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OT - need some help with "tripod shake" in a vid I'm making


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I know this Q might be better suited for a videographer forum but I"m gonna chance it that there are some photo or video pros here - or someone who at least knows more than I do (which I think is a safe bet).

 

I"m working on another 'bandemic' video with some great musicians and trying to get my video done. I"m seeing an issue with what I assume is called tripod shake, that I can"t seem to, well, shake (sorry!).

 

My setup is in the pic below - it"s a 2-camera shoot. The main view is straight on, using a Canon Vixia camcorder, an older but decent consumer model. I"m shooting at its highest mp4 quality, 1080p/60fps, 35Mbps bit rate. The side view is shot with my (original) iPhone SE using Filmic Pro, also 1080p but 30fps, 30Mbps bit rate. Exposure & focus is locked on both.

 

Here"s what I don"t get: my Canon is mounted on a 'pro' tripod - a ~$150 Vanguard 'Alta Pro' with a 3-way pan head. My iPhone is on a crap 'Sunpak' tripod that might have cost me $20. That video is steady and looks fine; the Canon camera video is shaky! The cheap tripod with my phone is right next to the keyboard I"m banging away on, and the video looks ok - no shaking. The Canon â on the expensive tripod â is at least 6 feet away, and the video is shaky.

 

Below is a very short video I uploaded to youtube (with an unlisted link, it"s only gonna be here in this thread, for now at least). You should easily be able to see what I"m talking about.

 

Of course the Canon has image stabilization â two types plus a 'powered' option. I"ve tried every combination (including no stabilization). I"ve tried hanging a bag off the weight hook of the Alta Pro. I tried putting the tripod legs on a specially-treated foam 'vibration dampener' product I have (you can see them in the pic). Nothing has worked. I also tried FCP"s image stabilizing processing on the clip â no dice, it actually looks worse.

 

This is my first time using my KX88 in years. It"s on a pretty sturdy stand, but for some reason my pounding is definitely getting into the floor and messing with my Canon"s video â but not the iPhone right next to the KX88. Any insights or tips are appreciated. Thanks a bunch! (PS- I know I have some work to do on my keyboard technique - this is painful for me to watch!!).

 

video-setup.jpg

 

[video:youtube]

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Not a pro, but a few observations come to mind.

The Canon has two factors working against it. (1) Long indoor shot (2) Fully extended tripod creating a large displacement of the camera for very small displacements at the floor, especially where the legs are the flimsiest.

 

I would try 3 things.

1. Reposition the Canon and zoom so you can get a tighter shot without so much distance.

2. Make it so you don't need the tripod extended to the last flimsy section.

3. Place a carpet under the keyboard stand.

 

#'s 1&2 will make it more like the iPhone setup with it's beefy tripod and closer shot

If you absolutely need the distance, maybe #3 will help with enough carpet. :)

J a z z  P i a n o 8 8

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Thanks. The Canon is zoomed out almost all the way to wide-angle. There's really no way to get closer and still have the whole width of the keyboard in the frame and not have the top of my head cut off. And unless I'm misunderstanding you, it sounds like you're confusing the tripods - the iPhone has the much less "beefy" tripod. The Canon has the good one, and though all leg sections are extended, the column is only about halfway up and the tripod itself is sturdy - it just seems the vibrations are coming through the floor.

 

Your post did give me the idea of moving the Canon back and zooming in to compensate. Usually a telephoto would show shaking more than a wide-angle, but maybe I can find a spot where the vibrations from the floor don't affect it. Worth a try. So is the carpet idea, if I can find some around the house.

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A tripod at full extension = wobble city. Assuming you don't have an industrial strength mic stand with a 1/4X20 adapter, I would try a keyboard hard case on end and put a mini tripod or mic stand on top. Put a heavy doormat under the case to absorb some shock. Of course if you have a bar stool handy that doesn't swivel, that would work as well.

 

Drag that table in from the patio and get rid of the last two extensions of the tripod - that will relieve much of the shake.

 

Jake

1967 B-3 w/(2) 122's, Nord C1w/Leslie 2101 top, Nord PedalKeys 27, Nord Electro 4D, IK B3X, QSC K12.2, Yamaha reface YC+CS+CP

 

"It needs a Hammond"

 

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Sorry to tell you Reeze but the Vanguard is not a good choice for recording video, it is a Photographers Tripod and NOT one for Videographers.

 

You will know a Videographers tripod by the fact that it will not have a term three way head in its product description it will have a Fluid Head, a fluid head being just that as you pan it will be a smooth action and not the jerky action you have in a Photographers tripod.

 

I have been recording cine and video for near on fifty years and for the past twenty five years I have been using a Manfrotto Carbon with fluid head for my video work. These are light and very stable for what I do, the legs are solid and braced about half way down, braced legs is an important feature in a video tripod.

 

Three pieces of timber and some tape will form leg braces for a temporary solution, tape the timber to the legs to form a triangular brace

 

OK, so you have shaky footage and this can be corrected post shoot that is in the edit.

 

I do not know what you are using by way of software but if you checkout Black Magic Design"s video editing software which is Da Vinci Resolve.

