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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Image stabilization

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beatniq

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I tried searching, but found little discussion on this topic here or on DVXUser.com

Any idea if RED will have this feature?
 
beatniq said:
I tried searching, but found little discussion on this topic here or on DVXUser.com

Any idea if RED will have this feature?
Click to expand...

Hi,

I think that is something you can do in post far better than in camera.

Stephen
 
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Stephen Williams said:
Hi,

I think that is something you can do in post far better than in camera.

Stephen
Click to expand...

I read a little about that and I've not heard good things - a lot about blurriness and other issues when done in post.

Do you know if FCP can do this? I've played with the "Image Stabilizer" filter in FCP but it never seemed to work very well, though I must admit I haven't done much more than just fiddle with it.
 
beatniq said:
I read a little about that and I've not heard good things - a lot about blurriness and other issues when done in post.

Do you know if FCP can do this? I've played with the "Image Stabilizer" filter in FCP but it never seemed to work very well, though I must admit I haven't done much more than just fiddle with it.
Click to expand...

Hi,

Not sure about FCP but after effects and any effects programme will have tracking software. You will always loose resoloution, however starting with a 4k image will help.

Stephen
 
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kinobairn said:
Some lenses have Image stabilization built in, but most likely your best solution would be to use After Effects (shake, combustion) to stabilize a shot.
Click to expand...

Wow. That is going to be a difficult workflow for ENG/EFP.
 
beatniq said:
Wow. That is going to be a difficult workflow for ENG/EFP.
Click to expand...

Hi,

FWIW very few broadcast lenses have stabalization, the ones that do are very expensive. I don't know of any broadcast cameras that have such a feature.

Stephen
 
Stabilization is kind of a broad topic.

Lens: The long ENG lenses (we have a Fujinon HA42X13.5) have stabilization, but it really is for wind shake and such only. High frequency small amplitude stuff.

Post: We have had excellent results in Avid Media Composer HD with motion tracking and stabilization (stabilize or smooth). Sometime you have to slightly crop or zoom the picture afterwards, but it can make a huge difference with little or no loss of rez depending on the shot. It helps if you shoot at a higher frame rate like 60P (less delta t between samples for the software) with a fast shutter (even if you then have to go back in and add motion blur in post to reduce strobing at 24P). We often shoot 60P with a 24P timecode to allow us to do this in post (overcranking 2.5 times)

GyroStabilization: The bigger problem is shooting from a boat or helicopter or other vehicle where you are dealing with both low frequency (boat rolling in moderate seas) and high frequency motion (boat vibrating as you work the engines/props to maneuver while holding the shot). There are some great gyrostabilization solutions out there. MakoHead and Cineflex are the two I am familiar with and both are excellent in different ways.

Of course there are Steadicam type rigs, but I have never used them and have no experience.
 
Hi Beatniq

Trying to avoid shake on a small camcorder is very tricky, hence the ubiquitous built in stabilisation. You will find that you get a lot less shake with a large pro or broadcast camera, just because of the greater mass involved. It is far easier to move the camera smoothly when it has a bit if weight.

Martin
 
Martin said:
Hi Beatniq

Trying to avoid shake on a small camcorder is very tricky, hence the ubiquitous built in stabilisation. You will find that you get a lot less shake with a large pro or broadcast camera, just because of the greater mass involved. It is far easier to move the camera smoothly when it has a bit if weight.

Martin
Click to expand...

That is reassuring. Though the RED is actually pretty lightweight, I'm sure with all of the accessories I'll be putting on it, it will gain some much needed mass.
 
Holding RED as a shoulder-mounted rig should minimize most stability issues like the shakes and twitches you get with smaller camcorders. Kinda like others have said, the mass helps and most other broadcast cameras don't have much for stabilizing features. Some jumps and jitters can be corrected in post, but you usually have to crop in on the frame and it's hard to correct for those really quick motions that blur.

Anyway, I think that from an ENG/EFP perspective, the manual focus (incredibly innovative focus assist feature not withstanding), is going to be your biggest obstacle for run-n-gun situations. But if you can pull it off, you should have some of the finest looking news footage out there. :)
 
Image stabilisation works well for still photography, it works well for filmed helikopter shots (Giromounts, Westcam) but in most of the cases, it would be better to go on a dolly, crane, tripod... exept you shoot action stuff or use it as a stylistic element. For stabilising FCP is not the right tool, I use After Effects, Combustion or Digital Fusion. But: "Let's fix it in post!", is in most of the cases rubbish, time consuming.
 
The FCP image stabiliser is pretty much useless. Shake is very good. You have the standard stabilize node which uses trackers, and also the SmoothCam node which uses optical flow analysis. The latter gives very good results, but is pretty slow at rendering even at SD. Alow for a lot of rendering time at 4k!

Nick
 
Yeh, stabilization is not usually an issue for many uses of the camera. For narrative production, you will be on a tripod, on a dolly or jib, on a steadicam, or have a shoulder mount of some sort. It's all very smooth and the operators are experiences and have steady hands to boot. It's very different than your standard handheld handicam that requires some for of OIS to look decent.
 
Even with all the additional resolution, if you stabilize anything more than rotational drift or very very minor changes you're going get hideous results.

Also don't shoot with anything longter than 1/60sec shutter. Anything more and the motion blur becomes apparent inside of the stabilization.

Parallax will kill the best stabilization algorithms. Sure your forground is nice and steady but why is the Golden Gate Bridge floating around?
 
I don't mean this to sound condescending, it's just a question: Beatniq, have you ever operated a significant cine camera handheld?

[this really sounds like I'm being a jerk; I promise that I'm not]
 
Brook Willard said:
I don't mean this to sound condescending, it's just a question: Beatniq, have you ever operated a significant cine camera handheld?

[this really sounds like I'm being a jerk; I promise that I'm not]
Click to expand...

I don't mean this to sound condescending, it's just a question: Brook, what were you thinking?

(It does sound like you were being a jerk, but since we know you're not, you're excused!)

LOL...
 
so how can we stabilise for boat/heli work

so how can we stabilise for boat/heli work

I've used the attachable Canon stabilisers on B4 HD Canon lenses on XDCAM HD cameras and they are great.

This is a great addition when doing any helicopter of boat shooting, however I don't think these attachable stabilsers will be able to mount on 35mill lenses!??!?!

For those of you considering RED for ENG work at 4K and need a way to stabilise RED with the RED zoom, what will you do???
What's a way to stabilise for handheld/shoulder run and gun style work???

Gyros??
 
Brook Willard said:
I don't mean this to sound condescending, it's just a question: Beatniq, have you ever operated a significant cine camera handheld?

[this really sounds like I'm being a jerk; I promise that I'm not]
Click to expand...

No I haven't. Was it that obvious? :)
 
Heh, nah, that's not the way I meant it. I was just trying to figure out how to interpret the question:

Option 1: You thought that a full-sized cine camera would succumb to the same kind of vibration that a handy-cam would.

Option 2: You were familiar with the way a cine camera handles on one's shoulder but you were looking for something beyond that.

Option 1 has been covered, I was trying to come up with some cool solution for option 2. :D

And Gibby... :laugh: :)
 
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