10 seconds for dng timed photos - why?

[h-e-n-r-y]

Anyone here who can explain why there is the limit of minimum 10 seconds delay between the timed shots for dng format? I understand that the dng is more space consuming and may need more time to save to memory but 10 seconds? I tried to manually take dngs as often as possible and managed to create 30 dngs in 1 minute. That's 1 per every 2 seconds - the same setting jpg timed photos can be made. I would really appreciate to do my timelapses with the dng format for better postprocessing!

Henry

 

[geigy]

This is just a guess. The Mavic needs time to process the sensor data and package it into a DNG file, but it also needs memory to store the images as they are being processed. Memory is limited, and this eventually limits the capture rate.

A typical way to design the software would be a pipeline architecture, with a task to copy the sensor data to a queue, and another task to save each image as a DNG file. The size of the queue would have to be finite, so even though you may be able to take 30 images in a row quickly, the system would not able to maintain that pace indefinitely.

The mod times of the individual dng files on the SD card might indicate the actual rate at which DNG files are saved. My guess is if you re-created your test the DNG files are created more than 2 seconds apart, which would say that the pipeline was getting further and further behind.

If the sensor data task compresses the data, then the capacity of the queue would be higher, and the time required to write the jpg to SD would be less than for a DNG file.

 

[Kilrah]

Probably just keeping quite some safety margin for slow cards.

 

[h-e-n-r-y]

This is just a guess. The Mavic needs time to process the sensor data and package it into a DNG file, but it also needs memory to store the images as they are being processed. Memory is limited, and this eventually limits the capture rate.

A typical way to design the software would be a pipeline architecture, with a task to copy the sensor data to a queue, and another task to save each image as a DNG file. The size of the queue would have to be finite, so even though you may be able to take 30 images in a row quickly, the system would not able to maintain that pace indefinitely.

The mod times of the individual dng files on the SD card might indicate the actual rate at which DNG files are saved. My guess is if you re-created your test the DNG files are created more than 2 seconds apart, which would say that the pipeline was getting further and further behind.

If the sensor data task compresses the data, then the capacity of the queue would be higher, and the time required to write the jpg to SD would be less than for a DNG file.

Ok, that sounds reasonable for me, thanks.

 

[Xcel]

It is a bit ridiculous considering you can capture around 35 DNG images in a minute using the 5 shot AEB option (using a Sandisk 64GB pro card). I always use 5 shot AEB and combine them in Lightroom. That's even more than the 2s interval jpg timer allows.

 

[h-e-n-r-y]

It is a bit ridiculous considering you can capture around 35 DNG images in a minute using the 5 shot AEB option (using a Sandisk 64GB pro card). I always use 5 shot AEB and combine them in Lightroom. That's even more than the 2s interval jpg timer allows.

geigy's Answer could be a reasonable explanation...It could be a different situation when shooting 20 minute timelapse.

 

[geigy]

The 10 seconds could also be an unnecessary limit, perhaps based on older hardware capabilities, in which case a feature request to DJI might be in order. Or another possibility is marketing not wanting to have the Mavic out-do the higher end products P4 or Inspire. All just guesses - I have no insider knowledge.

 

[BlakPhoenix]

Agreed that it's a silly limit to put in place when AEB allows your to burst 5 RAW images in a second.

 

[rautej1]

Any chance some 3rd party app like litchi helping to get raws in shorter intervals? Just thinking, this isn't really a pain in the ***. Technically, it should be possible to do at least 5 seconds. With a fast card, I mean it is RAW, so no processing, am I right? No processing means just feed it to the bloody card you slouch

 

[geigy]

RAW is generally slower than JPEG because of the volume of uncompressed data.

 

[rfc]

Why not just shoot 4k video and grab frames in post?

 

[rautej1]

Why not just shoot 4k video and grab frames in post?

they do not contain anywhere near as much info as a raw photo. I would like to grab them, post process them in a batch in lightroom and then make a hyperlapse. My dream setup would be three raws bracketed +/- 5ev every 2 seconds, merged to hdr, mastered in a batch a and merged to a video with stabilisation, etc... 4k HDR hyperlase

 

[htommy]

they do not contain anywhere near as much info as a raw photo. I would like to grab them, post process them in a batch in lightroom and then make a hyperlapse. My dream setup would be three raws bracketed +/- 5ev every 2 seconds, merged to hdr, mastered in a batch a and merged to a video with stabilisation, etc... 4k HDR hyperlase

going to have to use jpg.for 2 or 3 sec. intervals

 

[CynicalZombie]

I dislike this limitation as well, hopefully, the Mavic Pro 2 will be powerful enough to do this every 1 second rather than every 10.