How is everyone getting still shots from the Mavic?

[kodiak1120]

I realize there is a still shot button, but you have to stop taking video to take the still photo. Also, I've noticed that other than the photos being 4:3, they appear to be the same quality as when I just pause the video.

What I've been doing is just playing the video in the stock Windows media player in full screen, and pausing where ever I want a still shot, and using "Print Screen" to get a screen capture. I then paste that in MS Paint, and save it as a .png file.

Is there a better way to do this? Any advantage to actually taking a picture with the snapshot button? I prefer to use the video, so I can basically get continuous "shots" and then choose later. I usually do though pause the drone in mid-flight in places that I plan to get a still from.

 

[Anthony Viscomi]

My understanding is that the still photos taken while using video are a lower quality than when using the actual photo mode.

 

[Eric]

I stop the drone. I stop taking video. I take the photo (.dng format.) It's appreciably higher quality than a still from video.

 

[Robert Mitchell]

The pixel count is a bit higher when using the photo mode. You get the full 4000 horizontal pixel dimension, vs 3840 when shooting 4k. Plus, if you are shooting raw, you get a lot more dynamic range out of your still/video frame.

That said, if you are just doing web posts or instagram stuff the difference between a 4k frame capture and a dedicated still (.jpg) is negligible.

 

[LordJones]

I stop recording and take a still, you can change the 4.1 ratio I also shoot in raw, actually pleased with shots done so far on instagram NicholasEJones


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[Annevanzwol]

Nice little trick I learned to capture 4k stills on a 1080p monitor. In the Nvidia control panel (assuming you have an Nvidia card) you can choose a higher resolution using the DSR feature. Pause the movie and do a screendump. Happy with the results.

 

[Robbyg]

So far the still pictures have been so unimpressive that I have kind of decided to just keep the video rolling. It may be me and not the camera. I may need to play with it more but so far I am not impressed.

 

[Kilrah]

RAW shots with proper processing defintiely give you more than a video capture. But the latter is the easy option when you don't need the best you can get.

 

[Fly_Me_To_The_Moon]

I realize there is a still shot button, but you have to stop taking video to take the still photo. Also, I've noticed that other than the photos being 4:3, they appear to be the same quality as when I just pause the video.

What I've been doing is just playing the video in the stock Windows media player in full screen, and pausing where ever I want a still shot, and using "Print Screen" to get a screen capture. I then paste that in MS Paint, and save it as a .png file.

Is there a better way to do this? Any advantage to actually taking a picture with the snapshot button? I prefer to use the video, so I can basically get continuous "shots" and then choose later. I usually do though pause the drone in mid-flight in places that I plan to get a still from.

Wouldn't the Windows Snipping tool be much easier and faster? That would drive me nuts going through MS paint and all that.

 

[morgish]

I realize there is a still shot button, but you have to stop taking video to take the still photo. Also, I've noticed that other than the photos being 4:3, they appear to be the same quality as when I just pause the video.

What I've been doing is just playing the video in the stock Windows media player in full screen, and pausing where ever I want a still shot, and using "Print Screen" to get a screen capture. I then paste that in MS Paint, and save it as a .png file.

Is there a better way to do this? Any advantage to actually taking a picture with the snapshot button? I prefer to use the video, so I can basically get continuous "shots" and then choose later. I usually do though pause the drone in mid-flight in places that I plan to get a still from.

To capture a still from a video, VLC would have to be the fastest / easiest way to do it.

Here is a full guide: Take Picture Snapshot of a Video Using VLC Media Player

 

[wolfmad]

I like to use GoPro Studio-
You can edit it first and output different formats.


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[larkin]

You can also used Divinci Resolve in the Edit screen to save a still. I don't think it's at all possible to have the Mav save a photo while recording video even though this is not an uncommon features on point and shoot cameras. While not a big deal, enabling this would also enable the photo gesture to work while recording video, which is what I had expected it would do.

 

[ElGuapo]

I stop the drone. I stop taking video. I take the photo (.dng format.) It's appreciably higher quality than a still from video.

Same here, I stop the drone, stop taking video, take the photo. I've had better luck shooting in jpg than .dng.

Picture below is straight out of the Mavic, no post processing. Only trick for this was a Polar Pro filter.

 

[BlakPhoenix]

DNG shooting all the way. For one, you can shoot in portrait, taking a still from a video will limit you to landscape photos. In post a RAW file can be pushed far more than a video can. There's a lot of detail in the RAW files that gets crushed out when shooting in video.

One large problem with taking screen grabs from video is that the frame you want may not be a true image frame, but an interpolated frame. The Mavic shoots video at a max of 60mb/s, which if you say that every 8 video frames is a true image gives you around 2-2.5MB per frame image, with the rest of the information being in the interpolation. By contrast 4:3 a RAW file is ~15MB on its own. So just from this alone you can see how much information is being lost by the video to fit within the 60mb/s limit.

You can quite easily push the highlights/shadows by a stop or two and the dynamic range is quite nice (as you can see in the second image which was shot facing nearly into the sun at sunrise). You can see the shadows from the trees, as well as the colour in the sky and cloud details. The haze in the second image is caused by mist and salt spray that was present that morning.

Here's a few of the shots after white balance and exposure pass:

You can view more here: (@rorogophoto) • Instagram photos and videos

 

[Slayerstwin]

Not as good but it's still work in progress. I'm no photographer and still trying to figure out what everything does...

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[Slayerstwin]

Weird it came out Blurry when I posted it


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[Slayerstwin]

Not as good but it's still work in progress. I'm no photographer and still trying to figure out what everything does...

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[Slayerstwin]

And that's straight from the mavic with no fixing this and fixing that as far as fixing color and everything else


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[larkin]

Have you heard of the edit post feature though

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[Slayerstwin]

On the DJI go4 app?


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