Help.. Long exposure...how do I get shots like these at the beach?

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What settings do I have to input for me to get shots like the attached image I found on google? I understand these are long exposure shots, and I am aware of how to do them at night, but how exactly do I get these types of shots during the day? Does this specifically have to be shot only during sunset/sunrise? I was about an hour away from sunset, and my attempts to get long exposure wave streaks did not yet meet success. Any help is appreciated. P3P is also what I am flying.
 

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Hopefully you aren't intent on emulating this too precisely, it is horrid- dreadful white balance, probably a badly blended composite shot and oversharpened, amongst other things.

Ok. It is possible to get nice movement in the water with your drone. You can go all out silky smith if you want.

For a nice blur to the movement fit an ND8 or 16 (32 may be handy if you can get your hands on one) and shoot early or late. The light is best then anyway. Go for 1/2 to 3 seconds in a hover.

If the light is too bright to get over 1/2 sec shoot multiple frames and do a stack, align and merge for lighten. You can go out to many minutes with this technique if you have enough frames.
 
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Hopefully you aren't intent on emulating this too precisely, it is horrid- dreadful white balance, probably a badly blended composite shot and oversharpened, amongst other things.

Ok. It is possible to get nice movement in the water with your drone. You can go all out silky smith if you want.

For a nice blur to the movement fit an ND8 or 16 (32 may be handy if you can get your hands on one) and shoot early or late. The light is best then anyway. Go for 1/2 to 3 seconds in a hover.

If the light is too bright to get over 1/2 sec shoot multiple frames and do a stack, align and merge for lighten. You can go out to many minutes with this technique if you have enough frames.

Thank you^ time of day seems to be important here.
 
Thank you^ time of day seems to be important here.
Yes, dawn and dusk do give longer exposure times. We also have warmer light and if we are lucky beautiful sky's. You can still create the effect if a longer exposure at other times however by stacking multiple frames as I have suggested. Works particularity well with water falls also.
 
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it's all done with ND filters and tripods. While the drones do have gimbals and can seemingly hold their place, none of them would ever be kept still long enough to effectively take a long exposure shot.
 
it's all done with ND filters and tripods. While the drones do have gimbals and can seemingly hold their place, none of them would ever be kept still long enough to effectively take a long exposure shot.
I am sorry to disabuse you of your notion however to claim the phantom is unsuitable for long exposure work is not true.

What do you call a long exposure?

The phantom 3 birds, in a stable hover, will give you a good number of keepers out to 3 seconds. Longer is possible. This is significantly longer than is required to produce a nice motion blur effect in seascape photography (1/4s to 2sec is very effective).

With rudimentary photoshop skills you can easily stack and blend multiple frames to produce longer exposures also.
 
I am sorry to disabuse you of your notion however to claim the phantom is unsuitable for long exposure work is not true.

What do you call a long exposure?

The phantom 3 birds, in a stable hover, will give you a good number of keepers out to 3 seconds. Longer is possible. This is significantly longer than is required to produce a nice motion blur effect in seascape photography (1/4s to 2sec is very effective).

With rudimentary photoshop skills you can easily stack and blend multiple frames to produce longer exposures also.
I guess you're correct that definitions need to be clarified. 2 seconds....perhaps. I do much longer so no, it would not really be suitable.
 
I guess you're correct that definitions need to be clarified. 2 seconds....perhaps. I do much longer so no, it would not really be suitable.
In the parlance of photographers long exposure most commonly describes the use of a shutter speed that will blur or obscure moving elements of a scene or object while rendering motionless objects as still. For the puurposes of the OP's Question anything over 1/4 sec TV will achieve the effect depicted in the sample image he posted.

If you find your phantom can reliably shoot a 2s TV and you require a longer you can easily achieve this effect by stacking and performing a lighten blend in photoshop. The result appear to be a single exposure being the sum of the TV employed for acquisition of the source images.
 
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In the parlance of photographers long exposure most commonly describes the use of a shutter speed that will blur or obscure moving elements of a scene or object while rendering motionless objects as still. For the puurposes of the OP's Question anything over 1/4 sec TV will achieve the effect depicted in the sample image he posted.

