We’ve been promising it for weeks, but we’re finally ready to share some of the first 4K footage with our community. Check it out:
The Vantage team took these shots in the San Francisco area during the past couple weeks. These clips highlight the rock-solid stability provided by Snap’s gimbal. The footage has not been corrected or stabilized in any way. It was pulled straight from Snap and into iMovie at 4K, and then exported back out in 4K.
We look forward to adventuring with Snap in the coming months and sharing even more great footage, highlighting Snap’s wind stability, tracking modes and spectacular 4K-video quality. And, because Snap is so portable, you can look forward to shots from all different types of locations.
We are still tuning the 4K camera for chromatic aberration, white balance, exposure and some other settings, so it’s a few steps away from the final quality.
But stay tuned for more clips and leave your questions in the comments!
Best,
Tobin, Joe and the Vantage Robotics team
   © 2024 Vantage Robotics
Awesome footage ?? ! So can you plz build mine or send me a loaner, and get it to me for my trip at the end of this month so I don’t have to go buy a DJI pretty Plz ?
Thanks Altan. We are working tirelessly to get Snap in your hands asap!
Absolutely fantastic! There should be two major take-home messages for everyone from this. 1) Amazing mind blowing video quality and 2) 100% safe to fly in close proximity to your tiny little loved ones! Outstanding guys keep it up!
Thanks for the continued support Kevin!
Awesome, looks great! I think I check the blog pretty much every day waiting for news like this. Altan, I am with you on wanting mine asap. I’m headed to Hawaii this summer and just hope I’ll have it in time 🙂
Thanks Joe. We will only be adding more and more footage moving forward. Can’t wait to get you flying!
Great video :). thanks for the update. Looking forward to get mine very soon 🙂
Thanks Fady! Always good to hear from you. We’re excited to get you in the air too!
This is a great update. Nice to finally see some footage, 4k is a big selling point for me, and part of the reason I pre-ordered.
Since Youtube messes with the footage (even then it looks pretty great!), any chance of getting an original file?
Thanks for the kind words Lindsay. We have gotten this request before, and are working on finding the best way to posting the original file.
Excellent clarity in this footage. Hope to have mine to take to Iceland in June!
Gerry
Thanks Gerry. We are working very hard to get Snap in your hands ASAP.
Please hire 10 more people and get these build so I can get mine! I pre-ordered and am SOOOOO ready to get busy with it.
Thanks David. We are really excited too! We actually have added a few members to the team and moved into a bigger office recently.
The more I read about Snap the more excited I get. So many possibilities, so when do you start shipping?
We’re more and more excited too! We will start shipping in June, and will be sending units out sequentially starting with the first orders made.
Looks awesome…the kids seem to feel comfy to see SNAP fly around.
Maybe it is a youtube issue, but the shadow of SNAP in the nature part flying close and over the wall seemed a bit unrealistic…just an observation.
What I truly would love to see is a picture in picture video of the drone flying and simultaneously the captured video of the drone. Would give us a better idea of the performance of Camera and gimbal to see the drone move and the video stay steady.
Any update/picture on production?
Thanks Florian – We will be releasing more video footage in the weeks ahead and will put a picture-in-picture video on the list of videos to develop. I can assure you that these three clips were taken straight out of Snap, imported into iMovie in 4K, stitched together in about 5 minutes, and then exported back out in 4K. We will be posting a comprehensive update on production in the next week or two. Thanks so much for your support!
I’ll take mine when you’re sure it’s ready. Unless you need testers – I’ll test one of yours.
We’ve pre-ordered this great invention. Hope it’ll get here soon so we can start working with it.
Thanks Jan. We’re really excited to see what you are going to do with Snap once you are flying!
Wow, great vdo quality coming our way! And – as mentioned before – the caged propellers will allow more close in flying.
Can’t wait!
Thanks Peter! Safety is really important to us too.
Looks great! Those kids are rocking it on their skateboards 🙂 Any chance the original file could be made available for download so we can have a play with it? And does Snap already add some grading in-camera, it doesn’t look like a very ‘flat’ image? To be able to have access to the flat footage would be amazing for more professional work that require more specific color-grading.
And will there be any manual exposure options? It would be great to be able to finetune the image through the app while flying Snap!
Is that the obstacle avoidance system you see happening with the plants?!
Hi Daniel – Thank you for the positive feedback. We plan to offer a flat profile and a punchier graded profile and are still working on tuning those profiles as well as some other details. This unit is not using obstacle avoidance. It is being flown manually by one of our engineers using the iPhone App. As for manual exposure control. I will need to check and get back to you, but I believe there will be some level of exposure compensation, but not a full manual control option.
Awesome Tobin & team !
When do you start shipping ?
Hi Mike – Thanks so much for your support! We will be posting a comprehensive update on the production timeline in the next week or two. Thanks again for the positive feedback and support!
Looks really great. Awesome to see it flying so smoothly and close to people without the worry that you have with the Phantom 4 and others.
I did notice a good amount of “ghosting” when the kids were moving. What FPS was this shot at? 30 FPS? most of the time, action shots like that will have ghosting at 30 FPS or lower. Would love to see the same sequence shot at 1080 and 60 FPS. 4k is obviously higher resolution, but doesn’t always provide the best footage if the FPS isn’t high enough for what it’s shooting. Scenery – 4k is awesome. Moving objects – 4k at 30 FPS is decent, but usually 1080 at 60+ FPS will give you a cleaner video unless you desire that ghosting cinematic look of course.
Hi Alpha Life – Yes, this was shot in 4K @ 30fps. We will be releasing more footage over the weeks ahead and can shoot some examples at 1080 @ 120fps. Also, we are still tuning the camera and still have some work to do. Thank you so much for all of your positive feedback!
