hello crew,

most professionals already know that the right settings at night can make a big difference.

Short tips for better night footage VIDEO:
- WB to manual 5300K (colder if you prefer)
- video setting to manual and use D-cinelike for better contrast in post processing
- f/2.8
- ISO as low as possible. at night in bright cities sometimes 800 will do if you lucky, up to ISO 3200. i think 6400 is just in emergency due to too much noise later. if you need 6400 to get bright enough video, your flying spot is too dark. change place - you wont get anything good here probably...- Set video to 4k 24FPS for low light condition and maximum sharpness when you downscale to 1080p 24fps

EXAMPLE: https://www.skypixel.com/videos/ ... 6-acf2-bc34e1263890

Tips for night PHOTO:
- WB to manual 5300K (or whatever you prefer)
- f/2.8 for testphoto. up to F/4 if your spot is bright enough for max sharpness
- ISO as low as possible. at night  in bright cities sometimes 100-200 is plenty! everything over ISO400 is not necessary.
- Exposure time around 0,5 up to 2 seconds in most cases is enough. you can get up to 3 or 4 seconds but need your drone on max height around 500 meter to reduce motion in the photo.

Example:

Nice photo's Here in the Netherlands we cannot fly in the nighttime :-(

Vayreda Posted at 2017-7-21 09:16
Nice photo's Here in the Netherlands we cannot fly in the nighttime :-(

and that stops you? plenty of range with P4 or mavic. find a nice remote spot and fly to the beautiful areas  some hundred meter away. i am sure nobody mind when you shoot some photos over a city far away from risking peoples lifes.

by the way: everybody is welcome to post some nightphotos/videos in this topic.

very nice shots

EdSimmonsPhoto Posted at 2017-7-21 09:41
very nice shots

feel free to post results here (photos or video) now or after try some of my steps yourself. happy for some feedback.

The camera was on Auto for this shot.  ISO 320 F2.8 and 1/30th of a second.

EdSimmonsPhoto Posted at 2017-7-21 19:12
https://edsimmonsphotography.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/dronesunsetedited.jpg[/img]

The camera was on Auto for this shot.  ISO 320 F2.8 and 1/30th of a second.

appreciate your perfectly leveled horizon. many people forget that in post.
maybe you could think about the 3/4 rule from photographers where the sky is more in  frame or the ground. in this case sky should get more attention since there isnt alot interesting stuff at ground.
beside that little constructive critic: stunning photo man. thanks for sharing.
what was your post processing?

PandaFlyingcat Posted at 2017-7-21 20:17
appreciate your perfectly leveled horizon. many people forget that in post.
maybe you could think about the 3/4 rule from photographers where the sky is more in  frame or the ground. in this case sky should get more attention since there isnt alot interesting stuff at ground.
beside that little constructive critic: stunning photo man. thanks for sharing.

I brought up the lower half of the image some so you could see the water tower.  The image wasn't very noisy, but I did a slight luminance tweak in Lightroom and minor tweaks on exposure/ clarity in the sky.  The unedited image wasn't bad.  Shot in RAW.

EdSimmonsPhoto Posted at 2017-7-21 20:30
I brought up the lower half of the image some so you could see the water tower.  The image wasn't very noisy, but I did a slight luminance tweak in Lightroom and minor tweaks on exposure/ clarity in the sky.  The unedited image wasn't bad.  Shot in RAW.

yes i can see the halo near edge of sky to ground. nothing much you can do if you dont want spend long time in photoshop. nice shot!

EdSimmonsPhoto Posted at 2017-7-21 19:12
https://edsimmonsphotography.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/dronesunsetedited.jpg[/img]

The camera was on Auto for this shot.  ISO 320 F2.8 and 1/30th of a second.

Very nice shot

Great images. Thanks for the info. The ISO is important to avoid the noise and also to help with the sharpness.

EdSimmonsPhoto Posted at 2017-7-21 19:12
https://edsimmonsphotography.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/dronesunsetedited.jpg[/img]

The camera was on Auto for this shot.  ISO 320 F2.8 and 1/30th of a second.

Aloha Ed,

     You got a stunner there!

Aloha and Drone On!

PandaFlyingcat Posted at 2017-7-21 21:46
yes i can see the halo near edge of sky to ground. nothing much you can do if you dont want spend long time in photoshop. nice shot!

yeah, it was just a quick edit, first few pics, etc.  I just put an ND 8 on it this morning, will shoot more later.

Cetacean Posted at 2017-7-22 01:23
Aloha Ed,

     You got a stunner there!

many thanks, we have some great sunsets here!

PandaFlyingcat Posted at 2017-7-21 09:24
and that stops you? plenty of range with P4 or mavic. find a nice remote spot and fly to the beautiful areas  some hundred meter away. i am sure nobody mind when you shoot some photos over a city far away from risking peoples lifes.

by the way: everybody is welcome to post some nightphotos/videos in this topic.

This is a perfect example why some many restrictions and rules are being forced upon drone owners/pilots. That you ( being the pilot) are on a remote spot doesnt mean that you dont cause danger.
The oppossite is true. Being remote and in the dark creates even more danger. Always keep in mind that an error ( technical or human) can cause serious damages or injuries to property or people.
Just my 2 cents....

GM74 Posted at 2017-7-22 06:39
This is a perfect example why some many restrictions and rules are being forced upon drone owners/pilots. That you ( being the pilot) are on a remote spot doesnt mean that you dont cause danger.
The oppossite is true. Being remote and in the dark creates even more danger. Always keep in mind that an error ( technical or human) can cause serious damages or injuries to property or people.
Just my 2 cents....

and you are right.
beginner pilots should not do stuff like that. from his photos i think he not a beginner.
and i am far from them too. so yes. dont fly from a dark remote place and then do dangerous stuff because nobody can see you. by remote i mean fly to some places where no people are around and you cant hurt or damage anything even your drone fall down due to pilot error. not that difficult. as you see on my example pictures. i fly from the green field beside the road. and the building i hover over is a workplace where no people working at night. if i mess up and drone fall from the sky i will just make a small dent in the concrete. and i choose that flying spot on purpose exactly for this reason, people could argue about the fact that flying at night is illegal. well not here in china but in this case it could be anywhere in country. whether you take the responsibility and still fly in another country is your option.
but yes. actually you are right.

nice shot!  we've been overrun with haze and clouds lately, bleh.

Hello PandaFlyingCat! I need some advise for night long exposure drone photography. I need to take a long exposure of a 2 minutes performance in the ground that will be done with torches. The idea is that the aerial camera should record the trails of light left by the torches held by people. I am going to purchase a drone from dji for this project. One of the challenges is that this process would repeat multiple times during a few nights and I would need to find a drone which allows me to pre-programme a sequence of of taking-off, getting into a fix position and shooting the long exposure photograph. Do you know any way of creating an automation on a drone? Which model would you recommend me? My budget is up to USD10,000. Based on your recommendations for night photography I assume I would need to take 60 photos of 2s exposure time and then merge them together in PS. Is this correct?

Hello PandaFlyingCat! I need some advise for night long exposure drone photography. I need to take a long exposure of a 2 minutes performance in the ground that will be done with torches. The idea is that the aerial camera should record the trails of light left by the torches held by people. I am going to purchase a drone from dji for this project. One of the challenges is that this process would repeat multiple times during a few nights and I would need to find a drone which allows me to pre-programme a sequence of of taking-off, getting into a fix position and shooting the long exposure photograph. Do you know any way of creating an automation on a drone? Which model would you recommend me? My budget is up to USD10,000. Based on your recommendations for night photography I assume I would need to take 60 photos of 2s exposure time and then merge them together in PS. Is this correct?

I wanted to test out a stitch/ panorama, so I took this shot tonight. This is a 3 image panorama with no editing of the colors/ levels in post, just a crop to get houses out of the bottom of the image.  Its not "perfect" but I'm pretty impressed.  I used an ND4 filter to keep the setting sun from blowing out the reds.

manuelgarrido Posted at 2017-7-25 02:51
Hello PandaFlyingCat! I need some advise for night long exposure drone photography. I need to take a long exposure of a 2 minutes performance in the ground that will be done with torches. The idea is that the aerial camera should record the trails of light left by the torches held by people. I am going to purchase a drone from dji for this project. One of the challenges is that this process would repeat multiple times during a few nights and I would need to find a drone which allows me to pre-programme a sequence of of taking-off, getting into a fix position and shooting the long exposure photograph. Do you know any way of creating an automation on a drone? Which model would you recommend me? My budget is up to USD10,000. Based on your recommendations for night photography I assume I would need to take 60 photos of 2s exposure time and then merge them together in PS. Is this correct?

hm... i dont use DJI for these things but a P4A should be enough for this task.
get on altitude, shoot one photo at evening when you have a little daylight left to get a nice image from the ground without any people on. thats your reference picture where you add layers on in PS later.
if the performance start with torches you start same place where you got the reference photo before, get on same altitude and shoot multiple photos on ISO 100, f/5-8, and max exposure time the P4 allow (should be 8 seconds if i remember right) to get the light trails only without the ground getting too bright. if ground gets too bright you set up higher f/ stops a bit until you see only light trails.

use PS, add your main picture.
then open all nice light trail photos, select ALL, copy, go to reference photo, paste and choose MULTIPLY LIGHTS for this layer. repeat with rest trail photos until you satisfied with result.
with this method you can add many layers over your ground photo and only adding light sources.

i doubt that it will look amazing but you can do some test runs before the show to get settings right. city with moving cars should be a good place to learn

PandaFlyingcat Posted at 2017-7-25 20:16
hm... i dont use DJI for these things but a P4A should be enough for this task.
get on altitude, shoot one photo at evening when you have a little daylight left to get a nice image from the ground without any people on. thats your reference picture where you add layers on in PS later.
if the performance start with torches you start same place where you got the reference photo before, get on same altitude and shoot multiple photos on ISO 100, f/5-8, and max exposure time the P4 allow (should be 8 seconds if i remember right) to get the light trails only without the ground getting too bright. if ground gets too bright you set up higher f/ stops a bit until you see only light trails.

Thank you very much PandaFlyingCat!