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Does anyone know if Yuneec will be coming out with a firmware update that allows the camera shutter speed to be decreased below 1/30th. It would be awesome if we could have absolute control over the shutter speed and be able to capture night photography with max efficiency. Does anyone else desire this? #YuneecWish #prayOnIt #Goals
 
Assuming you have a fixed aperture lens (CGO2 or CGO3) you only options are to slow down shutter speed, increase EV or increase ISO to gather a low light image. Don't know if anything slower than 1/30 would work very well on a moving platform even if stabilized on a gimbal mount. Short of having a high end camera with "fast" (large objective) lens your options are as stated. Then there are night vision and thermal cameras too for those with very deep pockets.
 
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Assuming you have a fixed aperture lens (CGO2 or CGO3) you only options are to slow down shutter speed, increase EV or increase ISO to gather a low light image. Don't know if anything slower than 1/30 would work very well on a moving platform even if stabilized on a gimbal mount. Short of having a high end camera with "fast" (large objective) lens your options are as stated. Then there are night vision and thermal cameras too for those with very deep pockets.


This video shows how a DJI product allows the user to do long exposure shots. I dont understand why Yuneec doesn't give it's customers the same advantage
 
I see where it would be fun. Looks like the Phantom 3 has the upper hand with that camera feature. Surprised the 1 sec exposure would be usable. Since it's all digital Yuneec should be able to hook us up with more shutter options in the firmware pretty easily. Thanks for bringing this up.
 
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Standard video recording is at 30 frames per second. 24 is standard for cinema. Exposure at 1/30th of a second is the minimum you can do at a 30fps frame rate. Any less would not give you any better exposure since the shutter is open for the entire frame exposure. Since you cannot adjust iris (f-stop) the only way to increase exposure is to increase the ISO. Increasing ISO introduces noise to the video so if you are willing to live with that you should be able to get the camera to work well in low light. The higher frame rates have a similar limitation. 60fps, lowest would be 1/60 sec, 120fps, 120th sec and so on. The higher frame rates are good for doing slow motion video as the video stays very smooth when you slow it down in editing. The compromise here is that your low light capability is diminished at high frame rates.

Standard settings for video are to set shutter speed at double the frame rate you have set. That gives the right amount of motion blur in playback, similar to what your eye perceives. Increasing shutter speed starts to introduce some judder in the video but can give some interesting effects like when filming falling water - you can start to see the individual drops and spray on playback.

Sorry for the short course in video. CGO3 camera has manual settings but nothing is explained about them so I thought this might be helpful for you.
 
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For still photography it is a bit easier. Put the camera on 1/30th of a second and again since you can't adjust the iris, raise the ISO until you get an acceptable image. It will be grainy in low light. Experiment with the white balance setting to get the color tone you want and you should be good to go.
 
Another enhancement you may try is on the ST10+ screen tap the gear shaped button on the lower right next to where the resolution is displayed (ie 1020 x 1080F60) It will give you a menu. Select image style and select night. This should help for night shooting.
 
For still photography it is a bit easier. Put the camera on 1/30th of a second and again since you can't adjust the iris, raise the ISO until you get an acceptable image. It will be grainy in low light. Experiment with the white balance setting to get the color tone you want and you should be good to go.

Another enhancement you may try is on the ST10+ screen tap the gear shaped button on the lower right next to where the resolution is displayed (ie 1020 x 1080F60) It will give you a menu. Select image style and select night. This should help for night shooting.

I know you're trying to help, but I believe you're missing the point. For still photography at night, shutter speeds longer than 1/30 s is imperative. Bumping up the ISO is not an option due to horrible noise issues. The Q500 is stable enough to easily leave the shutter open for seconds, but having a 1/30 s limit imposed by the firmware renders the CGO3 useless for still photography in low light situations.

Sure, you can clean up a lot of the noise in post, but that always comes at cost (loss of detail being one). The Phantom3 can technically take 8 second exposures (practically about half that due to movement) and there is no reason the CGO3 shouldn't be able to too, the Q being both bigger and more stable in the air.

I'm seriously considering changing to DJI only because of this, which is a shame since the Q is otherwise an awesome quad.

I've talked to Yuneec about this before and they promised to get back to me, which was 6 monts ago. Today I emailed them again, but I'm not getting my hopes up. The CGO3+ on the H has the same limitation.
 
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Got a reply from Yuneec:

I followed this question up with our CGO technician experts and they said that such an update is not currently available, but as such does not mean that it will never be.

They don't have a clue basically.
 
Does anyone know if Yuneec will be coming out with a firmware update that allows the camera shutter speed to be decreased below 1/30th. It would be awesome if we could have absolute control over the shutter speed and be able to capture night photography with max efficiency. Does anyone else desire this? #YuneecWish #prayOnIt #Goals

Hi, what's the meaning with a longer exp. time than 1/30 in night photo? The only result will be a blurry pic.
 
I pushed Yuneec for a better answer than the one I got (see above) and this is what they told me:

Unfortunately that would be information only known by research and development in China, where our HQ is located. Any information not yet release to the public is considered classified and public and we would not be allowed to disclose the information, even if we did know. We thank you for your patience though.
 
I have learned over the years when it comes to technology that the experts on these subjects are not the company or manufacturer but the actual end users. They are the true Experts! CGO3 has 1/30 as it slowest setting. If Yuneec could have they would have given us more already. The CGO3 is at its peak settings. They will have to come up with a completely new camera model most likely for us to get another than what we have now.
 
Standard video recording is at 30 frames per second. 24 is standard for cinema. Exposure at 1/30th of a second is the minimum you can do at a 30fps frame rate. Any less would not give you any better exposure since the shutter is open for the entire frame exposure. Since you cannot adjust iris (f-stop) the only way to increase exposure is to increase the ISO. Increasing ISO introduces noise to the video so if you are willing to live with that you should be able to get the camera to work well in low light. The higher frame rates have a similar limitation. 60fps, lowest would be 1/60 sec, 120fps, 120th sec and so on. The higher frame rates are good for doing slow motion video as the video stays very smooth when you slow it down in editing. The compromise here is that your low light capability is diminished at high frame rates.

Standard settings for video are to set shutter speed at double the frame rate you have set. That gives the right amount of motion blur in playback, similar to what your eye perceives. Increasing shutter speed starts to introduce some judder in the video but can give some interesting effects like when filming falling water - you can start to see the individual drops and spray on playback.

Sorry for the short course in video. CGO3 camera has manual settings but nothing is explained about them so I thought this might be helpful for you.
I have a question: I have tried this, but want to make sure these steps are correct.
Change Auto to Manual
I'm shooting at 30 fps, so try to set the SS to 1/60, then change the iso, preferably somewhere around 100-200 to see if i ma getting a nice image, if I can't and there's too much light I can try a filter, to achieve the closest to these settings. even if I have to raise the SS.

when all this done, can I also lock in the WB if I like the image? what options are there to correct WB?

Finally if this is how I am setting up the CGO3+; can I also change the EV if I need to, or will that essentially override my other settings?
In summary are these my options, I appreciate your help!
Option 1: Manually set WB and EV
Option 2: set SS and ISO and WB?
is there an option 3 where I can set SS ISO WB and EV
 

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