Sony A7s with Nebula 4000 3-Axis Gyroscope Stabilizer

DerranNL

DerranNL

Member
I received my Nebula 4000 stabilizer last week and finally had a chance to take it out for a spin yesterday with the Sony A7s. The weight of the camera is perfect for this device. As long as you don't use heavy lenses, since it needs to stay within the weight limits. I've been tweaking it through the software and still feel like it should be capable of even nicer flying results, but I'm happy with what I got so far. Very cool device!

You can see a short video demonstration here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtYF_D_Wkt0
 
Looks good. What lenses have you tried successfully and which didn't work? Of the ones I own, I only could make it work with the Sigma 19mm f/2.8 and 30mm f/2.8, which are APS-C lenses, so I may buy something else soon...

Also: you seem to have the on-off problem I had initially with panning. I changed the parameters to have zero dead zone in follow mode, and an aggressive exponential curve (50 if I recall).
 
Thanks Samuel, will give the zero dead zone a try! What did you use for Yaw speed at the follow tab? The Yaw settings have been taking up most of my time tweaking. Roll and Pitch seem to have a much smoother motor. The Yaw motor has a few 'steps' in them which seem to need a different approach. It's definitely something I'm going to spend more time on to get it right.

I did a lot of research online before getting the Nebula about which wide angle I could use best with it. I've been thinking about going the Voigtländer route, but didn't like the amount of vignetting it shows. I couldn't use my trusted Canon wide lens with the Metabones adapter so decided to go for the APS-C wide lens (pancake with wide converter). I also got it to work with the Sony 28-70mm FE lens which is only 100 grams heavier. So to stay safe, try to aim for a lens (or lens Metabones combination) up to 300 grams. It should be able to handle a bit more then that, but this way it isn't costing the motors too much power which will result in longer flying time.
 
I don't like to be restricted to APS-C when using the N4000, and I just concluded I don't really like my summicron-C 40mm f/2.0, so I put that on ebay and bought the Sony 35mm f/2.8, which, while not ultra-wide angle, is nice and sharp and should work with the N4000. It should arrive in a few days...
 
I just posted my review online for the Nebula 4000, including a part about the software tweaking and have profile settings available for download for working with the Sony A7s with the pancake and wide converter. You can find it here: http://derrannl.blogspot.com/2015/04/review-nebula-4000-lite-3-axis.html

Samuel, your tip about changing the Deadband degrees in the settings helped a lot to get rid of the on-off panning. Thanks, very helpful! I was able to do some more tweaking to the settings and have a few nice profiles ready to use.
 
I also got my nebula 4000 some days ago.
I made a short test video and I have big twitchs in my footage...
After digital stabilization I'm kinda satisfied with the result, but now I cant slow the material down because premiere doesent allows stabilization and changing the speed.
I've uploaded my video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uudn9pSZ7lk&feature=youtu.be
The first 10 seconds are stabilized, the rest not. It's a big difference I think
 
^ That's unacceptably bad. You have to work on the PID settings, particularly for the roll axis. Take note of the ones you're using now, read the BCG documentation to see what each does, and start playing with them until the camera is truly steady. I've found this is faster if you do it with the phone app than connecting and disconnecting the USB cable.
 
I use the Bluetooth function to work on my settings with the computer (there's no IOS app available unfortunately). It's really helpful indeed not having to work with the USB cable. It makes it very easy to change settings and picking up the Nebula straightaway to move it around freely while seeing the graph results on your screen in realtime.
 
There are some very helpful videos on YouTube that explain PID and power etc tweaking. I have been getting very nice results flying my a7s+28-70 and could share my settings if that helps. The OS and AF come in quite handy on that lens, really impressed by the AF smoothness
 
nyvz said:
There are some very helpful videos on YouTube that explain PID and power etc tweaking. I have been getting very nice results flying my a7s+28-70 and could share my settings if that helps. The OS and AF come in quite handy on that lens, really impressed by the AF smoothness
Click to expand...
thanks for the fast response, just deleted my message some minutes after posting it, sorry!
I used the A7 settings of this sheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vNDlV1beAadODYKwxZsCDetF4QlGXPQKuN_2O-8ZELA/edit#gid=0

and especially the roll is much better now (in comparisson to my last post in this thread)
I made a quick test in the house of my parents:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNvx7ZkfEck&feature=youtu.be

I think its ok now
 
ORANGEDAY, In Premiere, right click your footage clip and choose NEST. Then apply the warp stabalizer to your NEW NESTED CLIP in your projects timeline. Do the speed manipulation in your New Separate nested sequence timeline. You can have both speed manipulation and warp stabilizer this way.
 
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