If you find your phantom can reliably shoot a 2s TV and you require a longer you can easily achieve this effect by stacking and performing a lighten blend in photoshop. The result appear to be a single exposure being the sum of the TV employed for acquisition of the source images.
I do astrophotography so our definitions of long exposure will be different. The little blur photography (oceans and rivers) I've done with my DSLR's I've used very dense ND filters so my exposures were a bit longer.
 
I do astrophotography so our definitions of long exposure will be different. The little blur photography (oceans and rivers) I've done with my DSLR's I've used very dense ND filters so my exposures were a bit longer.
Good... you know all about the stacking techniques then (esp for removing noise). The stack and median blend is also very useful in removing noise with the phantom. ND's have their place in landscape work no doubt. Esp if you want that flat smooth dreamy look.
 
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This photo is a single image probably using stacked filters such stacked ND and graduated ND filters. I don't think you'll get this with a drone to be honest. The depth is too great and the image quality too high. Drones are great photo takers for what they are but they don't match a full frame sensor and high end glass like this photo was taken with.
EXIF from the photo:
Canon 5D2, ISO 100, 2.5 second exposure, f/22

Image address on Flickr ~ Bronte Beach Sunset
 
If you check the link and his tags and were to believe it, he used a 3 stop graduated ND filter on the sky (not too sure if it's a soft or hard grad). Of course I would likely blend several shots together to do this as well since I don't have any filters to fit my DSLR glass. I wish I could shoot landscapes like this but sadly I'm a people photographer.
 

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If you check the link and his tags and were to believe it, he used a 3 stop graduated ND filter on the sky (not too sure if it's a soft or hard grad). Of course I would likely blend several shots together to do this as well since I don't have any filters to fit my DSLR glass. I wish I could shoot landscapes like this but sadly I'm a people photographer.
I can believe a 3 stop grad was used. Especially after having another look at the image. It has hit me now why it Looks off. It's not the over sharpening or the white balance, it's the fact that the foreground is so bright in contrast to the sky. You will seldom if ever see this with the naked eye so the brain (or more precisely our expectation of how things should look) struggles to relate to it.
 
An exact answer to the question "how long" is not possible, since the waves come in a varying speeds, and you have to experiment. I have a set of ND filters from 3 stops to a Big Stopper (a 10 stop!) that I fiddle with on a Nikon DSLR. A polarizer will account for 1 to 2 stops at its maximum setting. Please look at the photos at this gallery, all on a tripod with DSLR, all by me:
SD Coastline | robertrose.photos

These were all at dawn or dusk, on a tripod, and with boots on to slog through water and over rocks. The exposure was generally f/16 and around 2 seconds.

For this to work you must turn off auto ISO, and auto exposure, or the camera will try to compensate for the darker scene by upping the ISO or opening the aperture. On a DSLR this works best on the M mode.

Yes, it is possible to get a wave movement by taking a burst of stills with a drone, and then stacking them in Photoshop. If you do that, you probably will want to edit out all but one of the "non-moving" areas so that (rocks for example) part is sharp. That is a lot of time sitting in front a computer, however. If there is no wind, then I suppose that a single 2 second exposure with a Phantom is possible. I have not tried it, but you should investigate the "tripod" mode:

"In Tripod Mode, the maximum flight speed is limited to 5.6 mph (9 kph) and the braking distance is reduced to 6.6 ft (2 m). Responsiveness to stick movements is also reduced for smoother more controlled movements. Only use Tripod Mode where the GPS signal is strong or light conditions are ideal for the vision system. If GPS signal is lost and the vision system cannot function, it will automatically switch to Atti mode. In this case, flight speed will increase and the aircraft cannot hover in place. Use Tripod Mode carefully." P4P User Manual, p. 26.

