Question on better night time photography

Barkers · Sep 12, 2016

Hi

I've taken a liking to try to photograph a couple of installations lit up at night time...but I seem to keep getting a bit of blur...and/or the red lights of the phantom causing a haze on the pic.

If I use manual settings, there just isn't enough ambient light to merit a fast shutter speed without very high ISO.

Q1 Do 'good' photographers on here ALWAYS use manual mode or is the Phantom Pro's camera good enough to be relied on using in auto?

and Q2 Is there anything in particular that others do to improve photo quality in mildly windy conditions?

Thanks
Kris

Meta4 · Sep 12, 2016

Barkers said:
Q1 Do 'good' photographers on here ALWAYS use manual mode or is the Phantom Pro's camera good enough to be relied on using in auto?

I don't know about the "good" photographers but I use auto pretty well all the time.
For night photos you need to make sure your composition isn't just a lot of black with a few small areas of light.
If there is a bit of wind, in low light conditions I always pause to let the Phantom stabilise before each shot

ryantrax · Sep 12, 2016

Shoot in manual mode, lower the ISO a bit to get rid of film grain. The lights can be turned off in the DJI Go app.

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Mako79 · Sep 12, 2016

Go manual and allow the shutter to open longer.
The longer the shutter is open, the more light it captures. The issue that the phantom + gimbal must be dead still during the time the shutter is open. If the phantom moves, you will get blur.

Choose a night with no wind.

Barkers · Sep 13, 2016

These fundamental points are ultra simple yet ultra helpful, so thanks. I was hoping it'd be these simple rules.

Andrea · Sep 13, 2016

I'm always very happy the (very) few times I read these kind of questions, rather than how far/fast/high the phantom can fly: they make me feel like I have chosen the right platform, and not just another (expensive) racing quad.

Welcome to the wonderful world of aerial photography.

Msvet · Sep 13, 2016

You can turn off the red lights in Go. I always turn them off at night when shooting.

Msvet

jephoto · Sep 14, 2016

This is 100 iso/ 1 second. I always shoot manual. Always 100 iso any higher has unacceptable noise (for me).

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jephoto · Sep 14, 2016

And a fair amount of work in Lightroom & Photoshop...

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Drestin Black · Sep 14, 2016

jephoto said:
This is 100 iso/ 1 second. I always shoot manual. Always 100 iso any higher has unacceptable noise (for me).

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So, you find iOS 200 too noisy?

Seriously?

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Andrea · Sep 14, 2016

jephoto said:
This is 100 iso/ 1 second. I always shoot manual. Always 100 iso any higher has unacceptable noise (for me).

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Nice picture.

jephoto · Sep 14, 2016

Drestin Black said:
So, you find iOS 200 too noisy?

Seriously?

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Seriously. If I was only posting on the web, probably not. But for prints, Yep. Especially in dusk or nighttime shots where I may need to do a lot of work to open up shadow areas. Things really start to fall apart.
Thats just me. I'm picky

Sinisalo · Sep 15, 2016

You can reduce the noise in night shots by using AEB and combine them using the Lightroom Enfuse plugin. Also the google nik plugin for Photoshop and LR called "define 2" does a nice job of reducing noise and it is free now

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fastfed · Sep 15, 2016

is 1" 1 second shutter ?? I dont understand that on the settings.

jephoto · Sep 15, 2016

Sinisalo said:
You can reduce the noise in night shots by using AEB and combine them using the Lightroom Enfuse plugin. Also the google nik plugin for Photoshop and LR called "define 2" does a nice job of reducing noise and it is free now

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Yes. Know about those things and use NIK plugins all the time. I use Define- but usually just on Sky & water.
Maybe a little on the rest- but not much as it softens detail.
I'll stick with 100 iso. I also like to drag the shutter.

BrandAL · Sep 15, 2016

I pretty much use manual mode + some photoshop for sharpening and pray its no windy. Lol here's a pic of the port of Miami at night.

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Sinisalo · Sep 16, 2016

jephoto said:
Yes. Know about those things and use NIK plugins all the time. I use Define- but usually just on Sky & water.
Maybe a little on the rest- but not much as it softens detail.
I'll stick with 100 iso. I also like to drag the shutter.

you can bring back some detail with the detail extractor filter from the color effex pro nik plugin, I find a setting of 2 or 3 percent to be plenty. I agree though, I always try to shoot at 100 iso but sometimes it is just not possible. It is funny that my dslr has an iso range of 100-12800 and that is considered mediocre but the camera on our quadcopters pretty much has a usable range of 100-200 haha

jephoto · Sep 16, 2016

Sinisalo said:
you can bring back some detail with the detail extractor filter from the color effex pro nik plugin, I find a setting of 2 or 3 percent to be plenty. I agree though, I always try to shoot at 100 iso but sometimes it is just not possible. It is funny that my dslr has an iso range of 100-12800 and that is considered mediocre but the camera on our quadcopters pretty much has a usable range of 100-200 haha

Yep. There's no comparison on the quality of the sensor compared to my D810.
The crappy little sensor is the one thing I despair about on our lovely P3's.
But.... I can't get my D810 up HERE: