Drone Low Light Photography: Stacking & Long Exposure Tips

20 second summary

• Drones don't do great when there's limited light available, like around sunrise, sunset, and blue hour

• You can fly longer in low light by stacking higher-ISO images, just like you might in astrophotography

• You can also take longer exposure photos, but the number of bad images increases significantly as the shutter speed slows down

• If there's not much wind, 1-3 second exposures can turn out pretty well

• There are a few simple rules to increase your odds of a good image

Why Low Light Is Hard for Drones

Taking high quality drone still photos in bright lighting conditions with clear weather is easy. Well, at least getting them to be sharp and properly exposed is easy. Most modern photo drones can just be left on auto and get good results.

But if you find yourself flying around sunrise or sunset, the available light is much lower. With a regular camera, you can just stick it on a tripod and adjust your exposure settings. With a drone, your options are a little more limited.

You can slow down the shutter speed, but even drones with a bigger 1" sensor like the DJI Mavic 2 or DJI Air 2S aren't able to let in enough light to keep the shutter speed from getting very slow very quickly as the sun gets low on the horizon. Depending on the wind and flying conditions, you could end up ok with these slower shutter speeds (see the long exposure section below) but once the sun is below the horizon, the shutter speed becomes impractically slow, like multiple seconds long, in my experience.

The Core Problem: Noise vs. Motion Blur

So what do you do? Well, assuming that the aperture is already wide open at f/2.8 (if you have a variable aperture), then your only real option is to start cranking up the ISO. Unfortunately, while drone cameras have come a long way, their performance when you start increasing the ISO still leaves a lot to be desired. I've actually noticed some minor noise in photos taken at base ISO 100. But there's a solution to this! You can stack multiple high-ISO images taken in burst mode to get rid of most of the noise.

The Solution: High ISO Image Stacking

High ISO stacking is a technique used most often in astrophotography. Basically, you crank up the ISO to what would otherwise be a crazy high value, maybe ISO 10,000 or even higher (that ISO level is more common in astrophotography, I don’t even think drones are capable of going that high), then take multiple images of the exact same scene, one right after another. Then, when you're back in front of your computer, you can stack them together and get rid of most of the noise.

Why Stacking Works

The reason this works is that the noise you see at high ISO values is mostly random. So if you take 10 photos of the exact same scene, and each of those 10 has different noise patterns, your post-processing app of choice can effectively separate the signal (the image you want that stays the same in each of those 10 images) from the random noise (that randomly changes across each of the 10).

I've been able to remove a lot of noise from drone photos even with the ISO maxxed out above ISO 3,000, as shown in the example above (I definitely wouldn't recommend using ISO 3,000 - it was a complete accident on my part, but I was able to recover some images with this stacking technique). So with a slower shutter speed and higher ISO, you should be able to continue taking images even when others might have to give up and land.

How to Stack High ISO Drone Photos

In the Field (Drone Settings)

DJI drones have a built in photo mode that lets you take multiple images, called Multiple or Burst Mode. You can choose to have it take 3 or 5 photos back to back, using the same settings. So step 1 is to compose your shot, then set the shutter speed as fast as you realistically can and increase the ISO to somewhere in the ISO 800-1,600 range.

Remember that your drone is hovering in the air. Its gimbal makes a huge difference, but even the tiniest movement will show up when you take a long exposure, so a faster shutter speed will always increase your odds of getting a better, sharper final image. I would try as much as possible to keep the shutter speed faster than 1 second. At 1 second x 5 images, that means that both your subject and the drone have to both stay completely motionless for 5 full seconds. Not impossible, but it gets much more likely that something somewhere will move the longer it takes.

Check your exposure on the on screen histogram. It's ok if it's a little dark, since you can brighten it up a bit in post (you are shooting in RAW, right?!), but if it's too dark and the shadows are getting clipped, then you won't be able to recover them. Always listen to the histogram!

Once you've got your settings dialed in, set it to Multiple/Burst Mode, and choose 5 images. The more images you take, the better (if one doesn't turn out, you'll still have others, and more = better for stacking).

Then take the photo!

Stacking in Photoshop (Step-by-Step)

I use Lightroom and Photoshop, but other advanced photo editing apps should have similar functionality. My typical workflow is to go from Lightroom to Photoshop, but you could just as easily open up your images directly in Photoshop.

Step 1: Select the images you want to stack, right click on them, and choose Open as layers in Photoshop

Step 2: In Photoshop, make sure that the images to be stacked are aligned (even a tiny difference could mess up your image) by selecting all the layers, then Edit > Auto-align

Step 3: With all the layers still selected, go to Layers > Smart Objects > Convert to smart object

Step 4: Click on Layers > Smart Objects > Stacking > Mean

That's it! Save your image and edit as you like in Lightroom or Photoshop.

Long Exposures with a Drone — Is It Possible?

All of this talk about slowing down your shutter speed may have you wondering if you can take long exposure photos with your drone. The answer is: yes! But the reality is you'll be much more limited than if you were taking a long exposure from your camera solidly mounted on a tripod. In my experience, in decent conditions, you should be able to take a long exposure of 1-3 seconds or so and have it turn out.

Why Drones Struggle with Long Exposures

Remember, even the slightest movement will show up at that shutter speed, and your drone has multiple motors and blades spinning at high speeds in mid air, sometimes with wind blowing. Honestly, it's pretty amazing that anything turns out at all at such a slow shutter speed.

6 Rules for Better Low Light Drone Photos

Here are a few simple rules to increase your odds of getting quality, sharp images from your drone, even when it starts getting dark out.

1. Keep the shutter speed as fast as realistically possible, but don't avoid slower speeds altogether. Try to keep it faster than 1 second.

2. Make sure aperture is wide open if you have a variable aperture.

3. Increasing the ISO is a good way to give yourself a little more flexibility, but also introduces a whole lot of noise. Cancel out the noise by taking multiple shots and then stacking them.

4. When shooting in burst mode, don't touch the joysticks at all until it's clearly finished shooting (the spinning has stopped around the main capture button in-app). If you get impatient and tell the drone to move, it may move while an image is still being captured, ruining it.

5. Pay attention to the wind, if it's windy, do everything you can to keep the shutter speed as fast as possible.

6. Slower shutter speeds will generally increase the odds of getting blurry images, even if all the conditions seem perfect, so take more images than you think you need. That way you increase your odds of at least some of them being good. This is especially true if you're taking exposures of 1 second or longer.