Night flying.....

[Cranky Trapper]

I love night flying. There is nobody awake and I can get great city scapes. I wanted to get more but the temperature dropped to -15 degrees celcius here in British Columbia Canada. I've found the camera acts up anything below -10 degrees and recording becomes unreliable. I flew for about 30 minutes one night and returned home to find some of the best locations I recorded (at the end of the 2nd battery) never recorded. It had just dumped a whole bunch of snow, nobody on the roads, and I flew over the river and bridge with the lights, fog and snow. It was beautiful out, but no video. Here are some pics of the beginning of the night way up high.View attachment 4711 View attachment 4714 View attachment 4716

Great photos! Thanks for sharing them.

 

[Firefly]

Finally got to fly before I closed the hill for the night!

 

[Cranky Trapper]

Finally got to fly before I closed the hill for the night!

That looks way cool!

 

[bbissitt]

I must need to do something else to my new unit, I set it at nighttime and went up 30 or 40 feet and got scared because my screen was black and was afraid to fly it? should I just rely on line of sight and see what video I get from around the neighborhood? new to flying and still afraid to wreck what I paid good money for? I'm sure the home button will take care of me.

 

[ChuckBridges]

In Canada, our only problem with night flying is Transport Canada tells us to fly in the daytime. On the Safe Flying page, it is their first point on the DO column. I am too chicken to break rules....

Have fun!

 

[Firefly]

At night, you have to put the camera in manual mode. This will allow you ro manually adjust the shutter speed and the ISO. The video I took was my first ever night flight. I just got the Q500 off the ground in a hover, and adjusted the shutter speed and ISO until I got what looked like a decent picture on the ST10+ and then flew it. Unfortunately being my first time I can't tell you what i set it at. I will tell you that you want the lowest ISO that you can and have a decent picture as far as lighting is concerned. The higher the ISO the more grainy the picture will look. Its a fine line getting the ISO to give you a picture that the lighting looks good and the quality is good as well.
Unless you lost WiFi signal and the link to the camera from the controller, if the screen is black then the video will be black as well.

 

[Mikef53]

There is no night fling in US either, but why? I can see my nav lights and live in the country so I have flown mine at night, just didn't shoot any video as there is no ambient light other than what glows from the LEDs. Just know your terrain and have fun. I always take mine up past 100 feet to make sure I clear any tree in the area and if I loose sight I just hit return home and she comes back.
By the way nice video and flying Firefly!

 

[Firefly]

Thanks mikef53.
You are correct! There is no night flying in the US. Fortunately where I flew at the ski hill there is enough ambient light to see the quad at 100ft. It was always in my line of sight. I did it more to take the video and check out the camera than just to fly. I was impressed at the results. I am by no means close to an expert on photography. I took a crash course on YouTube and Pinterest about Apeture, Shutter speed, and ISO. Once you have a good understanding how the 3 go hand in hand all you need is practice and trial and error!

 

[Mikef53]

I need to learn more about the pro settings on my camera, so right now i'm just using the default setting on CGo3.I like to fly around some at dusk to night and the LEDs are bright enough to keep track, but I did loose it once but clicked return home and she came right back. I am going down by the Tennessee river tomorrow and hope the weather holds out so I can the river and get some good video.
I'll start checking out youtube videos and other places to learn more about the settings. Thanks for the advice on where to get the info!
Happy flying, and stay safe, I was a firefight early in my career, we were police and fire but when I made chief and moved to state police I had to turn in my bunker gear. You have a dangerous job and we appreciate what you do!

 

[Firefly]

Thank you Mikef53.
If you just get the basic understanding of how shutter speed and ISO affect the picture you'll be fine. Just play with it. Like i said. I just watched some YouTube and a few articles on Pinterest. Even if you dont fully understand it, just put the quad in a low hover, and adjust the ISO and shutter speed untill you have a satisfactory picture on the screen, but do remeber the higher the ISO the more grainy the picture. I try to make as much asjustment with shutter speed and then tweek the ISO to get the best picture with the lowest setting. You can also use the EV (exposure value) + or - to adjust the lighting of the video to tweek it even more.
If you do lose your WiFi link, the camera will still continue to record to the card.
Have fun! Be safe!

 

[Tomcat144]

Finally got to fly before I closed the hill for the night!

What camera settings did you use?

 

[Lost at sea since 1989]

Spectacular images @ avery and david. Hmmm, might have fly off my ship at night and photo her all lit up.

 

[thewineguy]

Did some night flying for the first time a couple of days ago... The camera (even in night mode) isn't the clearest, but still great quality... Wish it had a zoom feature.

 

[Mikef53]

Flying with the head grounds keeper at the minor league field near my house.
Just wanted to see if it would let me post a picture, not sure how to do video's yet.

 

[Jafo]

Nice grass....

Upload your videos to You tube and then post a link to the video here.

 

[thewineguy]

I did a flyover brief fly around our car lot this past Sunday.. video link is below