The Future of Camera Stabilization - and it looks awesome!

If shooting 4k for a 2k production, sure, this could be a big help. You need a lot of room around the desired frame to get this to work. It will only look right with fast shutter speeds. If a slow shutter speed is used, then motion blur will show up in the stabilized shot and it will look odd. A tree will suddenly look blurred for no reason. For material like shown in the demonstration, its a good solution. But if the shot calls for a steady shot and motion blur/slow shutter, then this won't replace a stabilizer.
 
yeah, makes sense. Didn't think about the shutter speed situation, however, they do seem to have a setting that will implement "post" motion blur to your shot... I guess to emulate that you shot at a 1/50 shutter speed, to make it more 'cinematic'.
 
I've backed this, but you are right, there are a few drawbacks you will have to contend with to get it to work.

You will have to run a shutter angle of 45 or 90 get sharp frames for it to work with, so no more 24p and a 4:3 frame would be better for a final 16:9 finish.

But all the same, very impressive and looking forward to have a play.
 
I have to wonder how it uses the gyro information. Similar to a gyro stabilized gimbal, it has to determine what is a camera operator move and what is jitter by tuning the PID. That probably can be tuned in post to give various results.

Then there is the question of what happens when the shot goes 'out of frame'. Does the software have an algorithm to gracefully hold frame within the video frame and not show black or do you have to sort that out?

I'd want a safe frame on the monitor to be sure I got the shot. But since the safe frame can be anywhere within the frame (including roll) there is no way to mark a safe frame on the monitor. There is no way to know if you got the shot. But for the application this is intended, most of the time it is point and shoot and hope for the best anyway regarding framing.

I'm not knocking it. I'm just pointing out operational differences between tools. This is a cool tool for certain applications just like all the other stabilizers techniques.
 
Last edited:
It's completely different. On a gimbal the giro info is used to drive motors in real time, to keep the camera steady. You need the correct PID parameters if you want the motors to behave nicely. With this device, you just store the giro info to use it in post, as an additional input for a software tool that stabilizes your footage in post. It's just an aid for the software, and hwo much it will help will depend on how good their algorithms are. It does have a great advantage: I don't know if they'll support this, but this giro info can also be used as input for camera tracking software. This can help a lot for some VFX work.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top