 

Best thing is it that it is free but it is no basic editing software, the only difference between the free and the paid for version is the latter supports Pro Video formats and has Broadcast Quality Video output formats. Bluray, MP4 and streaming video formats are included in the free version.

 

Your Canon does not produce Pro Grade video, yes it is good but it is not Pro Grade.

 

Within the software there is a Video Stabilisation feature which is fully customisable to achieve the best output. You can use this feature to correct you shaky footage.

 

There are plenty of tutorials on using Resolve online.

 

Other quality editing apps also have included Video Stabilisation features of varying quality.

 

Good luck.

Col

 

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Is there a speaker involved somewhere? I'm trying to understand why the iPhone shot is clean and the other is not. Shouldn't be that much difference.

-Mike Martin

 

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The opinions I post here are my own and do not represent the company I work for.

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Thanks everybody for your replies. I might have solved this, maybe not 100% but close. I moved the Alto Pro's legs closer together, which let me move it farther from my keyboard (it's against a wall, which limits where I can put it). Since moving the legs closer together raised the overall height I also lowered the center column. The legs are not "braced" against stops on the tripod â they're just loosely staying in position. A quick test showed almost no camera shake.

 

Is there a speaker involved somewhere? I'm trying to understand why the iPhone shot is clean and the other is not. Shouldn't be that much difference.

 

Yes that was the big mystery to me. The cheap iPhone tripod is right next to the keyboard too. No speaker, I'm using in-ears. I can definitely feel the floor shake a bit when I play.

 

BTW, anyone notice that aside from the shaking, the iPhone video just looks better than my Canon? That's an original SE, a 4-year old iPhone. The Canon was introduced in 2013, so yea, older, but bigger lens & sensor and optical IS. It shoots AVCHD as well as mp4 format, I was thinking it would be better to stick to mp4 since I would save a conversion step â but as with many things I "think", I could be wrong. :)

 

Sorry to tell you Reeze but the Vanguard is not a good choice for recording video, it is a Photographers Tripod and NOT one for Videographers.

 

You will know a Videographers tripod by the fact that it will not have a term three way head in its product description it will have a Fluid Head, a fluid head being just that as you pan it will be a smooth action and not the jerky action you have in a Photographers tripod.

 

I defer to your knowledge but â the head I have is described on the mfr website as the ALTA PH-32 LIGHTWEIGHT 3-WAY VIDEO PAN HEAD. It is most definitely a fluid head. That's besides the point though, isn't it? I am not panning or moving the camera in any way - it's locked in one position.

 

OK, so you have shaky footage and this can be corrected post shoot that is in the edit.

 

I do not know what you are using by way of software but if you checkout Black Magic Design"s video editing software which is Da Vinci Resolve.

 

I guess you didn't read my whole original post. I mentioned that I have Final Cut Pro and tried its stabilization feature with no success. I also detailed how I tried my Canon's optical IS at different settings (it has a few types) without success.

 

Your Canon does not produce Pro Grade video, yes it is good but it is not Pro Grade.

 

Tell me something I don't know! I'm just trying to do the best I can with the tools I have. The Alto tripod was a gift from my sister-in-law. Her husband passed away last year, it was his. I'm lucky to own it.

 

setup.jpg

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I am a photographer.

Not sure if it is mentioned above but you should never have IS Image Stabilization) on when your camera is mounted on a tripod. Never.

It is intended for handheld shooting. The article at the link will explain.

https://digital-photography-school.com/image-stabilization-on-tripods

It could be the cause of the shaky video, try turning it off and record again.

 

As to types of tripods, a photography tripod is perfectly fine for shooting video if camera is set to one position and left there. Only if you are going to be panning vertically or horizontally do you need a video head.

Since you are putting the camera in one position only, your tripod is fine for that application.

 

That said, both of your tripods are flimsy junk to be honest. I have owned a few truly stable tripods, they are quite heavy, with stout legs. It should be a cakewalk to find a truly good tripod in the NYC area for dimes on the dolllar.

 

I used a Manfrotto for many years, found at Goodwilll in the tools (all the tripods end up in the tools at our Goodwilll) for $12. When craigslist offered a Gitzo Reporter for $30 I snagged it and sold the Manfrotto for $30.

Estate sales, thrift stores, craigslist, yard sales and even pawn shops can be a source of solid, old school heavy duty tripods on the the cheap. I'm probably done now, the Gitzo is a keeper.

 

As one of my photography mentors once said "Buy nice, or buy twice."

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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I've gone from wooden floors to concrete with damp plates and carpet, which is preferable, but on both grounds there's some shake when walking or moving weight. Modern phones have strong general anti shake facilities, which makes them easily dull to look at (hard to switch of the all-the-time motion compensation), general cams vary and probably are generally not meant for that, but more of a smooth (video-) filming anti-shake. Of course the point on the, from the looks of it, wooden floor where you put the tripod will make a difference, maybe the Apple phone is on a support beam.

