, your pic is probably not going to come out that great anyway. I could maybe see the use of a radiant filter on a landscape pic, but with LR, I don’t really see a need for that anymore.

What reasons would you have for using one on stills?

 

[bsartist]

Because you just putting another lens for light to travel through before it hits the sensor. Your introducing more of a chance for contamination. There is simply just no need for one when you can just increase shutter speed. If the shutter speed is too high, your pic is probably not going to come out that great anyway. I could maybe see the use of a radiant filter on a landscape pic, but with LR, I don’t really see a need for that anymore.

What reasons would you have for using one on stills?

You would use it if you wanted to lower the shutter speed. Not increase it. I admit there are probably fewer use cases in drone still photography than terrestrial still photography. But I can think of one or two in the area of capturing motion blur.

 

[Helihover]

You would use it if you wanted to lower the shutter speed. Not increase it. I admit there are probably fewer use cases in drone still photography than terrestrial still photography. But I can think of one or two in the area of capturing motion blur.

Yes, thats why I said you could increase your SS instead of using a filter. Higher SS = less light, filter = less light. Maybe I worded it wrong or you misinterpreted the sentence.

Heres an example of using a filter to capture motion blur. Not as much as I wanted, but you get the point.

 

[Dazzauk]

Hey guys,

thanks for all the help and input,

so am i correct in saying i wanted a faster shutter speed and not a slower one?

What would be a fast shutter speed for the phantom 4?

And would increasing the shutter speed be letting less light in?

Daz

 

[bsartist]

Yes, thats why I said you could increase your SS instead of using a filter. Higher SS = less light, filter = less light. Maybe I worded it wrong or you misinterpreted the sentence.

Heres an example of using a filter to capture motion blur. Not as much as I wanted, but you get the point.

View attachment 93322

But my point is that there are cases where you may not want a fast shutter speed. Just like when shooting waterfalls. So the ND lets you keep the shutter speed down. I admit it’s not as common as the video use case for keeping SS twice the frame rate, but I doubt the use cases are zero.

One thing that was confusing in your post is that you went on to say “if your shutter speed is too high your pic is probably not going to come out too good anyway.” But I’m guessing you maybe meant to say “too low.”

 

[Dazzauk]

Here’s a couple of screen shots of the go app shutter speeds. I’m confused about what 8” for example is??

Is that 1 8th of a second? Also there is 1.65?

Are these fast shutter settings

Then it goes the other way up to 8000. So is that 1/8000 which would be slow?

Daz

 

[Helihover]

8 is going to leave the shutter open for 8 seconds which is a very long exposure. You need to be in ideal conditions at night to pull that off. 1/1600 would be fast, as the shutter is only staying open for 1/1600 of a second and letting hardly any light in.

You need to be shooting around 1/250-1/500 depending on how much light there is. Your best bet ATM is going to be shooting in auto. Get out of manual until you start to get an understanding of what SS does. If your shooting over water on sunny days, set the EV at -0.3 and that should get you close. You might also try shooting HDR to help get a better exposure.

You need to be moving with the jet ski to pull this off. I would fly sideways alongside the jet ski and get the ski in the frame and start shooting. How fast you and the ski are going and how bright it is, will determine the blur in the background. The sunnier the day, less blur, cloudy day, more blur. Or you could throw a filter on to drop the SS a bit if it’s too bright out, but you should be able to accomplish this without one.

 

[Helihover]

But my point is that there are cases where you may not want a fast shutter speed. Just like when shooting waterfalls. So the ND lets you keep the shutter speed down. I admit it’s not as common as the video use case for keeping SS twice the frame rate, but I doubt the use cases are zero.

One thing that was confusing in your post is that you went on to say “if your shutter speed is too high your pic is probably not going to come out too good anyway.” But I’m guessing you maybe meant to say “too low.”

Actually that was my point I made (you asked me) and my example,... lol. I asked you for an example and you said you could only think of 1 or 2 cases where you would use a filter, but never explained the case. In my example, I was shooting into the sun and still got the blur. If I waited 10-15 mins, I could of pulled that same shot off with no filter. Maybe it would have come out better?

Yes too high of a shutter speed will result in lost quality. Sometimes a fast SS will not let enough light in and the pic just doesn’t look right. That’s one reason it’s best to shoot in the evening and morning. We call it golden hour. Up here in the PNW, we get golden hours!. That way your not shooting at 1/3000 at noon and wondering if a filter is going to help.....

 

[bsartist]

Actually that was my point I made (you asked me) and my example,... lol. I asked you for an example and you said you could only think of 1 or 2 cases where you would use a filter, but never explained the case. In my example, I was shooting into the sun and still got the blur. If I waited 10-15 mins, I could of pulled that same shot off with no filter. Maybe it would have come out better?

