Poor night shoots (II)

[Copperlanding]

Hi drone fans, ,
I would need help on shooting videos at night. Tried yesterday to cover a night scene at the harbor. The results are disappointing poor -not really HD. The scenery: Pitch dark night and the shinny skyscrapers in front (have not changed any setting, all auto). The enclosed picture reflects the grayish sky instead of black. Are this the limits of the camera or has anyone more satisfying results?
Thanks for reading!
(Similar topic was opened by Flushing Pheasant 7th October but the answers do not solve my challange)

sorry for opening a topic again which was opened by Flushing Pheasant 7th October but the answers do not solve my challange.

 

[guest1231]

There's not much you can do to improve video at night. The camera just isn't good enough quality to get good shots in the dark.

 

[Phantom George]

In Australia we are not allowed to fly at night. Are you in America? , allowed to fly after Sunset?

 

[Copperlanding]

THANK ay116,
thought so. I have a Sony HDRx520 which makes brilliant night shoots but to be fair: The price for the camera alone is higher than our drone incl the camera ;-)
So this is more a toy to enjoy...

 

[virtue]

I'm still working on getting nights shots just right, but the key points are:

- Exposure. Your blacks are gray because the image is over exposed. Auto exposure will tend to do that. I manually set ISO and speed to get the right exposure.
- Shutter speed. Your blurred image was presumably taken at a slow speed. Reducing exposure will shorten the exposure time, and improve this. It can be further improved by increasing the ISO (thus requiring a higher shutter speed for the same exposure).
- Graininess. However, high ISO produces pronounced graininess (noise). Some of this can be reduced in Photoshop, but an ISO 1600 image will still be unacceptably grainy. A highly effective method to remove noise is to select the multiple shot option (x5), and then combine (average) the 5 images in Photoshop; the 'signal' (i.e. the subject) is preserved, while the 'noise' is averaged out.

If others have different suggestions, I would be interested in reading them.

 

[Copperlanding]

Singapore Phantom George,
Restrictions are less than 60 meters higth, not near airport, no flights over crwods to name some.

 

[guest1231]

Sorry, I thought you were asking about video. You can play around with the ISO, shutter and exposure settings and get decent or good results with photos. I haven't been able to get anything approaching acceptable with video yet though.

 

[Copperlanding]

Thanks virtue, I will do same experiments with manual settings.

 

[virtue]

My mistake. I thought he was asking about stills.

 

[Copperlanding]

Both, sorry for being unclear here: I mean videos. However same problem with the noise will appear with photos as well. Thanks for your suggestions! Safe flight.

 

[RedHotPoker]

The night time photography limits of the Phantom 3 Pro' are not similar to boundaries set out by governing bodies. I fly at night and during the day, just the same. For awesome night time photo's I have my Nikon D800. But I can't throw it very high in the air, to make it count to ten.
There are limits to all equipment, use it to it's best advantage.
Try various simple adjustments using the right front wheel on the radio controller. Use the HDR function, capturing multiple images, with minor tweaks. Take 5 or 7 consecutive shots and see which ones are most appealing, to you. Ah, or stack them on top of each other for a much more dramatic effect.

RedHotPoker

 

[guest1231]

You can definitely get interesting photos. I usually set the ISO to the lowest and the shutter to 3" seconds or so. Only works well when there's little wind.

 

[MattyDread]

In Australia we are not allowed to fly at night. Are you in America? , allowed to fly after Sunset?

Can you post a link about no night flying in Aus - I fly at night & will continue to do so unless the drone/quad/ uav police say otherwise.

 

[LuvMyTJ]

You can definitely get interesting photos. I usually set the ISO to the lowest and the shutter to 3" seconds or so. Only works well when there's little wind.

View attachment 33235

Cool shot. I am a big fan & participant in night photography. Planning some DSLR star scapes in the AZ desert in a few weeks.

 

[Copperlanding]

Thanks Red HotPoker,
Fully agree. Will switch HDR on and experiment and experiment a little bit with Adobe Photoshop...
Thanks!

 

[Copperlanding]

Great picture az116!!!
Good idea as well to switch ISO down. Will wait for a mild breeze;-)

 

[Chuck Young]

Video's major problem is shutter speed. At 24 frames per second the max exposure would be 1/24th second. It would be better if you could add some frames to get a decent exposure. Trying to use live FPV to fly sure does not work very well . Stills at 8 seconds are the best.

 

[Copperlanding]

Thanks for your feedback Chuck,
Since I am not an expert: In how far would FPV influence the shutter speed and with this increase the quality? I thought FPV would only generate a live stream to other chanels. How can this positively manipulate the settings of the device?
Thanks!

 

[taroh]

Slight blur seems like defocus or unsharp picture. You can experience it by comparing handhold & tripod fixed cameras with low shutter speed. P3 stands still great while holding in no/small wind, but @Copperlanding, didn't you run P3 while shooting?

 

[Hjones62]

This was my night shot this evening here in Downtown Miami...