A drone hyperlapse is a cinematic technique where a drone captures a series of photographs at a fixed time interval while moving through a scene. When those photographs are assembled into a video and played back at a standard frame rate — 24, 25 or 30 frames per second — time appears to accelerate dramatically, compressing minutes or hours of real-world movement into seconds of footage.

Drone hyperlapse is fundamentally different from standard drone timelapse. In a timelapse, the drone hovers in a fixed position while the world changes around it. In a hyperlapse, the drone itself moves between every frame — forward along a course, in a circle around a subject, or across a pre-planned waypoint route. This movement adds a spatial dimension that standard timelapse cannot achieve: the viewer experiences both time compression and physical travel through a scene simultaneously.

DJI builds four distinct hyperlapse modes into all current Mavic, Air and Mini series drones. Free mode gives you manual flight control while the drone handles automated capture. Circle mode automatically orbits a selected subject. Course Lock flies the drone in a straight locked direction while you point the camera freely. Waypoints lets you pre-set an entire multi-point route with custom altitude and gimbal angles at each position. Each mode requires different pre-shoot planning — and the calculations for each are different.

This is what the calculator solves. DJI’s own Fly app shows you the required shoot time after you’ve entered your settings — but it doesn’t help you plan those settings before you fly. How many batteries will a 12-second Circle mode orbit at 3-second intervals actually consume? How much RAW storage does 450 frames take? What shutter speed should you dial in, and will you need an ND filter to achieve it in midday sun? These are questions pilots answer manually, in their heads, on location — often getting them wrong.