How to stop recording video to take a picture?

[wrybread]

What I do.................run the video on my desktop, pause when I see what I want a shot of, use the snipping tool to "cut" a picture.

I've been meaning to give that a try. How does the quality compare to shooting a pic on the drone?

 

[Gramps44]

I've been meaning to give that a try. How does the quality compare to shooting a pic on the drone?

it's really not too bad at all....a couple of examples view full screen, lousy on a tiny phone

 

[Melvoid]

As the title says I often want to stop video recording to take a picture. I'm wondering if there's some clever way to do that without stopping video recording, switching to photo mode, taking a pic, switching back to video mode and resuming video recording?

Currently that's my method but then I wind up with a lot of split raw video files. I made a Python script to losslessly stitch them together, but I'd much rather avoid the issue entirely and just take a pic while recording video.

Is that possible by chance?

I don't know other video editors, but I use Vegas Pro. While editing a video, you can save a frame as a photo and it's very decent resolution. I've taken many stills from videos and been happy with them. I've attached an example. It's direct from the video. I didn't do any Photoshop stuff, but I'd probably mess with contrast, maybe a bit of color enhancement, etc.

 

[wrybread]

I don't know other video editors, but I use Vegas Pro. While editing a video, you can save a frame as a photo and it's very decent resolution. I've taken many stills from videos and been happy with them. I've attached an example. It's direct from the video. I didn't do any Photoshop stuff, but I'd probably mess with contrast, maybe a bit of color enhancement, etc.

Thanks for that. And great shot by the way.

 

[wrybread]

I don't know other video editors, but I use Vegas Pro. While editing a video, you can save a frame as a photo and it's very decent resolution. I've taken many stills from videos and been happy with them. I've attached an example. It's direct from the video. I didn't do any Photoshop stuff, but I'd probably mess with contrast, maybe a bit of color enhancement, etc.

And by the way, I use and love Vegas Pro as well, but for anyone else who comes this way, can do a screen grab in good ol VLC by pressing Shift + S on Windows or Command + Alt + S on Mac. Looks pretty good. Would be interesting to do a test sometime of snapping a pic and then pulling a still from video of the same spot.

 

[Meta4]

Would be interesting to do a test sometime of snapping a pic and then pulling a still from video of the same spot.

Without testing, the numbers tell the story

Still - 5280×3956 = 20 megapixels
4K Video - 3840×2160 = 8.3 megapixels

Added to that, serious video shooters usually shoot at low shutter speeds like 1/30th sec, wheras someone shooting stills in good lighting would use a faster shutter speed, say 1/250th - 1/500th sec.
Besides the lower resolution, if there is any movement in your subject, the video screen grab won't be anywhere near as sharp as the still shot.

If you want the best quality stills, you need to shoot stills.

 

[jephoto]

Many recording in 4K will simply pull a suitable frame from the video if they want to run a still of a scene in the video briefly etc, but of course the drone footage needs to be stable / stopped, as steady as possible, and the photo won't be the highest quality.
So it depends on the needs, for social media or similar it'd probably do fine.

And if you record at 60fps, your shutter speed can be 1/120- if you care about “proper“ shutter to frame rate. If you don’t and you’re not using. ND filters then instead of speed can be as high as you want and those 4K video still captures look Pretty good.
Also best quality still isn’t just a screenshot, you Export an actual 4k frame from your video.

It’s still not the quality of a raw file still but if your exposure is correct, it’s definitely usable

 

[Meta4]

It’s still not the quality of a raw file still but if your exposure is correct, it’s definitely usable

But at best, they are less than half the resolution.

 

[Frank Dracman]

What I do.................run the video on my desktop, pause when I see what I want a shot of, use the snipping tool to "cut" a picture.

The demise of still photography

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

The demise of still photography

No one is going to do that for the purist photograph quality.
For social media purposes it'd be fine though.

The OP really never elaborated what they wanted to take a photo for in the middle of taking video, so not sure which is relevant in this thread.

 

[Melvoid]

And by the way, I use and love Vegas Pro as well, but for anyone else who comes this way, can do a screen grab in good ol VLC by pressing Shift + S on Windows or Command + Alt + S on Mac. Looks pretty good. Would be interesting to do a test sometime of snapping a pic and then pulling a still from video of the same spot.

I'm about to go out and fly, so I'll do just that. I shall report back.

 

[Melvoid]

I'm about to go out and fly, so I'll do just that. I shall report back.

Just did it. The .jpg from the movie is about 680k, while the adjacent jpg from the camera is about 3.6mb. Neither looks too bad, but the exposure is different. I noticed putting the movie in HDR mode made a difference in color, too. I think I'd use the extract from a movie if I didn't have a good still, but if I'm thinking in advance (which does happen occasionally), I'd just take some stills with the 'copter. I set mine to do RAW and .JPG so if I wanna get really picky, I can do the RAW in photoshop. Notice the light spot at the left side of the middle bridge segment. The .JPG is much more detailed than the capture from the movie.

 

[DJ Wes]

The .jpg from the movie is about 680k, while the adjacent jpg from the camera is about 3.6mb.

The file size of a JPEG image file is dependent on a number of things including image size (in pixels and the jpeg quality used during compression).

The JPEG image from your camera is 4000x2250 pixels (9 Megapixels).
Your image captured from the MP4 is 1920x1080 pixels (2.1 Megapixels).

The JPEG image captured from your camera is likely saved at a very high quality settings.
The JPEG image captured from the MP4 is likely saved at a lower quality setting.

Those two differences alone will result in a vastly different file size on disk.

 

[Pwta]

My first drone was a Bugs Series 12 EIS and I could record video in 4k and take a photo anytime without interupting the video recording, Not sure how it went about it. I do miss this feture on my new DJI mini 3 pro.

 

[Meta4]

My first drone was a Bugs Series 12 EIS and I could record video in 4k and take a photo anytime without interupting the video recording, Not sure how it went about it. I do miss this feture on my new DJI mini 3 pro.

It would give you a simple frame grab from the video.
You can take any number of frame grabs on your computer, but they are never as good as dedicated stills.

 

[akdrone]

It would give you a simple frame grab from the video.
You can take any number of frame grabs on your computer, but they are never as good as dedicated stills.

Not even close to dedicated still BUT.... we still judge still images as if we are printing. 40MP ??? Great if you want to blow it up wall size but on a computer HD or even 4K screen? Somewhat meaningless. A 4K screen grab from video, assuming you have a fast enough shutter speed and so on, will be almost imperceptibly different than a still image. What you CAN'T do with that 4K screen grab is some serious Ken Burns zooming in and out and that's a big deal. I agree that if the OP's drone was letting him take a picture while flying it simply had to be marking a screen grab and that anyone can do in post. If not, I don't know how it was done.