I'm trying to explore options of timelapsed photography with Mavic 2 Pro. I'm not impressed so far, I must confess. Interestingly, trivial timelapse shooting in RAW is limited to rather useless 5 sec interval, while directly related Hyperlapse allows for much more suitable 2 sec. Why is that escapes my understanding. Unfortunately no Hyperlapse option allows for drone motion slow enough, resulting in absurdly caricatural video dynamics. The workaround is to employ Hyperlapse feature in Free mode, hover and start shooting with minimum 2 sec interval. This approach, however, has nothing to do with Hyperlapse concept ...

EDIT: Litchi app to the rescue!


Feature called Photo Capture Interval defines the default time/distance interval in seconds/meters when two photos are taken as the aircraft moves from waypoint to waypoint. The interval can be set between 0 and 100 seconds/meters.


By far I have successfuly tested 1 sec interval, shooting a DNG sequence of roughly 500 images while the drone is moving slowly at the distance of 250m between two waypoints. This approach rendered (in post production) approx. 10 seconds of useable video with appealing clouds animation and overall dynamics. More important, however, is the outstanding video resolution and quality, easily rivalling 6K UHD only DNG sequence can deliver. Mission accomplished!

Its a very odd limitation in that it'll shoot raw in hyperlapse at 2 second interval but no other mode.

Ive used the free mode to get round it.  Another workaround is to switch to JPG only - then the interval is ok down to 2 seconds.

But yes, its stupid.  The hardware is clearly capable because hyperlapse mode works.

The way round is to once in hyperlapse free mode set time to 2secs shots, start shooting then fly in a direction to required speed say 0.2 mtpersec and press c button to lock speed. The drone will carry on at that speed until shooting is finished or unlocked by pressing c button again. Of course it is not in raw.

RK7dronzy Posted at 6-19 02:41
The way round is to once in hyperlapse free mode set time to 2secs shots, start shooting then fly in a direction to required speed say 0.2 mtpersec and press c button to lock speed. The drone will carry on at that speed until shooting is finished or unlocked by pressing c button again. Of course it is not in raw.

"Of course it is not in raw."
Why not? This will ćontradict what you said when using Hyper-lapse feature with M2P ...

The main advantage of DNG format for time-lapse is the quality of resulting UHD video in terms of both resolution and colour grading. I'm talking about post processing, image stabilization including. Although extra motion effect of HyperLapse during - say - simple waypoint ramp is a tempting idea, the execution with awkward mission programming simply doesn't work in aerial photography. Even with amazing talent of Mavic 2 Pro to hold steady course, the slowest flight allowed doesn't produce appealing results.

I'm considering employment of Litchi app to plan a waypoint mission at 0.4 m/s minimum allowed speed, which may deliver much more palatable video. But - again - this approach will allow for 5 sec minimum interval shooting of time lapsed RAW sequence, setting rarely useful in landscape photography.  Crap, we need this 1, 2, 3 sec option for time-lapse ...

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