Basic camera question

[1800BIGK]

Is there a camera that records hd video and then afterwards you can download the video to your pc and snag the frames you like and use those as pictures? I want something small and quality like a go pro2 that takes good video but I want to be able to grab cool images I like and use those as pictures.

[Goldenhour]

You can get decent stills from a gopro video. It doesn't look as good as using a camera that's built for making still shots. Why not fly a still camera take 30 or 40 shots and use the best one? If you have one spare Rx aux. channel and a spare tx switch you can make a cheap shutter release out of a small servo and some carbon fiber sheet or aluminum.

[s_linste]

To give you an idea as to what the current technology can do, the BBC Life series has an accompanying book where they take the occasional still image from their very high frame rate video. These images are intended to supplement the book where the majority of the images were shot by still photographers.

I have the book and they never print the stills pulled from their outrageously sophisticated video camera more than 3 or 4 inches on the long side.

In other words, it is tough for a frame pulled from video to have value as a still image. Resolution is generally lower, but the very nature of video (a sequence of semi-blurred images shown in quick succession to convey motion) is also a limiting factor.

[arrinick]

The exception to this would be an epic or scarlet camera from which you can pull stills in the neighborhood of 12 mega pixels. Usually on Epic, the method is to use hdrx, which records a second stream of video, usually set at a higher shutter speed. This allows the video stream to maintain normal motion blur characteristics, and the stills that are pulled from the HDRX stream are nice and crisp.

Of course we are talking about a $40k camera at this point.

Nick