Still Photos - GoPro Hero3 Black

[tonydotigr]

Is there any best practices around taking still aerial photos with the GoPro Hero3? I'll be taking a few this weekend and just want to ensure I'm doing it the best way.

Thanks in advance & sorry if this has been asked before.

 

[QYV]

set the gopro to time lapse mode where it takes a picture every 1, 3, 5, 10, 30 whatever seconds since you can't manually initiate taking a picture on the gopro while the P is up in the air. You'll have a lot of pictures to sort through, probably delete most of them but say you're taking one every 5 seconds... you can know that every time you hover for 5 or 6 seconds you probably got a good shot

 

[HeliTV]

I set mine to take video and stills at the same time. That way I get some good 12mp stills and if I want anything else, I can grab it off the video file albeit at lower res... Gopro 3+ black is very good!

 

[QYV]

I set mine to take video and stills at the same time. That way I get some good 12mp stills and if I want anything else, I can grab it off the video file albeit at lower res... Gopro 3+ black is very good!

I heard that the stills it takes while recording video are lower quality, like caps from the video. Have you tested that by any chance?

 

[Killobite]

The issue I found is that in timelapse mode the camera will no longer work as an FPV camera. So, what I have been messing with is if I am looking at getting stills I set the camera to 4K 15fps and do my flight then extract the frames I want from the video. Produces a really good still and I can still use FPV to frame the shot.

There are a lot of different ideas about the quality of the photos but when put to the "blind" test (have the wife and kids look at two shots), the ones extracted from 4K video almost 100% of time are chosen by all over the 12MP stills.

 

[HeliTV]

Yep certainly have. I've checked the gopro manual and it says it will do 8mp stills simultaneously in 1080p video, and 12mp in 1440p mode.. That said I haven't managed to get simultaneous stills in 1440p mode though - more fiddling I guess...


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[HeliTV]

The issue I found is that in timelapse mode the camera will no longer work as an FPV camera. So, what I have been messing with is if I am looking at getting stills I set the camera to 4K 15fps and do my flight then extract the frames I want from the video. Produces a really good still and I can still use FPV to frame the shot.

There are a lot of different ideas about the quality of the photos but when put to the "blind" test (have the wife and kids look at two shots), the ones extracted from 4K video almost 100% of time are chosen by all over the 12MP stills.

Fair point.. This might be the best way to get stills, but 15fps isn't enough for video...

 

[DDMSteve]

They Hero3+ Black gives you the option of being able to grab 8MP still photos from high def video. The still photos are 12MP, I typically do the 1 second or 3 second interval on the time lapse photos. I found when I did the 1/2 second even in high light/low movement flying the photos did not turn out nearly as well as the longer time. Make sure you have a nice high quality class 10 card that GoPro suggests for use with their cameras to get a fast write speed: http://gopro.com/support/articles/softw ... te-release

 

[tonydotigr]

Thanks for the insight guys, exactly what I was looking for.

Hopefully Final Cut will allow me to extract the stills from the 14K video? FPV is almost a must for me.

 

[tonydotigr]

Thanks for the insight guys, exactly what I was looking for.

Hopefully Final Cut will allow me to extract the stills from the 14K video? FPV is almost a must for me.

Found this information, looks like it does.

You can export a single frame from a clip in Final Cut Pro, to use as a picture on a Web site.
To do this, select a clip in the Browser or the Timeline to display it in the Viewer, and then move the playhead to the single frame you want to export.

In the menu at the top select:

File...Export...Using QuickTime Conversion

In box that appears, change the Format setting to Still Image.

Click on the Options button and select a format for the picture, such as JPEG, and click on OK.

Now pick a destination folder where you want to store the picture, rename the picture, and click on Save.

The photo will be saved into the folder you selected.

 

[sergekouper]

The issue I found is that in timelapse mode the camera will no longer work as an FPV camera. So, what I have been messing with is if I am looking at getting stills I set the camera to 4K 15fps and do my flight then extract the frames I want from the video. Produces a really good still and I can still use FPV to frame the shot.

There are a lot of different ideas about the quality of the photos but when put to the "blind" test (have the wife and kids look at two shots), the ones extracted from 4K video almost 100% of time are chosen by all over the 12MP stills.

Really? mine does, I take timelapse and get fpv. (maybe because it's a 3+ but quite strange)

 

[tonydotigr]

The issue I found is that in timelapse mode the camera will no longer work as an FPV camera. So, what I have been messing with is if I am looking at getting stills I set the camera to 4K 15fps and do my flight then extract the frames I want from the video. Produces a really good still and I can still use FPV to frame the shot.

There are a lot of different ideas about the quality of the photos but when put to the "blind" test (have the wife and kids look at two shots), the ones extracted from 4K video almost 100% of time are chosen by all over the 12MP stills.

Really? mine does, I take timelapse and get fpv. (maybe because it's a 3+ but quite strange)

Yeah, I just did a test and mine does too. I'll probably go this route instead.

 

[tom3holer]

Try using 1440 and 24fps and you will get 12mp stills with the video.


Tom

 

[HeliTV]

Ahh its 24 fps that unlocks the simultaneous ability - I was shooting 1080P25! I'll take a look - many thanks

 

[tom3holer]

When using 1080 you can do simultaneous video and pics at 30fps but your pics will be 8mp. If using 1440 and shooting at 24fps your stills will be 12mp.

Tom

 

[HeliTV]

When using 1080 you can do simultaneous video and pics at 30fps but your pics will be 8mp. If using 1440 and shooting at 24fps your stills will be 12mp.

Tom

Thanks Tom - I've been doing 1080P25 with 8MP stills.

Didn't realise you had to drop frame rate to 24 fps to do 1440P with stills...

 

[gordhunt]

Here's a blurb I found that explains it

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[HeliTV]

Thanks - that makes sense...

Another case of RTFM!!!

 

[tonydotigr]

I ended up using the 1440 mode and it worked/looks great! Extracted frames using Final Cut Pro.

 

[tom3holer]

If you shoot 1440 you can also have it take stills at the same time and they are at 12mp.

There may be an advantage to extracting frames however. Shooting in raw is best and you can only shoot raw on video so that will give you a 12mp raw frame I think.


Tom