P3 Video Settings for Night Time Lighted Football Field

Flushing Pheasant · Oct 6, 2015

Hi Phantom 3 Pilots - I've enjoyed very much my first month of ownerships with my P3 Advanced with great results during daylight... Had my first negative recording recently as I recorded after dark, and flew above a very well lit High School football field. Unfortunately, the video was way too bright, and seemed slightly out of focus as well. Can someone share their experiences and provide some suggestions for optimizing the camera settings to get the sharpest video possible.
Some things to note… I took the Phantom up to about 100 feet. The field lights on the opposite side are in the shot that I took, so getting some "bloom" from them. I tried to use the preset settings for this recording.
After the poor results, went back out last night to test some new options. Tried adjusting shutter speed and EV levels… Neither really improved the look of the resulting test video significantly.
Any help and suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Viral · Oct 6, 2015

You said you used presets, does that mean you used auto? Do you know what settings the camera used (iso, fps, shutter speed)? Did you have histogram turned on and if so, where were the peaks? Can you maybe post a link to the video so we can take a look to help provide some suggestions? It's hard to suggest anything useful without knowing a few more details.

Flushing Pheasant · Oct 6, 2015

Yes, I was in auto mode originally when I achieved worst results. Last night when I returned I played with ISO and shutter speed settings. I did not adjust FPS. Did not have histogram on, but turned on "bright lights warning" which showed me zebras in video. I will be happy to build a little video file to share showing some various clips for you to comment on. Thanks and I should have something in 15-20...

Flushing Pheasant · Oct 6, 2015

Here's a link I've posted to you tube.

Viral · Oct 12, 2015

The first thing to try is to take it out of auto mode, use manual mode turn on your histogram and dial in an ISO and shutter speed that puts your peaks near the center of the histogram. With that kind of motion, you'll want your shutter speed as close to twice the frame rate as possible. I'd aim for 30fps and 1/60 to start. See if you can do that without an Nd filter. Shoot in log mode to make the image flat and bring back to contrast and details in post using software. I'm looking at your video on my phone but it looks close enough to fix in post already

FunN4lo · Oct 12, 2015

I am far from the expert, but I don't think you will ever get great results with those low flat angles as you called them. I think those bright lights are in to far of contrast to the dark background to ever get a good setting. You will probably do much better above the lights looking down