Yes too high of a shutter speed will result in lost quality. Sometimes a fast SS will not let enough light in and the pic just doesn’t look right. That’s one reason it’s best to shoot in the evening and morning. We call it golden hour. Up here in the PNW, we get golden hours!. That way your not shooting at 1/3000 at noon and wondering if a filter is going to help.....

Maybe I misunderstood your initial comment. but let me restate what I think I understood you saying. You said you wouldn’t want to use an [ND] filter unless you are photographing a stationary object like a waterfall. Based on context I took that to mean not in the air from a drone. This is maybe where I went wrong - apologies if so. In theory at least I could think of examples where you might want to lower SS for a drone still shot as well assuming it’s very stable (I didn’t catch where you asked for an example; I’ll give one below). So I was wondering why you were saying that you don’t want to use a filter other than for things like waterfalls. Again, I may have misunderstood your wording. You then said in your reply that you could increase shutter speed to reduce exposure. But my point was that you may want to hold shutter speed low for artistic reasons. Your command of photographic theory is clearly high so I know I’m not telling you anything new. Just that I wasn’t sure we were understanding each other on the use case for SS when shooting something with a drone and not like a waterfall on the ground with a tripod. For example, I’ve got the drone parked above a lake, maybe some mountains in view. Bright day. Boats are whizzing by below. I’d like to keep the shutter speed as low as possible to get motion blur in the boats while the mountains remain sharp. I realize a drone ain’t no tripod but I bet it’s pretty stable such that you could get a pretty sharp pic with a shutter speed low enough to get some motion blur in fast moving boats. The other example is in the OP as you pointed out that you may use an [ND] filter there. So in the final analysis it seems like we violently agree. That there is a use for an ND filter for drone stills, and I just misinterpreted your initial comment.

Anyhow here are some of my motion blurred waterfall stills.

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[Helihover]

Maybe I misunderstood your initial comment. but let me restate what I think I understood you saying. You said you wouldn’t want to use an [ND] filter unless you are photographing a stationary object like a waterfall. Based on context I took that to mean not in the air from a drone. This is maybe where I went wrong - apologies if so. In theory at least I could think of examples where you might want to lower SS for a drone still shot as well assuming it’s very stable (I didn’t catch where you asked for an example; I’ll give one below). So I was wondering why you were saying that you don’t want to use a filter other than for things like waterfalls. Again, I may have misunderstood your wording. You then said in your reply that you could increase shutter speed to reduce exposure. But my point was that you may want to hold shutter speed low for artistic reasons. Your command of photographic theory is clearly high so I know I’m not telling you anything new. Just that I wasn’t sure we were understanding each other on the use case for SS when shooting something with a drone and not like a waterfall on the ground with a tripod. For example, I’ve got the drone parked above a lake, maybe some mountains in view. Bright day. Boats are whizzing by below. I’d like to keep the shutter speed as low as possible to get motion blur in the boats while the mountains remain sharp. I realize a drone ain’t no tripod but I bet it’s pretty stable such that you could get a pretty sharp pic with a shutter speed low enough to get some motion blur in fast moving boats. The other example is in the OP as you pointed out that you may use an [ND] filter there. So in the final analysis it seems like we violently agree. That there is a use for an ND filter for drone stills, and I just misinterpreted your initial comment.

Anyhow here are some of my motion blurred waterfall stills.

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I was talking about getting blur with a drone. All my post here relate to drone photography only. Waterfall shots from the ground are easy. You can pull off 8 second shots with a P4. The photo I posted above was shot with my P4 and I believe it was around 2 seconds. I have several 8 second shots too.

Here’s an example of 6 second shots compiled for a time lapse.

I don’t do FB so I couldn’t view your pics:/

 

[bsartist]

I was talking about getting blur with a drone. All my post here relate to drone photography only. Waterfall shots from the ground are easy. You can pull off 8 second shots with a P4. The photo I posted above was shot with my P4 and I believe it was around 2 seconds. I have several 8 second shots too.

Here’s an example of 6 second shots compiled for a time lapse.

I don’t do FB so I couldn’t view your pics:/

You can get nice waterfall blur with 1/8 of a second. Although 1/4 and slower is even creamier. If you can get up to 8 seconds on a P4P then that is **** good.

 

[Helihover]

You can get nice waterfall blur with 1/8 of a second. Although 1/4 and slower is even creamier. If you can get up to 8 seconds on a P4P then that is **** good.

View attachment 93359 View attachment 93360 View attachment 93361 View attachment 93362 View attachment 93363

Not a P4P, a P4.

Heres a few 8 second exposures from my P4....

 

[Dazzauk]

So played around today again with jet ski and i just cant get a good shot, what am i doing?

ISO 100 and shutter was 1/6 of a sec