I need some help with my Mavic

[PackManDan]

Can you take pictures while in the middle of taking a video? I took the Mavic for a short flight today and was filming and was pressing the camera option on the top of the controller thinking that I was snapping some pictures, I get back home plug my memory card in and realize there are no pictures at all. Can you not take pictures while filming a video? If you can, how do I do it?

Also I had an issue today:

Went for a hike today in the mountains and brought my Mavic along. I decide to take it for a flight. The controller turns on, Mavic turns on and everything seems good, except my cell phone screen is black. I see that the settings show "Gimball disconnected" and no matter what buttons or settings I tried to choose, nothing would work.

I turned the drone and controller off....powered both back on and for about a second I got the camera view on my cell phone and then it immediately went black again. I tried calibrating the compass, hit "start" and it did nothing at all. Couldn't figure out why it wasn't working. Do you need service to get the camera working on the Mavic? I don't see why you would but I had no service up in the mountains so that was my only thought is maybe because I didn't have service.

I hiked back down the mountain and I drove down the road, pulled over and turned the drone on. The camera view showed up instantly on my cell phone. Why would it show up that time but not when I was up in the mountains?

 

[PackManDan]

Also I'm not sure why it is doing this but can someone explain this to me:

Today I took the drone for about a 20 minute flight. I hit the record button once to start and hit it again after 20 minutes to stop. When I got back home I put the memory card into my computer and I have two video files. The one video I thought I took is broken into two videos. One of them is the take off and most of the flight. The other is mid flight and then landing. This happened the first time I flew too. I took one video yet when I plugged the memory card in to check out the video it had separated it into 3 different videos all with different start points. How is this possible if I only hit the record button once to start??

 

[JeepDSL]

No, you can not take pictures while shooting video.

Had you removed the gimbal lock? Were you on level ground? Could something have been obstructing the gimbal? The Mavic needs to be fairly level with nothing obstructing gimbal movement when it is powered on or else the gimbal will not calibrate correctly. See page 41 in the User Manual. You do not need cell service, WiFi or GPS for the camera to work. You may not have had the cable from the controller to your phone fully connected or you may have a defective cable.

 

[2nckayakers]

Not sure about your gimbal issues but I can answer the one on the video file. The video processor in the Mavic splits video files at a 4gb limit. Not to get real technical but it has to do with write speeds to the card. It doesn't matter what size card you use it is still going to split files. A GoPro does the same thing but there file sizes are a little bigger. It isn't a huge issue though because when I edit my videos I just merge the two files together. I have not seen any frame loss between the two files but I have read where others have seen frame loss.

 

[PackManDan]

No, you can not take pictures while shooting video.

Had you removed the gimbal lock? Were you on level ground? Could something have been obstructing the gimbal? The Mavic needs to be fairly level with nothing obstructing gimbal movement when it is powered on or else the gimbal will not calibrate correctly. See page 41 in the User Manual. You do not need cell service, WiFi or GPS for the camera to work. You may not have had the cable from the controller to your phone fully connected or you may have a defective cable.

Hmm, that is very interesting. Now that you mention it, no, I was not on level ground when I turned it on. I had the drone on a rock that was angled upwards. So maybe that is why it wasn't working because it wasn't level? I will have to try that out again.

 

[PackManDan]

Not sure about your gimbal issues but I can answer the one on the video file. The video processor in the Mavic splits video files at a 4gb limit. Not to get real technical but it has to do with write speeds to the card. It doesn't matter what size card you use it is still going to split files. A GoPro does the same thing but there file sizes are a little bigger. It isn't a huge issue though because when I edit my videos I just merge the two files together. I have not seen any frame loss between the two files but I have read where others have seen frame loss.

Okay so then it is completely normal and it happens to everyone? So if I took a 20 minute video and it gets split into two separate videos is there any video editing software I can download so I can splice the two together to make one video again? What does everyone here use to edit their videos?

 

[JeepDSL]

Also I'm not sure why it is doing this but can someone explain this to me:

Today I took the drone for about a 20 minute flight. I hit the record button once to start and hit it again after 20 minutes to stop. When I got back home I put the memory card into my computer and I have two video files. The one video I thought I took is broken into two videos. One of them is the take off and most of the flight. The other is mid flight and then landing. This happened the first time I flew too. I took one video yet when I plugged the memory card in to check out the video it had separated it into 3 different videos all with different start points. How is this possible if I only hit the record button once to start??

Check out this thread: Why are my video recordings being saved in separate files?

 

[JeepDSL]

Okay so then it is completely normal and it happens to everyone? So if I took a 20 minute video and it gets split into two separate videos is there any video editing software I can download so I can splice the two together to make one video again? What does everyone here use to edit their videos?

Check out this thread: Video editing software

 

[MarcObarlow]

Went for a hike today in the mountains and brought my Mavic along. I decide to take it for a flight. The controller turns on, Mavic turns on and everything seems good, except my cell phone screen is black. I see that the settings show "Gimball disconnected" and no matter what buttons or settings I tried to choose, nothing would work.

I am a new pilot and the black screen you describe happened to me recently. I had been working with the camera settings and had adjusted the iso setting. When I changed the exposure settings back to "Auto" the image came back and I've had no problems since.
I had another learning experience that also caused me to believe the camera was having a problem and I couldn't get GPS to connect. I had removed my iPhone 6s from its case the first few times I had flown. One time (in a hurry), I connected the phone to the controller without removing the case. It was tight in the holder, but it seemed to work. On closer inspection, I realized the lightning connector was not fully engaging the phone port and I was getting intermittent connectivity for the video and GPS. I still get excited each time I fly and I've learned to complete a checklist before I fly. I've recently added "Remove iPhone Case" and "Check Camera Settings" to the list. I hope this is helpful.

 

[PackManDan]

How do you save camera and video settings? I've heard that Sharpness should be set to +1...I found how to do it in the DJI app but when I change it, nowhere does it say "SAVE" or anything like that, and as soon as I go back to the home screen the +1 doesn't save.

 

[Scarab69]

I believe you can actually take pics while taking video. The photo will be a lower res (maybe set by the video link quality?). In any case, the photos will be in your cache and flight log.