I'm doing some low-level mapping with an X5S and a 45mm lens, currently the Inspire needs to fly less than 3 km/h to get the desired overlap, because the camera can only shoot in 2 second intervals. U3 cards can't write at 30MB/s so we should be able to get down to 0.5 second interval, if that's the bottleneck they are protecting us from.
Does anybody have any ideas or possible solutions?

I believe the interval is determined by photo size and format, SD card class aside. However, with 45mm lens it will be difficult to get not blurred images during low flights, I assume. Mapping app should determine maximum speed based on lens info and flight attitude.

Matthew Dobrski Posted at 9-13 10:36
I believe the interval is determined by photo size and format, SD card class aside. However, with 45mm lens it will be difficult to get not blurred images during low flights, I assume. Mapping app should determine maximum speed based on lens info and flight attitude.

It chooses the interval, but it won’t let it get below 2 seconds. It’s in the SDK, says it’s limited between 2-255 seconds. I’m wondering if there’s some way to hack around it, because I’ve seen it take about 4 photos in 2 seconds when it turns around at the end of a mapping line.  A bug maybe but it shows it’s possible.
I'm shooting at 1/1000 of a second, I've run a few tests and it doesn't blur. Shooting video and extracting frames works too, the photos are sharp and the maps process no worries, but the compression of H.264/5 ruins the image unfortunately. Shooting CinemaDNG at 5.2K and extracting frames is the only possible solution I can think of, but I'll be dealing with about 10TB of data.

dazonic Posted at 9-13 14:20
It chooses the interval, but it won’t let it get below 2 seconds. It’s in the SDK, says it’s limited between 2-255 seconds. I’m wondering if there’s some way to hack around it, because I’ve seen it take about 4 photos in 2 seconds when it turns around at the end of a mapping line.  A bug maybe but it shows it’s possible.
I'm shooting at 1/1000 of a second, I've run a few tests and it doesn't blur. Shooting video and extracting frames works too, the photos are sharp and the maps process no worries, but the compression of H.264/5 ruins the image unfortunately. Shooting CinemaDNG at 5.2K and extracting frames is the only possible solution I can think of, but I'll be dealing with about 10TB of data.

In general, mapping with 45mm lens is a daunting task and rather unheard scenario. I can only guess that you need extreme level of detail for this project. You may try to use SSD drive with supposedly better than SD card bitrate, but DNG stills shooting will be slower than shooting JPEG anyway. BTW, 2 sec limit is determined by mapping app rather than by camera capability, I believe. As for option #2 ... you'll need to establish maximum speed of filming 24 fps at given shutter speed, which will deliver not blurred frames ...

Matthew Dobrski Posted at 9-13 17:40
In general, mapping with 45mm lens is a daunting task and rather unheard scenario. I can only guess that you need extreme level of detail for this project. You may try to use SSD drive with supposedly better than SD card bitrate, but DNG stills shooting will be slower than shooting JPEG anyway. BTW, 2 sec limit is determined by mapping app rather than by camera capability, I believe. As for option #2 ... you'll need to establish maximum speed of filming 24 fps at given shutter speed, which will deliver not blurred frames ...

Correct, we need 1mm GSD and obstacles mean we need to fly >10m. It's an edge case for sure. I just really wish there was a solution to getting faster photo interval with just X5S and SD cards.