Night time camera settings

[David McTurk]

I have just returned from my first night time flight where my intention was to take photos and video footage of statues in Falkirk Scotland known as the Kelpies.

The statues are approximately 120ft tall metal statues that are illuminated from inside them. In addition to this there are red spot lights surrounding them at night. Sadly almost every photograph that I took was either barely visible or completely grainy.

I would be grateful if someone could point me in the right direction with regards to the correct settings for my camera to take decent shots. I have attached two photographs of them. The one in focus was taken with my iPhone and the other much poorer image was taken from my phantom at almost the same time.

Any help would be grateful appreciated.

Kind Regards

 

[David McTurk]

After looking through some previous threads it appears that the first thing I should do is to tape up my front red LED lights to prevent the red glare, however I would still be grateful for someone to tell me how best to set up the camera settings

Kind Regards

David

 

[snowghost]

After looking through some previous threads it appears that the first thing I should do is to tape up my front red LED lights to prevent the red glare, however I would still be grateful for someone to tell me how best to set up the camera settings

Kind Regards

David

+1 Yes me too. I'd like some decent night shots of the City at twilight.

 

[Larry L]

David, yes tape up the front LEDs. Unfortunately! For a few reasons you will not get the greatest results at night. One, the sensor is very small so you will het a lot of noise. Second, the sensor sensitivity on the PV2+ only goes up to 400 ISO. ( that is not that high) you can add up to two stops in exposure compensation to allow a little more light to help.
Most importantly, shoot in Raw as there is so much more latitude working with the images to process them. The camera really works pretty good during the day or early evening but after that, the results are not that great. JMHO.
I am really looking very hard at the P3 as the sensor has a ISO setting to 1600 for low light imagery.
The inspire has a sensitivity of 3200 but I think I would need a new wife if I did that.

 

[TuT]

Sadly the Vision+ camera is very poor in low light. Way too much noise.

To improve videos you can try 720p with a slow frame rate. Personally I upgraded my camera to a GoPro 4. Much better in low light with 6400 I SO

 

[Mako79]

Like others have said, tape up the front LEDs. I have mine permanently on.
Use these settings:
1080p@25fps - the lower the fps, the more light is let in.
Set to cloud and iso 200. Increase exposure to +0.3.

 

[GSSP]

use point metering and they will go away