Long exposures with the DJI Air3s

One of the things we are blessed with here in New Zealand is an abundance of night time shows in the form of the Aurora Australis or Southern Lights.

They are not as pretty as the Northern Lights, something I hope one day to be able to witness in person and of course film, but from time to time we get a pretty decent show.
Where I live I can’t see as far South as I would like so apart from the massive storm which graced Earth a couple of years back we generally only see faint glows where I am, further South getting the much better images.
Since I crashed my drone I was a bit glum and the thought of having to buy a new one was frankly downright depressing, however DJI were super cool about it and basically sent me a new one free of charge even though I didn’t have DJI care, so I’m guessing this crash wasn’t 100% my fault but they didn’t elaborate on what had gone wrong and I don’t care as I now have a new, fully functioning drone again.

One thing I wanted to try for a long time was long exposures to see if I could get the Southern Lights, so after a bit of research and the lights deciding to dance last night I sent the done up to around 30 meters above the house and shot the following image.

8” exposure ISO 6400 on the Air 3s

All in all I didn’t think this was terrible, certainly not as good as my Canon R5 MKll but for social media purposes not too bad. And the lights weren’t as good as they were in Wellington and of course in the South Island, but nonetheless.

I won’t be doing anymore night time flying as I checked the CAA rules this morning and apparently you’re not supposed to fly of a night here in NZ….. oooops, no excuses I should have know better, but as I had my auxiliary lights flashing, clear line of sight and I was only 30 meters above the ground as well as my own house in a rural situation I don’t feel too bad, but rules are rules and so this is a one off.