It has been clearly communicated that the snap will ship at the end of spring. This means it will ship no earlier than May 31st.
We will start shipping in June (not to nit pick, but summer doesn’t start until June 20), and will be sending units out sequentially starting with the first orders.
Beautiful! It is so awesome to see the project take shape! #wellDone!
Thanks Joe! We’re really excited to get you flying.
Thanks for posting this great preview. It’s impressive how little distortion there is straight out of the camera. Will there be in camera correction for the small amount there is, or will this be left for editing in post?
Thanks for the kind words Paul. We will implement some dewarping tech for this, both in hardware and software. Please let us know if you have any other questions. Thank you!
Very very nice. I am happy with my pre-order.
Thanks Anton!
Hoe about using WeTransfer for supplying your Early Adopters with soms High Quality Voltage? It’s free of charge in spits of being Dutch ?.
Correction: in spite of being Dutch? (I should know).
Great job Tobin and all the Vantage team!
I have few questione before placing my preorder:
1) The Snap App will be available on the Windows Phone Appstore before the shipping date? Please consider your fellow followers and early adopers who use a Windows Phone device.
2) do you plan to include a EU compatible battery charger (220v) for your European customers?
3) could you give us an update on the average flight time of your latest tests? I remember you were optimistic about 25-30 minutes flight time for the final product.
4) Last but not least the range extender; when it will be available and at which price? What range will it reach (in meters)?
Thank you
Thanks Jacopo!
1) Snap will not be available for Windows phones when we start shipping. We do plan on building this out eventually though.
2) Yes. The charger will support 100-240v, 50-60Hz!
3) Snap will have a flight time of 20 minutes. You might be able to push this a little, but we are committing to 20. We will be coming out with an accessory that will greatly increase this later this year.
4) We are currently focused on filling pre orders, and hope to have the first round of accessories available in the Fall.
Please let us know if you have any other questions!
Looking great! Excited to get our Snap. One question: Does the gimbal allow for the camera to be rotated 90 degrees down, i.e. to get overhead shots? Thanks.
Hi Penny – Thanks for the positive feedback. You will be able to control the pitch of the camera from straight ahead (0 deg) to straight down (-90 deg). Please let us know if you have any other questions.
Awesome! The 4K footage looks very clear. Bravo!
Thanks so much Brian!
Looking forward to receiving the unit I preordered very much!
Thanks Dennis – We can’t wait to get you flying!
Great footage! Can’t wait to take mine on mountain hikes. Love my DJI Phantom 3 but it’s a bit cumbersome for such trips.
Any chance the final version will have a zoom function?
Hi Jeff – Thanks so much for the positive feedback. We are excited to get Snap into your hands and get you flying. Snap will have a fixed focal length lens with an 82deg field of view. Shooting 4K will allow you to crop in during post-processing and editing, though the final output would be 1080. Please let us know if you have any other questions.
Any possibility for real indoor use?
Hi Ants – Thanks for your question. You are able to fly Snap indoors, but for maximum capabilities a strong GPS signal is critical. Please let us know if you have any other questions.
Suggestion for future accessories (unless you’ve already planned on this). Almost all hand-held cameras, many action cameras and several aerial cameras have filter accessories that can be bought either from the same company or 3rd party companies. I hadn’t thought about this until now but I have at least 12 various camera filters at home and I’m not even a real photographer. lol. I’d love to see some filters available for snap one day. Most notably ND filters for manipulating the video’s shutter speed and polarized filters for shooting over snow, sand and water.
Keep up the good work! You guys mentioned that your ground wifi range extension module would be the first module that comes out after Snap is released. Most other modules you’ve said are coming out in the fall. Any word on when the ground wifi range extension module might come out?
Thanks for the suggestion Kevin. We have gotten quite a few requests for ND filters and the like. We are too far along in the design to implement this now, but certainly plan on building out these features. We are still focusing on filling pre-order sales. Once that is tackled, we will pick things up with the first round of accessories. Fall of 2016 is our best guess for most of the first accessories to come out.
You’ll get no complaints from me on focusing on filling pre-order sales. Yeah I figured the filters would be a big one. Saw a few people post it on facebook. Good news is, these little filters are easy to design and make in little ultra light snap on versions that probably won’t affect the balancing of the gimbal.
Anywho…. okay so no wifi range extension module until the fall. Roger. I’ll keep my eyes on DSM controllers just in case. 🙂
That’s awesome news! I hadn’t expected that feature, so now I’m double excited to get my Snap!
Thanks for the reply. If there is exposure compensation and white balance selection (in Kelvin for example) available next to a flat color profile, that would be great! What is the max video bitrate? Thanks!
The video bitrate at 4k is 60Mbps. You can see all the other specs at https://vantagerobotics.com/snap/specs
So, from your testing, for outside visibllity issues outdoors, would a, say, iPad mini be preferable to a smartphone?
We are building out our software to work on the iPhone first. iPad software will be coming out shortly though.
Put the robot in the mail, already!
We have been working hard, and things are coming along nicely. We just want to make sure you get the best possible product.
From Norway, I’m really looking forward to receiving Snap I preordered ! Hope it will be soon. Keep up the good work.
Thanks Laurent! We are working tirelessly to get you Snap asap, and are really excited to get you flying.
I am Mark from Vietnam. I am looking forward to receive the ordered stuff to be sent to me asap. Thanks.
We can’t wait to get you flying either!
When will that update be coming…?
Only flaw I see is the way the footage comes in in the corners, where it stretches.
Thanks Kyle. We are addressing the dropoff of sharpness in the corners and will be improving the lens, which will also help with the rectilinear distortion.
Does the 4K require a specific type of SD card speed? 85+ mbs? UHS rating at what speed?
Yes. Micro SD Max capacity: 64 GB. Class 10 or UHS-1 rating required.