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Q About Gimbal Stabilizers in General
- Thread starter Terry VerHaar
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Carey Lee Coffey
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Because of their incredible versatility, I predict these MōVI competitor, low-cost gimbals will definitely replace steadicam w/pro op. on every ultra-low and micro budget production.
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Les Dittert
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The new electronic gimbals do nothing to take out walk bobble : the up and down motion, or side to side translation. They can't because they only stabilize 3 out of the 6 axis of motion. Think about it this way: grab the gimbal and move it up 6 inches. What can it do about that move ? Can it move the camera down to compensate ? No. So that motion stays in the picture.
The 3 axis that they do stabilize are the same axis that software stabilization also treats.
I'm not saying that SW stabilizers are as good as these gimbals, but they are getting better all the time.
The 3 axis that they do stabilize are the same axis that software stabilization also treats.
I'm not saying that SW stabilizers are as good as these gimbals, but they are getting better all the time.
Marc Berger
Well-known member
Very interesting thread, Terry.
I don´t think at all that those new gimbals have anything to do with a steadicam. It´s a new tool.
In my opinion a steadicam is not only a camera stabilizer, it is "full body driven eye". Every slight change of position, moving the hips, leaning forward or backward...every movement of the body translates to the camera. And this is the art of steadicam, it is like a painters brush on the canvas. This immediate ability to react to the smallest impression makes every operator unique. A good operator is more like a DP for the unpredictable slight changes in movements and arrangements. And this have nothing to do with a 2 men crew. Just have a look at the work of great operators, like Larry Macconkey "Good Felllas"..or Jörg Widmer in "Tree of life". The whole choreography is designed by them. Jörg Widmers work in "Tree of Life" is just full of understanding what´s going on around him and he reacts with the camera like a poet would do with words. Garrett Brown loved the hand camera of the nouvelle vague, but he wanted to have it more stable and smooth. Then he invented the steadicam. And the side effect of the steadicam is the stabilizing of the shot, but its not the "heart"of the steadicam. He wanted to move the camera, not only to stabilize it. The first long shot in "Bound for glory" was not only a great shot because it was stabilized. It was the more then that, like a " spirit of the movement" down from the crane into the scene. All the excitement and compassion for what´s before and around Garrett Brown is in it. Now imagine the same shot with a supertechno. It is another world, would be another movie.
One of the very big advantages of the digital filming is that the capture part can be isolated from the rest of the camera. I think because of this we will soon see a kind of stabilizing the picture (in the Movi/ Gimbal way) by the separation of the sensor/lens part from the rest of the camera. BTW you find this technic already in smaller Sony cams. Until then I think this newly developed gimbals will serve well, but not to replace the steadicam.
Maybe one day the steadicam will be obsolete, I don´t know, but until then I´m a bit afraid this new gimbals will flood us with long and meaningless shots with amazing movements...but hey, that´s fashion and the show must go on.
Marc
I don´t think at all that those new gimbals have anything to do with a steadicam. It´s a new tool.
In my opinion a steadicam is not only a camera stabilizer, it is "full body driven eye". Every slight change of position, moving the hips, leaning forward or backward...every movement of the body translates to the camera. And this is the art of steadicam, it is like a painters brush on the canvas. This immediate ability to react to the smallest impression makes every operator unique. A good operator is more like a DP for the unpredictable slight changes in movements and arrangements. And this have nothing to do with a 2 men crew. Just have a look at the work of great operators, like Larry Macconkey "Good Felllas"..or Jörg Widmer in "Tree of life". The whole choreography is designed by them. Jörg Widmers work in "Tree of Life" is just full of understanding what´s going on around him and he reacts with the camera like a poet would do with words. Garrett Brown loved the hand camera of the nouvelle vague, but he wanted to have it more stable and smooth. Then he invented the steadicam. And the side effect of the steadicam is the stabilizing of the shot, but its not the "heart"of the steadicam. He wanted to move the camera, not only to stabilize it. The first long shot in "Bound for glory" was not only a great shot because it was stabilized. It was the more then that, like a " spirit of the movement" down from the crane into the scene. All the excitement and compassion for what´s before and around Garrett Brown is in it. Now imagine the same shot with a supertechno. It is another world, would be another movie.
