Hi there,

While using RAW, the minimum timelapse interval is 10 sec whereas when using only JPEG the minimum interval is 5 sec.

The 10 seconds interval is not really usable in my opinion as it takes 4 minutes to generate one second of footage (at 24fps) which means you cannot get more than 4 seconds of footage during a reasonable flight time of 16minutes. The max you could get would be 5 seconds of footage for an extended flight of 20minutes which would be risky.

I understand why the RAW interval is bigger than the one for JPEG but in my opinion it is too big and here is the reason why:

Using the standard microSD card that came with my Phantom (a 16GB card from Panasonic) it takes my Phantom no more than 3 seconds to save the RAW file. This means I can manually take a RAW picture every 3 seconds. Why couldn't the timelapse feature do the same? A 5 seconds interval would be great as it would enable us to get 8 seconds of timelapse footage during a 16 minutes flight.

I asume DJI is fearing that some people might use slower SD cards and the time for them to save a RAW would be bigger than 5 seconds but all DJI has to do is put a warning on screen and tell people that the 5 seconds RAW interval requires the fastest micro SD cards.

Cheers,
Paul

Any improvement on that side ? I'm sure the fastest card can handle even slower intervals than 5sec in RAW. If you want us to make great dronelapses (or aerial timelapses), please let us choose the interval we want, and not restrict it by firmware. I'm sure there is a lot of people asking that.

Yannick (dronelapser)

I would like to bump this request. 1 second would be great!!!

I am also surprised why we don't have lower intervals than 10 sec for RAW. I did some manual test of my three different microsd cards on my new Phantom 4.
The test was done on 1/60 shutter and I formatted the cards before every test. Pressed the shutter button "as crazy" for 1 minute and 15 seconds. First 15 seconds only to fill buffer, then I counted the shots for one minute.
My results:

Delivered Panasonic SDHC 16GB: approx 57 pics
Lexar SDXC 633x 64GB: Approx 47 pics
Sandisk Ultra SDXC 64 GB: Approx 32 pics

I am very surprised with the result that the Panasonic came out best... I re-tested every card at least 5 times. Guess the Phantoms cardwriter somehow is not optimized for the best cards..?

I think some of the general delay is due to the app has to send command for every picture - if the interval was preset (automatic) I presume it could be more optimized.

So to me the results says that the intervals shold have setting for 2 seconds, and maybe even below that with a combination of a good card and a optimized cardwriter sw.

Regards, Morten

I think Litchi can do this, you can set any interval from 1 sec up I think, I will check tomorrow and re-post.

mhodnekv Posted at 2016-4-17 05:24
I am also surprised why we don't have lower intervals than 10 sec for RAW. I did some manual test of ...

'I am very surprised with the result that the Panasonic came out best... I re-tested every card at least 5 times. Guess the Phantoms cardwriter somehow is not optimized for the best cards..?'

The Panasonic card supplied with the aircraft is no slouch. Those results do not surprise me.

Apologies, I have checked - Litchi does indeed have the ability to select any interval from 1 sec up BUT I'm afraid with the P4 it will not let you select an interval of less than 10 secs - this must be a restriction in the sdk.

birdingbilly Posted at 2016-4-17 11:04
Apologies, I have checked - Litchi does indeed have the ability to select any interval from 1 sec up ...

Thanks for testing. I will have to look into Litchi, let's hope they come up with a fix for this. I'm also hoping dji will introduce lower settings

this kinda sucks, I just tried shooting raw for a timelapse and the max I can get is around 80 photos, not enough for a smooth timelapse

What about filming in 4K and editing to play fast?

You all might already have found the answer to this question but there's an on-board cheat which doesn't involve jiggering your video editing software. Basically, you can go down to 5 seconds via DJI GO if you first change the filetype from RAW to JPG, select Interval, click on 5s , then go back and switch the filetype back to RAW. This workaround should get you the interval that you want.

I am afraid not anymore. Seems they fixed it The 5seconds trick.
What a bunch of clowns those DJI guys. There are no technical limitations on the speed neither card nor reader or onboard chip. And they remove even that 5 seconds feature.
I am shooting 1,5 sec RAW timelapses with mavic but had to build a special robotic rig for the remote and use a faster card. Here is an example