One of San Diego gallery was selected by judges to appear in the San Diego County Fair last summer:
Windansea 2 | robertrose.photos

To the comments that criticize the photo that tml4191 posted, let me respond that I know of no photographer who is trying to maximize verisimilitude, e.g., merely recording the scene as exact as possible. I know that I am not. I am trying to show you something you haven't seen before, and do so in a way that conveys some emotion. Even when I make a commercial photo for a realtor, I don't want to have it show the house "as it really is" but rather "as it could be." Maybe I get you angry. Maybe I make you contemplative. Maybe I make you happy. Maybe I make you relax. In any of those cases I have succeeded. Further, when photographing for myself it is not enough to just record a photo with studium (e.g., that which is typical of photos of that genre). I try for elusive punctum (e.g., that which pricks, such as the people on the cliff here Sunset Cliffs 2 | robertrose.photos), or the water appearing to flow out of the rocks here La Jolla | robertrose.photos)

Thanks for reading through to the end. Ramble over.

Bob Rose
www.barkingdeerphotography.com
www.robertrose.photos
www.rosepatents.com
 
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An exact answer to the question "how long" is not possible, since the waves come in a varying speeds, and you have to experiment. I have a set of ND filters from 3 stops to a Big Stopper (a 10 stop!) that I fiddle with on a Nikon DSLR. A polarizer will account for 1 to 2 stops at its maximum setting. Please look at the photos at this gallery, all on a tripod with DSLR, all by me:
SD Coastline | robertrose.photos

These were all at dawn or dusk, on a tripod, and with boots on to slog through water and over rocks. The exposure was generally f/16 and around 2 seconds.

For this to work you must turn off auto ISO, and auto exposure, or the camera will try to compensate for the darker scene by upping the ISO or opening the aperture. On a DSLR this works best on the M mode.

Yes, it is possible to get a wave movement by taking a burst of stills with a drone, and then stacking them in Photoshop. If you do that, you probably will want to edit out all but one of the "non-moving" areas so that (rocks for example) part is sharp. That is a lot of time sitting in front a computer, however. If there is no wind, then I suppose that a single 2 second exposure with a Phantom is possible. I have not tried it, but you should investigate the "tripod" mode:

"In Tripod Mode, the maximum flight speed is limited to 5.6 mph (9 kph) and the braking distance is reduced to 6.6 ft (2 m). Responsiveness to stick movements is also reduced for smoother more controlled movements. Only use Tripod Mode where the GPS signal is strong or light conditions are ideal for the vision system. If GPS signal is lost and the vision system cannot function, it will automatically switch to Atti mode. In this case, flight speed will increase and the aircraft cannot hover in place. Use Tripod Mode carefully." P4P User Manual, p. 26.

One of San Diego gallery was selected by judges to appear in the San Diego County Fair last summer:
Windansea 2 | robertrose.photos

To the comments that criticize the photo that tml4191 posted, let me respond that I know of no photographer who is trying to maximize verisimilitude, e.g., merely recording the scene as exact as possible. I know that I am not. I am trying to show you something you haven't seen before, and do so in a way that conveys some emotion. Even when I make a commercial photo for a realtor, I don't want to have it show the house "as it really is" but rather "as it could be." Maybe I get you angry. Maybe I make you contemplative. Maybe I make you happy. Maybe I make you relax. In any of those cases I have succeeded. Further, when photographing for myself it is not enough to just record a photo with studium (e.g., that which is typical of photos of that genre). I try for elusive punctum (e.g., that which pricks, such as the people on the cliff here Sunset Cliffs 2 | robertrose.photos), or the water appearing to flow out of the rocks here La Jolla | robertrose.photos)

Thanks for reading through to the end. Ramble over.

Bob Rose
www.barkingdeerphotography.com
www.robertrose.photos
www.rosepatents.com
Thank you. Your response gave me an artistic perspective.
Here is my long exposure shot with a the p3p. I used a ND64 by polar pro, but your shots are way better.
 
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Hey, if you want a good read about photography with a drone, check out The Photographer's Guide to Drones by Colin Smith. Available on Amazon.
 
Thank you. Your response gave me an artistic perspective.
Here is my long exposure shot with a the p3p. I used a ND64 by polar pro, but your shots are way better.

To get the type of long exposures you posted above in your opening thread will never happen with any phantom or ND filter you can mount on the camera. Those photos were taken with 10 stop or better ND filters and the exposure times were not in seconds but in minutes. For long exposure photography you need a tripod, shutter release, ND filter and a camera (which doesn't need to be pro gear).

While the photo you posted the link to is nice it is by no means anything like the photos you found in a Google search.
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