One of the very big advantages of the digital filming is that the capture part can be isolated from the rest of the camera. I think because of this we will soon see a kind of stabilizing the picture (in the Movi/ Gimbal way) by the separation of the sensor/lens part from the rest of the camera. BTW you find this technic already in smaller Sony cams. Until then I think this newly developed gimbals will serve well, but not to replace the steadicam.
Maybe one day the steadicam will be obsolete, I don´t know, but until then I´m a bit afraid this new gimbals will flood us with long and meaningless shots with amazing movements...but hey, that´s fashion and the show must go on.
Marc
Brett Harrison
Well-known member
Marc, nicely said. The Steadicam is a whole other deal.
And as Carey says, because of the economics of it, you're going to see gimbals on sets that never could have afforded an expert Steadicam operator.
But on the big sets you could very easily have both because they do different things - hell, for the really pro steadi ops, this is just an accessory in their kit.
And as Carey says, because of the economics of it, you're going to see gimbals on sets that never could have afforded an expert Steadicam operator.
But on the big sets you could very easily have both because they do different things - hell, for the really pro steadi ops, this is just an accessory in their kit.
Alec Morris
Well-known member
The skill of the operator has nothing to do with the potential of the tool. This argument I keep reading over and over is that "steadicam is better because the operators are better than unskilled movi operators". That completely falls apart if you think about it for more than 10 seconds.
Are the results better today? Of course. But what about a few years down the line when you have operators with 5 or 10 years of experience operating the gimbals?
Judge technology on its own merits and potential. The current skill of operators has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Also, they are the EXACT SAME THING. Image stabilizers. There is no way in 5 years any production has both on set. No producer would ever pay for both because the end result it THE EXACT SAME. When the operators skill gets up to par, I don't see anything a steadicam could do that a gimbal could not (though I see many things a gimbal could do that a steadicam could not)
Are the results better today? Of course. But what about a few years down the line when you have operators with 5 or 10 years of experience operating the gimbals?
Judge technology on its own merits and potential. The current skill of operators has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Also, they are the EXACT SAME THING. Image stabilizers. There is no way in 5 years any production has both on set. No producer would ever pay for both because the end result it THE EXACT SAME. When the operators skill gets up to par, I don't see anything a steadicam could do that a gimbal could not (though I see many things a gimbal could do that a steadicam could not)
Björn Benckert
Well-known member
You are pretty far off here, They are definitely not the same, on the contrary they are very different. A steady cam stabilise camera position. A gimbal only control pan,tilt and roll...
Something I find really odd is that we have not seen much shots done with gimbals on steady cam arms just yet. A running camera, with no footstep wiggle and a super smooth controlled pan, tilt and stiff roll even when going from overslung to underslung etc.
Alec Morris
Well-known member
What I'm saying is they both produce a stabilized image. The exact same shots can be accomplished.
Obviously they aren't technically the same thing. But on screen it makes no difference.
Obviously they aren't technically the same thing. But on screen it makes no difference.
Björn Benckert
Well-known member
No that is not right. stabilizing the position is not the same as stabilizing the pan tilt or roll. The result result is very different. A camera that has position and pan tilt roll stabilised is far better than only pan tilt roll..
In post you can stabilise pan tilt roll quite easily by shooting a bit wide zoom into the frame in post, project the image onto a plane and counter move the plane infront of a VR camera... then the result within the picture limit is identical to the gyro stab. However what the steady cam does you can not mimic in post so easily as it stabilise position. Changing the position of the camera involves prespective changes and those are not to easy to mimic or counter steer in post. So again, the result is very different even though at a first glance the footage can look quite the same but it's really not. The difference shows bigger the closer to the object of interest you are.
Nick Gardner
Well-known member
No they really can't. They are different tools. A movi is to steadicam what a steadicam is to a dolly. You can get similar results, but there are differences, and and they each do something better than the other. The Movi isn't going to replace anything. It's it's own deal. Frankly, the number of shot's I can see a movi being usefull for are incredibly small. You can do almost any shot imaginable with whats already on any small TV movie's camera and grip trucks. And again I have not seen anything, ever on a movi that wasn't a poorly composed wide shot.
Nick
Alec Morris
Well-known member
That's what the operator is for! A skilled gimbal op will focus on just that, nailing position. We haven't seen it yet because these just came out.
Björn Benckert
Well-known member
You might say that, but basically a gimbal camera operator could not possibly "nail the position" better than any other handheld option out there, but he will have the interest point of the camera locked. A steady operator will have far better success in holding the camera still, especially on the Y axis in space. For the most part maybe a pan tilt roll head stab will do the trick, but there is several occasions where the dampening of the Y axis is far more needed/important, for those times the gimbal does not stand a chance.
