Air 2 DOES have 4K hyperlapse

Ice_2k · May 23, 2020

Ok, this is a weird one. I asked this question numerous times and all the answers I got from DJI representatives were "no, no 4K hyperlapse. Just 1080p or (a highly crippled) 8K". Well, crap. After playing with it today, it turns out the MA2 does have 4K. Just stick it into 1080p mode, enable saving the RAW images and go. The video compiled by the drone will be 1080p but the RAW images left behind are the full 12MP size, so 4K. Really weird how nobody from DJI support or moderators on the DJI forum knew that.

gottahavit · May 23, 2020

So it takesthe photos in 4k, but you have to put together the hyperlapse? not too bad,seems silly they wont do the last step

Deleted member 125666 · May 23, 2020

That seems to be a nice undocumented feature. If you look at the raws do they seem "proper" in quality if you would compare them to a 12 mp photo?

Ice_2k · May 23, 2020

gottahavit said:
So it takesthe photos in 4k, but you have to put together the hyperlapse? not too bad,seems silly they wont do the last step

Maybe processing the full res images when compiling the video would put too much effort on the CPU and would require more processing time (thus increasing the minimum interval, just like 8K can't go lower than 6s). Anyway, I don't even care about this, I want the RAW files to put it together myself, you're gonna get much better results when editing the RAWs directly.

Ice_2k · May 23, 2020

Magic_mavic said:
That seems to be a nice undocumented feature. If you look at the raws do they seem "proper" in quality if you would compare them to a 12 mp photo?

Yes, they definitely look crisper than the auto-generated 1080p video

MaSz · May 23, 2020

Thanks for sharing that info! I have to yet try hyperlapse but need to wait for better weather.

Hiflyer808 · May 27, 2020

Ice_2k said:
Ok, this is a weird one. I asked this question numerous times and all the answers I got from DJI representatives were "no, no 4K hyperlapse. Just 1080p or (a highly crippled) 8K". Well, crap. After playing with it today, it turns out the MA2 does have 4K. Just stick it into 1080p mode, enable saving the RAW images and go. The video compiled by the drone will be 1080p but the RAW images left behind are the full 12MP size, so 4K. Really weird how nobody from DJI support or moderators on the DJI forum knew that.

Good to know! So no reason really to use the 8k at all. With 1080p you get the extra options like circle and up to 1 shot every 2 seconds instead of every 6 seconds, plus you get the raw, plus 4k is actually about 8mp so with your 4k timeline you are actually downscaling your 12mp images a bit.

Ice_2k · May 27, 2020

Hiflyer808 said:
Good to know! So no reason really to use the 8k at all. With 1080p you get the extra options like circle and up to 1 shot every 2 seconds instead of every 6 seconds, plus you get the raw, plus 4k is actually about 8mp so with your 4k timeline you are actually downscaling your 12mp images a bit.

Yes to all of that except downscaling. The difference from 12MP to 8MP comes from the fact that the photos are 4:3 and the videos are cropped 16:9. So you're just losing the top and bottom parts of your video (or more from the top and none of the bottom or viceversa), but the width stays about the same (4000 becomes 3840).

Hiflyer808 · May 27, 2020

Ice_2k said:
Yes to all of that except downscaling. The difference from 12MP to 8MP comes from the fact that the photos are 4:3 and the videos are cropped 16:9. So you're just losing the top and bottom parts of your video (or more from the top and none of the bottom or viceversa), but the width stays about the same (4000 becomes 3840).

Yeah, just a tiny bit of room on the sides, but it's cool to be able to digitally tilt up or down..

lee82gx · May 28, 2020

Ice_2k said:
Yes to all of that except downscaling. The difference from 12MP to 8MP comes from the fact that the photos are 4:3 and the videos are cropped 16:9. So you're just losing the top and bottom parts of your video (or more from the top and none of the bottom or viceversa), but the width stays about the same (4000 becomes 3840).

I was using filmora to do my first hyperlapse, I had to first compile the video in 4:3 and then again, to crop it. Is this also the same if using Premiere? Or maybe I should auto crop it in 16:9 in Lightroom first? I wonder how it will turn out in a sequence of pictures though...

I don't want to invest in another software if possible...

Ice_2k · May 28, 2020

lee82gx said:
I was using filmora to do my first hyperlapse, I had to first compile the video in 4:3 and then again, to crop it. Is this also the same if using Premiere? Or maybe I should auto crop it in 16:9 in Lightroom first? I wonder how it will turn out in a sequence of pictures though...

I don't want to invest in another software if possible...

I import them as 4:3 into Premiere Pro (importing as photo sequence, which basically handles it like a video where each photo is a frame), create a normal 4K 16:9 sequence and then just move the resulting media up or down a bit to get the best framing.