 

It's possible to use hard anti-shake algorithms in video processing programs (I know from various ones) but you have to be careful with the presumption they are all poweful: it's not really possible to do a double shake reduction with part of the scene wobbling or only a part, i.e. the keyboard or all of the surroundings on whole frame, with a certain perspective effect. There might be woblle on 3 axes so that the video anti shake has different amounts of movement to compensate for in the same frame. Usually a stabilizer will simply shift the image (possibly parts of a pixel) in order for a certain area to become motionless, which will only work for certain parts of the picture. The phone probably distorts the video in order to come across as stable, not unlike the YT stabilization software when it was still around.

 

Probably most people here won't know how to instruct advanced video processing tools to detect regions and anti-shake them individually in a believable form, or attempt a perspective inversion to the camera to do a proper compensation for the effect of the tripod motion. Cocoa, Cinelerra and Davinci Resolve can so some of that or more, but it's work.

 

Then, there is the timing and relative motions, where it is possible the keyboard moves sideways and up and down, which is causing the floor to transfer impulse to the tripod, but also visible as motion blur or shake depending on shutter time settings.

 

 

I solved two problems at once by making a very stable rack for the 88 keyboard, where I put serious sound isolation in between the synth case and the rest, and use rubber wheels on the floor. That creates a lot less rattle and late at night house disturbance when playing heavy, and the cams don't woble that much. The keyboard on it's foam bed a bit, but not as bad, somehow.

 

Theo V

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Reeze

 

I did read your post that you have FCP which I also use.

 

I suggested Resolve because its Stabilisation feature is vastly superior to that in FCP.

 

Resolve is available for a Mac and I have it on our MAC and my PC which I built specifically to edit video.

 

You can still temporarily brace the legs of the tripod to increase its stability.

 

Sometimes having the camcorder inbuilt video stabilisation system turned off can yield better results.

 

Good luck.

Col

 

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I had Resolve on my Mac for a minute but deleted it. I've spent a ton of time getting up to speed on FCP and did not want to start climbing another learning curve â especially given that my video-making is quite secondary to my music-making.

 

Anyway, as I posted I've gotten the shake down to minimal levels. It's still there but much reduced. And, I'm one of four musicians in the finished product so I will not likely fill the screen anyway, unless the leader decides to make me full-screen during my solo. I don't expect the shaking to be noticeable, and if it is, them's the breaks â this is not meant to be a Netflix feature! It was definitely not acceptable yesterday.

 

Of course I will be flogging the final product here when it's done!

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Here is another idea, Rob: If you look at the central column of your tripod, (the one which the camera attaches to) you will see that it has a metal loop at the bottom. Try hooking something over it and attach a bag filled with heavy objects to it. It will make the tripod much more stable (if it does not collapse....).

I use such a technique outdoors to make my camera stable in strong winds on my slightly-less-than-ideal tripod.

"Turn your fingers into a dust rag and keep them keys clean!" ;) Bluzeyone
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Here is another idea, Rob: If you look at the central column of your tripod, (the one which the camera attaches to) you will see that it has a metal loop at the bottom. Try hooking something over it and attach a bag filled with heavy objects to it. It will make the tripod much more stable (if it does not collapse....).

I use such a technique outdoors to make my camera stable in strong winds on my slightly-less-than-ideal tripod.

 

The weight hook? Thanks Anne but as I said in my initial post, that was one of the many things I tried. I hung a suitcase from there - it didn't help!

 

I'm working on the files from today' shoot. There's a whole lot less shakin' going on - but some other issues to address that I won't bore anyone with. I look at this as a very time-consuming learning experience â and time is something I have a lot of these days.

 

In other news, AWB will be back in the UK in... November 2021! I sure hope the covid situation will be such that we can pull this off. Looking at the news these days, you never know anymore.

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The weight hook? Thanks Anne but as I said in my initial post, that was one of the many things I tried. I hung a suitcase from there - it didn't help!

 

Oops...apologies - I missed that bit.

 

In other news, AWB will be back in the UK in... November 2021! I sure hope the covid situation will be such that we can pull this off. Looking at the news these days, you never know anymore.

 

This is truly great news!! Surely they will have sorted out vaccines by then.... The mere thought of going to such a gig is pretty overwhelming after all these months of abstinence. All possible fingers firmly crossed....

"Turn your fingers into a dust rag and keep them keys clean!" ;) Bluzeyone
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You could also subdue the vibrations at the source. Underneath the keyboard, on top of the keyboard stand arms, place some items to absorb the shock vibrations from your playing. Thick foam, rubber mats or feet, new sponges, folded up socks, what have you.

 

That in combination with carpet under the stand, and the ways others are suggesting to stabilize the tripod should all work together to minimize having to fix it in post.

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You could also subdue the vibrations at the source. Underneath the keyboard, on top of the keyboard stand arms, place some items to absorb the shock vibrations from your playing. Thick foam, rubber mats or feet, new sponges, folded up socks, what have you.

 

"Subduing at the source" - an excellent ideas, thanks. I just remembered I have a set of Harbor Freight foam "anti-fatigue" mats â gotta dig them out of the garage. Definitely worth a try.

 

foam-mat.jpg

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