Experiment - Bad Moon Rising

[DroneDriver]

Thought I would try a little low light experiment (before it was officially nighttime) with the 5 shot AEB as the sun was setting a bad moon was arising behind me. Unfortunately, when I remembered to take off the ND8 filter the moon did not stop its rising to wait for my filter change. I noticed even after taking three 5 AEB shoots and compiling them in Photoshop, it still came out grainy. The moon is quite a bit smaller compared to the naked eye or using 50mm lens (I wish). Still had a little lens flare, but no carrot!

I am convinced this camera takes better videos than stills.

 

[Flying skymaster]

Very nice shot

 

[brian bwin]

I am convinced this camera takes better videos than stills.

It's funny, I am almost convinced of the opposite! It's probably just the fact that photos can be tweaked in post so much easier than video... can't wait for 20MP camera if that ever happens, for stills and video

 

[DroneDriver]

Brian,

I couldn't agree with you more about having a new 20MP camera. However, I think you are more optimistic than me. At this point I would be happy with new firmware.

 

[WildDoktor]

I'm also pretty convinced that mine takes better video than stills. So strange!

 

[David Myers]

Thought I would try a little low light experiment (before it was officially nighttime) with the 5 shot AEB as the sun was setting a bad moon was arising behind me. Unfortunately, when I remembered to take off the ND8 filter the moon did not stop its rising to wait for my filter change. I noticed even after taking three 5 AEB shoots and compiling them in Photoshop, it still came out grainy. The moon is quite a bit smaller compared to the naked eye or using 50mm lens (I wish). Still had a little lens flare, but no carrot!

I am convinced this camera takes better videos than stills.

View attachment 516

I thought I would jump in on this one because I have been believing the same thing. These two were taken on the same flight. The first is a processed RAW photo and the second is from video extraction, I did this for somewhat of a test to see what would be better. To me i get pretty much the same quality video extracted or still. Both not bad, but what I am finding is that if you push the shadows in post and use a good noise filter the results at least look good on screen. Not sure how they would print.

 

[DroneDriver]

I thought I would jump in on this one because I have been believing the same thing. These two were taken on the same flight. The first is a processed RAW photo and the second is from video extraction, I did this for somewhat of a test to see what would be better. To me i get pretty much the same quality video extracted or still. Both not bad, but what I am finding is that if you push the shadows in post and use a good noise filter the results at least look good on screen. Not sure how they would print.

View attachment 541 View attachment 542

Those are both really nice photos. You have the originals, at what point do you notice the pixelation as you zoom in on them? Sounds like what you're saying as they're pretty equal?
Did you take Wilddoktor's survey?

 

[David Myers]

Thanks for the complement. I went back to review the originals and have not been able to locate the extracted video frame original. I checked both the files I posted and both are compressed well below the original size. I'm going to do some additional research and try to answer your question about pixelation. I did zoom in on the still photograph and pixelation was occurring at around 375%. I checked the raw file as well as the camera JPEG and both were the same. As I do recall once the image was extracted from the video, the file size was smaller than the original still photograph, and that is comparing JPEG to JPEG. When flying, I shoot stills in RAW and later process to JPEG.

I did not take the Wilddoktor's survey. Not sure what that is.

 

[DroneDriver]

Thanks for the complement. I went back to review the originals and have not been able to locate the extracted video frame original. I checked both the files I posted and both are compressed well below the original size. I'm going to do some additional research and try to answer your question about pixelation. I did zoom in on the still photograph and pixelation was occurring at around 375%. I checked the raw file as well as the camera JPEG and both were the same. As I do recall once the image was extracted from the video, the file size was smaller than the original still photograph, and that is comparing JPEG to JPEG. When flying, I shoot stills in RAW and later process to JPEG.

I did not take the Wilddoktor's survey. Not sure what that is.

You will find it here:
Video or Stills...take the poll!

 

[David Myers]

You will find it here:
Video or Stills...take the poll!

OK, went back and could not find the original video extracted still so I extracted a still from a different flight and processed it through Lightroom. The final file is attached. The image begins to pixelate at about 150-175%. The stills shot from the XSTAR hold up much better on the "zoom" test than the video frame extraction still. If I want stills of a flight I will continue to stop video and shoot stills.

To answer the original question, I believe the XSTAR camera shoots excellent video and the stills are just OK, better with good light.