Picking the mode is the easy part. Whether the clip looks smooth or jumpy depends mostly on three numbers: the interval, the length of the video and the shutter speed.
Before you take off
The Mini 4 Pro manual gives a short list of recommendations for Hyperlapse:
- Fly higher than 50 m.
- Leave at least two seconds between the interval and the shutter speed.
- Pick a static subject, such as a tall building or a mountain, more than 15 m from the drone. Do not select people, moving cars or anything close to the aircraft.
- Store the footage on the drone's microSD card.
In Settings > Camera > Hyperlapse you choose whether DJI Fly also keeps the original photos, and in what format, or set it to Off to save only the finished video. Vittorio Caramazza of VicVideoPic, who has tested a long line of DJI drones, finds the automatically generated 4K clip good enough to share straight from the drone. Keeping the RAW or JPEG frames still gives you the option to edit the sequence in a photo editor and assemble it yourself.
Two more details from the manual are worth knowing before the first attempt. The drone needs at least 25 photos to make a video, which is one second of footage. And the video is generated even if the shot is cut short, for example when Low Battery RTH kicks in, so an interrupted flight is not a total loss.
Interval, length and how long you will be in the air
You set the interval (seconds between photos) and the length of the final video. DJI Fly then shows how many photos it will take and how long the shot will last. That shooting time is what you have to fit into one battery.
VicVideoPic aims for about 300 photos, which gives roughly 12.5 seconds at 24 fps or 10 seconds at 30 fps. The interval decides how long that takes:
| Interval | Time for 300 photos |
|---|---|
| 2 s | 10 min |
| 3 s | 15 min |
| 4 s | 20 min |
| 5 s | 25 min |
He estimates the Mini 4 Pro battery at about 25 minutes, and after takeoff, setting up the shot and the flight home, counts on at least 15 minutes of actual shooting. That makes 3 seconds the comfortable choice for 300 photos. With a 4 or 5 second interval you either accept a shorter clip or need a longer-lasting battery.
The interval also changes how the scene looks. A longer interval makes everything in the frame move faster. His starting points:
- 2-3 seconds when the movement comes from people walking, cars or boats;
- 4 seconds when most of the movement is in the clouds;
- 5 seconds for more dramatic clouds, at the cost of a shorter video (about 7.5 seconds in 15 minutes of shooting).
Shutter speed decides whether it looks smooth
This is the setting most first hyperlapses get wrong. On a bright day in auto exposure the camera picks a very short shutter speed, and every frame freezes the cars in place. Played back, they jump from position to position. VicVideoPic shows clips shot at 1/3600 s and 1/1000 s that are unwatchable, and one at 1/20 s that is only slightly better.
For drone hyperlapses he treats 1 second as the ideal shutter speed in most cases, because it gives moving objects enough motion blur to look continuous. He accepts faster values, down to 1/4 s, in windy conditions.
Here the DJI rule about a two-second gap comes in. With a 3 s interval, a 1 s shutter leaves exactly two seconds. With a 2 s interval, VicVideoPic found that the slowest shutter speed the Mini 4 Pro offers is 1/4 s, because the camera needs time to buffer each shot. You get more photos and a longer clip, but less blur. That is the main reason 3 seconds is his default.
Getting to 1 second in daylight requires ND filters. He uses DJI's ND16, ND64 and ND256 set and says that even ND256 is not strong enough for a 1 s shutter in full daylight, so with that set he shoots hyperlapses only in the last hour before sunset or later. For brighter conditions he recommends adding a stronger filter. The ND filter article on this site explains how filter strength relates to shutter speed.
VicVideoPic sets the exposure manually, which is the only way to hold the shutter speed you chose, and sets the white balance manually as well, so the colours do not shift during the clip.
The four modes
Free
You fly the drone yourself, with full control of the aircraft and the gimbal tilt, while it takes photos. You set the interval, the video length and the maximum speed. Free is the only mode that can start while the drone is still on the ground. If you drag-select a subject, the drone keeps the camera on it as you move the sticks.
VicVideoPic finds manual movement in Free too jumpy and uses this mode only for static timelapses, with the drone hovering in one place. He also warns that the Mini 3 Pro, which has no cooling fan and relies on airflow from flight, can overheat when it hovers for a long time in hot weather.
Circle
The drone orbits a subject you drag-select on the screen. Besides the interval, length and speed, you set the direction: clockwise or counterclockwise. During the shot the roll stick changes the circling speed, the throttle stick the altitude and the pitch stick the distance from the subject.
After you press the shutter button, the drone first flies a short distance in the chosen direction to work out where the subject is, and only then starts taking photos. VicVideoPic's tip is to start the move a little further back in the opposite direction to make up for it. Circular moves are hard to build from waypoints, so this is the mode for orbits.
Course Lock
Point the drone in the direction you want it to travel and tap the lock icon. From then on it flies along that line, whichever way the camera faces. If you also drag-select a subject, the drone turns the camera to keep it centred and you can no longer change the framing by hand. Without a subject, you can still adjust the heading and gimbal tilt.
During the shot the roll stick moves the whole path sideways, the throttle stick changes the altitude and the pitch stick changes the speed. Flying past a subject at an angle with the camera locked on it gives strong parallax. VicVideoPic notes that you can get the same move, with more control, in Waypoint mode, and finds stick corrections during Course Lock quite abrupt.
Waypoint
You fly to each position, frame the shot and add a point. The drone stores its position, altitude and camera direction for every point, builds a route through them and flies it on its own. The sticks do nothing during the shot. You can run the route from the first point to the last or in reverse.
There is no speed setting. The drone works out the speed from the distance between the points and the length of the video, so a longer route means faster flight.
VicVideoPic uses Waypoint for most of his hyperlapses and gives a few practical tips:
- Two points are often enough and give the smoothest move. With more points the direction changes between them can look abrupt, though they are useful for following a river or a road.
- Choose the order (normal or reverse) that ends the shot closer to the home point. The battery will be low by then.
- Routes are saved in the task library in the top left corner of the panel. You can fly the same hyperlapse again at a different time of day or in another season.
When you reuse a saved route, Heliguy recommends taking off from the same spot as the original flight and checking that nothing new is standing in the way.
The Mini 4 Pro also has a separate Waypoint Flight mode for regular video routes. The waypoint article on this site covers it.
Obstacles and stopping the shot
On the Mini 4 Pro, when the light and surroundings are good enough for the vision systems, the drone brakes and hovers if it detects an obstacle during a hyperlapse. If the light drops or the surroundings stop being suitable for the vision systems, it keeps shooting without obstacle sensing. A hyperlapse at dusk, which is exactly when ND filters make 1 s exposures possible, is the situation where you are most likely to lose that protection. Plan the route in daylight and keep clear of trees and buildings.
To stop a hyperlapse early, tap the stop icon on the screen or press the flight pause button on the controller. The drone hovers.