Hey, everybody!

I really want to shoot beautiful flight footage at night. But I found out that electronic stabilization gives some more or less acceptable results only if I shoot at shutter speed 1/120 or shorter. This is true for GoPro (11, 12) with stabilization in Gyroflow and Insta360 Go2 with stabilization in Insta360 Studio and, as I understand, for all action cameras with electronic stabilization. 

If we make shutter speed longer than 1/120 (for example 1/50), then after stabilization the whole image, all light sources will be heavily blurred. Thus we will get a defective video. If we make the shutter speed 1/120 or shorter (for example 1/240), we will simply not have enough light for shooting and we will have to increase the ISO, which will make our picture unnecessarily noisy.

The only way out of the situation, which I found, is to use an action camera with optical stabilization (OIS). Such a camera is for example Sony x3000. But this camera according to reviews is very fragile and is already out of production (although I can still buy it from hand).

Can you tell me why electronic stabilization depends so much on shutter speed? What action cameras for night shooting have you used? What other cameras with optical stabilization (OIS) could you recommend?

With the newer Gopros (8 and up) the gyro is synced in camera to the video, this means stabilization software like gyroflow does not need to run any optical flow analysis on the video to try to manually sync up the gyro to the video as it is already synced. Therefore it should not have any trouble stabilizing your footage. But the problem you are seeing at 1/50s shutter speed is motion blur. This is just the nature of photography, a slow shutter speed combined with a moving camera results in a blurred or streaking image.

The problem is motion blur in an image will give clues to our brain what direction the motion is moving in, for example you are rolling right, you will see the blur trail in an arc to the left. But when the footage is stabilized, the video loses the right roll motion, but the motion blur is still there suggesting a different motion from what you are seeing, and that is very unnatural to our eyes and often easily noticed. Unfortunately stabilization software cannot really do anything with motion blur, that is why Gyroflow recommends you only use sharp footage if you plan to stabilize it. I guess optical stabilization would be superior in this case as it will also reduce motionblur, but again you need a drone large enough to carry such a camera.

However there are some ways to reduce the motion blur
- use a wide a lens as possible or film your subject from greater distance (motion will be reduced)
- fly as smoothly as possible without sudden rolls/yaws/pitches even small ones
(if stabilization is done in the same direction you are moving, then the motion blur will look natural)
- consider running higher ISO so you can maintain higher shutter speed, there are some good denoising post processing options

I don't do night flying, but theoretically something with a larger sensor, lower pixel count, larger aperature lens (lower f stop number), wider angle, would potentially allow you to run a higher shutter speed and still get good night image.

As far as action cameras are concerned, the Insta 360 Ace Pro is currently clearly the best for shooting at night thanks to additional AI processing. I haven't looked up exactly how it works, but slower motion night shots are very good for an action camera. I haven't seen footage from the quad, maybe something can be found.

In any case, if it's worth anything, you need a cinelifter with a camera with the corresponding lens. I don't know what the expectations are, it all depends on that.

The Ace Pro uses digital stabilization, although the low light image does look very nice, in this video you can see what looks look like stabilization artefacts? in the dimmer scenes. This was just shot walking, I would image drone vibrations are much more demanding.



The reviewer does mention another option, and that is gimbal stabilized camera. That is also another good alternative to optical stabilization and will also reduce motion blur... and who does better drone gimbal camera stabilization...

I took a look at the Insta 360 Ace Pro - a very interesting camera option indeed. Maybe I will buy it and test flying with it.
OIS, gimbal... apparently AI is also a way to help in this case.
Gimbal stabilization is a really good option, but it will require really big drones. I would like to stay in the 3.5/5" format.

Not sure, but it seems the in-camera stabilization has artefacts even in daylight? If you look at the sun reflected off the waves that pulsing effect looks very disturbing. I guess you can turn it off and use Gyroflow, I believe that is also the reviewers preference.

https://youtu.be/H9gHHdNKRq4?t=352

Here, I found a very good video comparing optical and electronic stabilization https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=3OrEOx7vBVo

See it from 4:44 ...