One quick test:
Take a gimbal, run really fast along a fence with the camera close to the fence railing and shot looking out over the fence. Now do the same thing with a steady cam...
Well the gimbal shot will be pretty much unusable as the fence railing will bounce up and down in front of the scenery like crazy... in the steady cam shot, not so much. In such scenario the difference in between the two are very easy to spot.
Alec Morris
Well-known member
You brought up post stabilization earlier. Stabilizing the Y axis, in your scenario, would be incredibly easy. Especially if shooting cropped.
Björn Benckert
Well-known member
Actually that is wrong. You can post stabilize tilt motion (if made around the lens nodal) to 100% within the given shot frame, ie. you need to zoom in or crop the material in post to do so.
Y movement on the other hand is far more difficult to remove as it introduce a prespective change....
back to the fence again. Put your camera close to the fence and aim it so it looks out over the fence... now move the camera up and down along the y axis.... then you will see that part of the scenery is moving up and down behind the fence due to the perspective change. It will be very difficult or impossible to stabilize such shot as you can not recreate what goes behind the fence when you move the camera. So such shot is not really possible to stabilize in post....Where a nodal tilt in such scenario would be possible to stabilize completely.
so gimbal heads take care of nodal pan tilt shakes. steady cams dampens y movements, and smooths out pan tilt aswell. thats a big difference.
Les Dittert
Well-known member
Thanks Björn,
You are helping erase the misconceptions of a 3 axis gimbal doing X and Y translate stabilization.
Again, the electronic 3 axis gimbals actually stabilize the same axis that warp stabilizer ( which isn't very good at wide lens work yet ) does.
If the software stabilizer harnessed the Red camera gyro metadata , it would be a lot more effective.
You are helping erase the misconceptions of a 3 axis gimbal doing X and Y translate stabilization.
Again, the electronic 3 axis gimbals actually stabilize the same axis that warp stabilizer ( which isn't very good at wide lens work yet ) does.
If the software stabilizer harnessed the Red camera gyro metadata , it would be a lot more effective.
Björn Benckert
Well-known member
We are on the same path i think
Basically if you know your lens and it's oddities and sensor size and have a good 3d track then all nodall pan and tilt motion can be removed in post. But then you then still might have isuess with motion blur and things like roling shutter and the main problem that what you want in frame is not there. So obviusly there is a great use for gimbal heads but as you say they do nkt replace the spring dampening of a steadycam arm.
Alec Morris
Well-known member
That depends on what lens you're using. If the parallax is that extreme, then sure.
But again you're assuming that a skilled movi operator is going to be completely unable to keep it acceptably still. The operator is doing x and y translation, that is where the skill is going to be.
But again you're assuming that a skilled movi operator is going to be completely unable to keep it acceptably still. The operator is doing x and y translation, that is where the skill is going to be.
Les Dittert
Well-known member
Sure. And right now the best way to keep x and y somewhat smooth is the good old steaycam spring arm.
There is nothing preventing someone from making a 5 axis electronic gimbal. Adding maybe 5 inches of translate smoothing would probably do it, but the contraption would become the same bulkiness of the old device it is trying to replace, I think.
There is nothing preventing someone from making a 5 axis electronic gimbal. Adding maybe 5 inches of translate smoothing would probably do it, but the contraption would become the same bulkiness of the old device it is trying to replace, I think.
Brett Harrison
Well-known member
They're in the same category, but so are apples and oranges. They aren't the same thing.
And the skill of the operator affects the shot, obviously, but right now Steadicam operators would be the most experienced in this particular wheelhouse - that's just common sense. Down the line, us newbie gimbal people will be the better choice.
But it comes down to your ability to get the shot, ultimately, which is what separates any camera operator from the masses, and even a gimbal won't give you that automatically. It's just that Steadicam operators are already proven in that regard.
And the skill of the operator affects the shot, obviously, but right now Steadicam operators would be the most experienced in this particular wheelhouse - that's just common sense. Down the line, us newbie gimbal people will be the better choice.
But it comes down to your ability to get the shot, ultimately, which is what separates any camera operator from the masses, and even a gimbal won't give you that automatically. It's just that Steadicam operators are already proven in that regard.