To achieve great-looking low-light with the HERO 11, you need to use some specific settings GoPro Hero 11 night settings.

These settings help avoid grainy or noisy low-light shots and make them look appealing to the eye.

In this post, you’ll learn about the best GoPro HERO 11 low-light and night settings for both videos and stills.

 

GoPro HERO 11 Night Video Settings 

Like most of the recent GoPro models, the GoPro HERO 11 features a Night Preset too. The Night preset automatically adjusts your camera’s shutter speed to let in more light for your shot. It’s perfect for dim or dark scenes, but it’s not recommended for handheld or mounted shots when the camera is moving.

Here are the best settings for shooting nighttime videos with your HERO 11 Black:

Use Low Frame Rate

Using high frame rates (FPS) isn’t recommended at night or in low-light scenarios. This slows down the camera’s shutter speed and lets more light reach your camera’s lens.

Therefore, you should go for low frame rates like 24fps, 25fps, or 30fps on your GoPro HERO 11 in low light.

More about what is frame rate and how to use it here: GoPro Hero 11 FPS – Frame Rate Settings Explained.

Increase ISO (Appropriately)

Although using higher ISO values results in brighter images, which is why it’s great to increase ISO when shooting low-light or night scenes. However, high ISO also increases noise. Therefore, don’t go overboard with ISO settings. Increase the ISO appropriately.

The default 1600 ISO Limit is, usually, the best for low-light shots on the GoPro HERO 11 Black.

Increase EV Comp

Exposure Value Compensation or EV Comp affects the brightness of the footage captured on GoPro HERO 11. It lets you adjust the brightness within the prevailing ISO Limit. The default EV Comp value on the GoPro HERO 11 is 0.

In low-light conditions, consider increasing the EV Comp by +1.0. This will help you achieve a significantly brighter image.

Choose SuperView instead of Wide

GoPro SuperView reads the full sensor, while GoPro Wide lens does a crop. And, cropping the footage usually means bigger pixels, which in turn make noise all the more visible.

Therefore, using GoPro SuperView essentially makes the noise less obvious.

What is superview and why to use it? Learn it here: GoPro Superview FOV Explained [+ Settings Cheat Sheet].

Shutter Speed should be twice the Frame Rate

When shooting low-light footage using the HERO 11 Black, ensure that the shutter speed is twice the frame rate for quality shots. For example, if you’re shooting the video at 24fps, set the shutter speed at 1/48.

Otherwise, if the shutter speed is set to auto or below twice the frame rate, you’ll notice that the image will get a bit too bright. This introduces too much motion blur and makes the video look a bit odd.

Based on the above information, here are the actual low-light/night video settings that you should use on your HERO 11:

  • Resolution/FPS: 4K/24fps
  • Lens: SuperView
  • HyperSmooth: On
  • Bit Rate: High
  • Shutter Speed: 1/48s
  • White Balance: Auto
  • ISO Min: 100
  • ISO Max: 800
  • Sharpness: Medium

Read this article to learn more about shutter speed: How To Manually Adjust GoPro Shutter Speed?

 

GoPro HERO 11 Night Photo Settings 

In the GoPro HERO 11 Black, the Night Photo Mode allows you to select a shutter speed longer than 1/125th of a second, which is pretty awesome! Such long exposures are great, especially for low-light astrophotography.

Here are some of the best GoPro HERO 11 night mode photo settings recommended for different low-light scenarios:

Dark Sky Without Moon

Expose the shot for 30 seconds at ISO 1600 when shooting under a dark sky with no moon.

Night Sky without Moon

Recommended Settings:

  • Mode: Night Photo
  • Shutter: 30s
  • ISO Min + Max: 1600
  • Output: RAW

Dark Sky With a Dull, Waning Moon

Expose the shot for 30 seconds at ISO 1600 when shooting the dark sky with a dull & waning moon (if you are shooting against the moon).

When shooting with the moon behind you, expose the shot at ISO 800 for 30 seconds.

gopro hero 11 star trails night mode

Recommended Settings:

  • Mode: Night Photo
  • Shutter: 30s
  • ISO Min + Max: 1600
  • Output: RAW

Dark Sky With a Bright Moon

During a full moon night or a night with a bright moon, you need to pay close attention to the high-contrast areas. If there are a lot of shadows, expose the shot at ISO 1600 for 20 seconds.

Dark Sky with Bright Moon

Recommended Settings:

  • Mode: Night Photo
  • Shutter: 20s
  • ISO Min + Max: 1600
  • Output: RAW

In case you need a faster shutter speed, use ISO 3200 for 10 seconds.

Recommended Settings:

  • Mode: Night Photo
  • Shutter: 20s
  • ISO Min + Max: 3200
  • Output: RAW

In case the lighting is consistently bright throughout the scene, expose to ISO 800 for 15 seconds. If you want even better image quality in this scenario, expose it to ISO 400 for 30 seconds.

Skyline Shots

For nighttime skyline shots, you should not really keep the ISO too high if you want to capture the maximum image quality. Note that this may result in a bit of motion blur.

If you don’t want any motion blur, go for the regular Photo Mode with a faster-than-usual shutter speed and an ISO set up to 3200.

Night cityscape

Pro Tip: Shoot RAW image

There are a lot of benefits to shooting RAW images with the HERO 11 rather than in the JPEG format. Therefore, always turn RAW ‘on’ in Protune when clicking low-light stills. The resulting image file will include more data as compared to what you’d get with the regular JPEG image. So, if you plan to post-process your photos, it’s a great idea to use a RAW image.

You can learn more about Protune here: BEST GoPro Hero 11 Protune Settings [Cheat Sheet Download]

GoPro jpeg and RAW processed file

 

 

Thanks for reading! 🙂

I hope this guide helped you learn about the best settings for low-light night videos on the GoPro HERO 11 camera 🙂

 

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