Candle light & de-shaker

B

boulder

Well-known member
I was shooting a quick candle light test and while editing was unhappy with how shaky my camera work was...it was all over the place. I had used some deshaker tools before (I think it worked with virtualDub or something) but wasn't terribly happy. I tried the Mercalli plug-in from prodad and whoa!
This thing is sweet. The only trouble is there is some jello but I can live with that for shots I just had to get without my tripod (I'm lazy that way).

Now I have two plug-ins I cannot live without...Neat Video and Mercalli.

BTW I shot the test with candle light 50mm 1.8 @ 1.8 1600 ISO

Trust me...this video looked like it was filmed in an earthquake.



Edit: Before and after
 
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Mercalli is built on the same engine as the one in VirtualDub. But without all the options in VDub. Glad it worked for you.
 
boulder said:
Ah, didn't know that. Sometimes too many options defeats me :(
Click to expand...

You're not alone in that. A nice GUI with simple, and easy to understand options can make these powerful programs more accessible. And I think that is the magic of Mercalli.

BTW, the Jello thing that it creates (at least in VDub) can be removed rather easily. But I don't know if the same options exist in Mercalli since I don't know the interface and options.
 
I did see the (DSLR) option in the vdub one but the footage I tried to stabilize was REALLY bad so that may have contributed to my "eh" response. It was also a pain to do if I remember. I think I have Mercalli Lite and I'll bet the pro version can deal with the jello better
 
boulder said:
I did see the (DSLR) option in the vdub one but the footage I tried to stabilize was REALLY bad so that may have contributed to my "eh" response. It was also a pain to do if I remember. I think I have Mercalli Lite and I'll bet the pro version can deal with the jello better
Click to expand...

I've done REALLY bad footage before with excellent results. Including smoothing work from a helicopter. If you know what you're doing, it can be extremely effective. And it's not hard to use. Just takes a bit of practice.

The one drawback is that it does run rather slowly if you run it at max quality like I do. All depends on needs.
 
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