Downtown Tampa Skyline - Lowlight / Slow Shutter Speed Test

[herein2021]

I never like assuming things about my camera gear so when I am unsure about something I test it out so that I know the limits of my equipment before I need to use it for a paying client. For this test I wanted to see what was the slowest shutter speed I could use on a completely windless day with the Autel EVO II 6K before the footage is too blurry to be usable. So for this test I created images of downtown Tampa FL shot with the following settings:

Aperture: F2.8
ISO: 100
Shutter Speed: 1/5s
WB: Auto
Format: RAW

The two images below were shot with these settings. On a completely windless day it looks like 1/5s is the slowest shutter possible that will still produce useable footage. This is not a bad thing at all by any means, in fact it is incredibly impressive for a drone, but it is still too fast to get the long exposure look for waterfalls and the contrails from car taillights. Close inspection of the source images will reveal fine details were starting to be lost due to the slow shutter speed combined with micro movements from the drone.

 

[MNT DRONE SOLUTIONS]

This is an outstanding aircraft! People like us are the only ones that would recognize things like this. The average client would never look twice. Great pics and thanks for sharing the results!

 

[herein2021]

This is an outstanding aircraft! People like us are the only ones that would recognize things like this. The average client would never look twice. Great pics and thanks for sharing the results!

You are absolutely right, I skip the mainstream and just look for what works. I do the same thing with all of my gear, I don't use Sony for images (or video), or Canon for video. My cinema gear is an odd mixture that happens to work perfectly for me but you won't see my equipment selections in any YouTube video.

The EVO II 6K is absolutely perfect for the projects that I work, the sensor is incredible and its such a relief to not have geofencing...yet only people like us would see that.