Video or Photograph?

[Rockingbilly]

I am brand new to droning and am loving my Phantom 3 professional 4k. So far I have been videoing all my flights so that I can later see where I am going wrong. However, with basic editing I have taken single photos from the video film with great results (Filming with 4k). Will I get much better results with single pictures if I stop videoing and take some single photographs ?

 

[RodPad]

Welcome to the Forum!

I did a search: Search results for query: Pictures from video

This was on the first page: Standard - Taking pictures or videos

Lots of information here.
DJI Phantom 3 Professional Accessories & Tips | Phantom Help

Off the top of my head here are some members into photos:
@WV. Rootman, @Andy9, @Pharm, @David_Cambridge

Found another: dji phantom 3 standard - still from video


Rod

 

[solentlife]

I think a lot depends on the editing program you use - although you record in 4K - many editors will not actually work 4K and downgrade it in the processing to display for you to edit.
I know the snapshots I take out of my videos are good enough for the videos ad Youtube - but certainly not up to the standard of the photo taken by my P3P

As far as I can tell my photos from P3P are about 4mb file size ... but video snapshots taken from the video are about 200+kb .....

My videos are recorded at 1920 x 1080 at ~50fps .... I prefer the higher frame-rate .....

 

[Meta4]

Will I get much better results with single pictures if I stop videoing and take some single photographs ?

You will always get significantly better stills if you are shooting stills that extracting frame grabs from video.

 

[JeffreyS]

I believe Meta meant to say:

You will always get significantly better stills if you are shooting stills rather than extracting frame grabs from video.

And he is correct. I don't know what the other answers are there for. See my image posts. I'm a professional.

 

[David_Cambridge]

The most important thing for good stills are the pixel dimensions. Generally, the 4K video will be 3840 x 2160. Stills extracted from this video should be the same dimensions, and identical quality. Some drones have some different aspect ratios. They will be 3840 horizontal but with more than 2160 vertical dimensions. A different frame, but the same resolution. There is no difference in resolution between a frame extracted from the video, and a still image of the same place.

Note that this is not a frame grab from either a PC or tablet screen. All bets are off for this method, which has had further processing performed by the device.

 

[DroneB]

I prefer 4K video and RAW photos. However, extracting a photo from a 4K video using Adobe Premiere Pro is easy and the quality is good. It definitely works in a pinch when you didn't get the the right photo.

 

[Meta4]

The most important thing for good stills are the pixel dimensions. Generally, the 4K video will be 3840 x 2160. Stills extracted from this video should be the same dimensions, and identical quality.

Resolution
Phantom 4 pro stills = 5472 × 3648 = 20 MP
Phantom 4 pro 4K video = 4096 x 2160 = 8.8 MP

Shutter Speed
Many of the video shooters here go out of their way to use a slow shutter speed to create "motion blur".
That's unlikely to produce the highest quality stills with most subjects and situations.

If you want the best stills, you should shoot stills
Taking a frame from video will not give equivalent results.

 

[Rockingbilly]

I am humbled by the amount of replies I received, all very helpful and I will gratefully take on board the advice to take photos. I have adobe Photoshop elements which I use for pictures taken with my stills camera, I also have the video editor which came with the elements package. I have never user the video editing dvd, will it work with the RAW system most of you recommend. Thank you all so much
Rockingbilly

 

[RodPad]

Yes, good information here!

REAL Information, Facts no Fiction!

Next time a similar question comes up, I will send them to this thread!
Oh, someday I might actually understand it.

Rod