If you are trying to do long exposure with the DJI Air 2s, the slowest shutter speed of the drone is 8-seconds. I wanted to see if I could capture a picture that was clear at this shutter speed. It is one thing to take an 8-second exposure with a camera on a tripod. It is another thing to take an exposure with a drone hovering in the air. The Air 2s uses Real Steady to stabilize the camera. But I thought 8-seconds would be a bit optimistic.
I took the drone out on a clear night to Lombardi Field in Old Bridge with little to no wind. I captured several pics using different shutter speeds. Most long exposures turned out blurry as expected. Unfortunately, none of the 8-second exposures were worthy to post.
But I did manage to capture this 5-second exposure picture.
The difference between this picture and the ones that did not turn out was that this was the one closest to the ground. That would make sense in that as you fly higher, the wind will increase which would decrease the stability of the drone. Please note that I did do some retouching of the photo in Adobe Lightroom and applied noise reduction with Topaz AI.
Even though I was not able to get a clear 8-second exposure, the low light capabilities of the Air 2s continue to impress me. I love this drone.
This was the first time I tried this. So I will plan to try this again in the near future.
Rob Wasilewski says
I’ve experimented a bunch with my Air2s at night and long exposures. Wind is a huge factor but even on a still night generally I find 2 seconds is about the limit for tack sharp image. When i do time lapses I like to shoot them at ISO100 and 1/4 to 1 1/3 seconds depending on how brightly lit the area is. I have actually used a 2 stop ND filter at night to get more of a streaking effect to car headlights. Here’s a recent video along with the settings i used. I was happy with the result. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmarDT6oGhc