Wishlist: I wish I could take a photo while filming

CrowsFeet · Jun 12, 2017

Maybe it's possible but I can't get it to work. Is it possible to take a high resolution photo while capturing video? I keep stopping filming, switch to camera (still mode), take photo..
Back to filming mode, continue.

Would be cool if the still photo button worked while making a movie. Is it? And if not, I wonder why not.

Blades · Jun 12, 2017

Screen shot
With you tab or phone
Not sure from your mp?

CrowsFeet · Jun 12, 2017

Could do that, but looking to keep the high resolution.

Robbyg · Jun 12, 2017

No you cannot take a photo while filming video.
The best you can do is either pause the video and shoot or just take a screen grab. Yep it sucks but thats how it has always been.

Rob

Michael Ainsworth · Jun 12, 2017

Or when you are using your editing programme just take a frame off as a still.

boone · Jun 12, 2017

Michael Ainsworth said:
Or when you are using your editing programme just take a frame off as a still.

This is really the only option that will preserve the quality. I completely agree that it would be nice to have the same functionality that my cell phone (that seems far less technically advanced) has. Seems like it would be simple. I code for a living, so I'm not just some idiot talking out of his neck. Ok, the idiot thing might be open to discussion, but I'm definitely not talking out of my neck.

tkinva · Jun 12, 2017

I rarely shoot stills anymore.

I'm shooting 4K - 4096 x 2160 - 24fps.

The quality is about the same as with still shots, but cropped to 8 megapixels.

--
You can see some shots here. Most are from video capture - - Art from the Air - -

trebor27 · Jun 12, 2017

boone said:
I completely agree that it would be nice to have the same functionality that my cell phone (that seems far less technically advanced) has.

Well seeing as the Mavic is just running Android, I'd be surprised if it's much more complicated than a cell phone, with added speed controllers for 4x motors, to be honest...

Think if it as an iPhone with propellers! ;-) But it definitely generates more heat!

Joymaker · Mar 6, 2018

I definitely second this wish!! How horrible for the flow of the video, to have to stop in midair, switch modes, snapshot, switch modes back, resume video and move on! My silly little $150 pocket camera can do better! It has a button that I can push to take a photo right in the middle of taking video, no problem!

Dear DJI, would you consider giving us a button that can do that? This is definitely the single most desirable upgrade to the drone that I can imagine. I wonder if it could be done in firmware without any hardware modification?

Joymaker · Mar 6, 2018

Michael Ainsworth said:
Or when you are using your editing programme just take a frame off as a still.

What editing program or programs you recommend, that can do this nicely?

Simmo · Mar 6, 2018

Joymaker said:
My silly little $150 pocket camera can do better! It has a button that I can push to take a photo right in the middle of taking video, no problem!

Check the resolution of the photo that you take whilst recording video.... most of the time, to my knowledge, the photo is simply a screenshot of the video, and quite low in resolution. If your camera is recording in very high resolution, then obviously the photo (screen shot) will be higher too.
Compare two photos, click the shutter whilst recording for one, then stop everything and take a still for two..

Lake_Flyer · Mar 6, 2018

If I need a really good photo during a video flight, I have to land anyway, and take off the ND filter before taking off again for a photo. Being able to take a photo while shooting video (which I always do with ND on), is not as practical as one would think. A video still would give practically the same blurry image as a photo, as a logical result of the low shutter speed.

So, I usually take stills from the video, or have another flight specially for photo.

laurens23 · Mar 6, 2018

There is not enough processing power to handle both video and photo at the same time and there is not enough bandwidth to write both video and photo to the SD card at the same time.

If you want to take an independent photo, while recording and processing the video, you need to separately, in parallel, poll and pull the sensor data and write this raw data to the SD card as a DNG, or process it to a jpg. you can't process, because video processing is already running. you cant write to SD because video is already writing near max speed.

most cameras will just take a snapshot of the processed video feed and store this as a JPG. a JPG is relatively small and the processing has (mostly) been done for the video already.

Mavic air might theoretically be able to offload the DNG to the internal memory while recording the video to the SD.

daisy-girl · Mar 7, 2018

tkinva said:
I rarely shoot stills anymore.

I'm shooting 4K - 4096 x 2160 - 24fps.

The quality is about the same as with still shots, but cropped to 8 megapixels.

--
You can see some shots here. Most are from video capture - - Art from the Air - -

I'm glad I clicked the link, as I thoroughly enjoyed what I found there.

Thanks for sharing!

Lake_Flyer · Mar 7, 2018

The problem with video stills is normally the low cinematic shutter speed that we normally use.
If only stills is the goal, you can take off any ND filter, set the highest possible shutter speed and film in 4K.
Now you can choose from a lot of usable frames, almost in the same quality as when you would use photo mode. As video footage it will be too crisp and flickering of course. I would always recommend a good lens hood though, to avoid prop shadow (which you could also get in photo mode without hood) in a bright sun.

daisy-girl · Mar 7, 2018

CrowsFeet said:
Maybe it's possible but I can't get it to work. Is it possible to take a high resolution photo while capturing video? I keep stopping filming, switch to camera (still mode), take photo..
Back to filming mode, continue.

Would be cool if the still photo button worked while making a movie. Is it? And if not, I wonder why not.

Even if the MP had that capability, I wouldn't use it, as I am not interested in stills with a 16:9 aspect ratio -- not when the MP offers fabulous stills in either a 4:3 or 3:4 ratio by switching from landscape to portrait view. BTW, my understanding is that, of all the DJI drones, only the MP's gimbal/camera can do this.

ValueTactics · Mar 8, 2018

+1
Sometimes a particular view catches my eye as a good still shot. I even reflexively press the still shot button but I'm usually always recording so it does nothing. Yes, I could grab a still from the video later, but I might not be able to remember that specific shot when reviewing video. It would also just be a convenience to have it save stills of the current video frame when you hit the physical button.

pgh1949 · Mar 8, 2018

My previous drone was a Hubsan H501S which could do exactly what is being asked. I was somewhat surprised when I started with my MP and couldn't get it to take stills. I thought it was faulty until I realised I had to stop filming first. And the Hubsan was only £180.

CrowsFeet · Apr 2, 2018

No news in this being added.

Paul2660 · Apr 2, 2018

It's possible with the P4, so possibly DJI can add it to the Mavic but I doubt it, as they tend to create such differences for a marketing purpose. Just like why the Spark can't take a raw file, only jpg, when it's basically the same camera as the mavic, and for the camera to create a jpg, it had to have a raw in the process anyway. Would love to have the Spark/Raw for a future update from DJI, and I agree it would be nice to have the MPP be able to do what the P4 does, in that it can take a photo and video without having to stop the video.

However since I do a lot of panos from stills, I would still need to stop the video.

Plus IMO if you are after the best still, it won't be a jpg captured from a video, it should always be a raw capture.

Paul Caldwell