I built a stabilized vehicle camera rig. It works pretty well on paved streets at 60fps. I'm trying to get it to work when I'm off road in 4wd conditions. My Sony A7III works pretty well. I picked up an A7 IV so I can shoot 4K at 60P (cropped).

I just got back from the rocky mountains with a bunch of heartbreaking footage. The camera is mounted to the hood of my truck on a vibration dampening mount. A Ronin Stabilizer is mounted to that. The camera and Ronin are remotely controlled and monitored from inside the cab. It takes quite a beating out there but sometimes it works. At least the A7 III does.

Obviously I am dealing with a lot of motion artifacts and issues. Testing the new A7 IV and new lens has me puzzled. It did not work well. In the test clip you will see what I am questioning. Much of the footage has an overall flicker to it. Everything is shot in manual but it looks like it is searching for something. At first I chocked it up to vibration and motion and figured I was just asking too much of the system. But it is inconsistent and shows up sometimes when I'm standing still. It seems to be the worst when I am very wide and trying to keep detail in the wide vistas. My question is this flickering motion artifact or is something else causing it?

Everything is in manual except camera image stabilization is in active. Could that be the cause? I am going to try turning it off wondering if I am overwhelming it?

Sony A7 IV
XAVC S 60P 200M 4:2:2 10 bit
Manual 125s F5.6 ND8 ISO 100

Lens in AF (I never saw it search)
Sony FE 4/PZ 16/35 G

I have lots of clips with motion problems that I expected. But the flickering is not consistent with rough or soft motion. Sometimes its there, sometimes its not. Is this motion artifact? All suggestions will be appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Steve

A7IVTest03.mp4 on Vimeo

It could be that the three vibration dampening systems (mount, Ronin, and camera) are fighting each other. You may want to try different combinations.

I use a Sony FDR X3000 hard mounted to my Jeep and rarely get the shaking that you are getting in my off road videos. The in camera stabilization seems to do the job. An iPhone on a suction cup mount gives me the shakes. Will be trying a hard mount for the iPhone this weekend. Will also be trying my A7S iii.

Larrie beat me to it. Stabilisation systems fighting each other. Not sure if you can switch off the internal sensor stabilisation within the Sony camera.

Or maybe it's good to shut off the Ronin? :-)

Trust it was only a test trip and not a client job.

Andrew

I recall a similar issue with a camera mounted on a snowscooter which turned out to be unusable because of the vibration, this was with a panasonic gh5, turning the IBIS on or off didn't make a difference, they afterwards used a GH5s which doesn't have any sensor stabilization and that did solve the problem.

I can turn it off, I will try that.

Not a client shoot. But I did miss some good stock opportunities with it. It was a 10 day overland 4wd vacation. Over here southern Utah and Colorado are some of the most beautiful places on earth. We were there to tent camp and drive off road trails.

Steve

I have been overlanding in southern Utah and Arizona several times. It is truly an amazing place with outstanding scenery. My favorite trip was to the north rim of the Grand Canyon. I hope to get back to that area again next year.

Arizona Strip and the Grand Canyon, https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLj-jlchjzD_m6sGJ6pHO67QlDEQp5KBp5

Exploring Southern Utah, https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLj-jlchjzD_nNvyWRlePhgITYOGA4M6Vi

Lens in AF (I never saw it search)
Sony FE 4/PZ 16/35 G

I have lots of clips with motion problems that I expected. But the flickering is not consistent with rough or soft motion. Sometimes its there, sometimes its not. Is this motion artifact? All suggestions will be appreciated.


I don't know how true this information is, but I've heard this problem can rear its head if using FF lenses in the APSC crop mode on the A7iv. But it isn't happening with APSC lenses... which are obviously lenses for crop sensors. Might be worth checking it out. Part of this information also said this happens because when the camera detects a FF lens, all the parameters of lens and body stabilization are set for FF stabilized shooting. In spite of the fact that the camera has been set manually to APSC crop mode. Whereas in the auto crop mode, which occurs when you fit an APSC lens on the camera, the camera then correctly selects the best stabilization settings for that APSC lens in that APSC crop mode. See if you can beg, borrow or steal a Sony APSC 10-18mm F/4.0 G OSS (effectively a 15-27mm FF equivalent) to test it out. FWIW I have an a7iv and that 10-18mm lens, but I couldn't replicate your hood mount setup. Just hi frequency vibrating and shaking the camera around with the OSS in both STD and ACTIVE stabilization modes, I cannot promote any kind of flicker issue to present itself.

Chris Young

That's interesting Chris. It automatically goes into APS crop mode when you select 60P 4K. Based on your possibility when I get a chance to troubleshoot it I will do a test in 1080 60 to keep it full frame. That would be sad if your corect. I bought it primarily for the 60P 4K. Otherwise it is not that big of an upgrade from my A7 III. I do love both cameras though. I preordered the FE f4 PZ as soon as it was announced. Great lens, I hope this is not an APS crop issue. I don't even mind the crop. I'm trying to build a quality vehicle mounted rig that will be far superior to the GoPro look. I have most of the bugs worked out on smooth streets. But the off road torture testing is not there yet.

Steve

A colleague of mine mentioned something similar using his A7iv in crop mode with FF lenses while using the camera on a slider in both HD and 4k. I've just double-checked with him, and he says the issue is not happening when using APSC lenses in crop mode. Go figure? I guess Sony have optimized anti flicker and stabilization in crop mode to work best with crop lenses. If they have, I can sort of understand that. Basically, I just treat the A7iv as a crop sensor camera and only use APSC or S35 lenses when in 50/60p mode. In anything other than 50/60p then I will sometimes use FF with FF glass. But in all honestly I've found the crop mode 50/60p with crop lenses to deliver exactly what I need. Being the owner of a couple of FS7s I have acquired various APSC and S35 lenses over the years. Compatibility with those lenses was one of the reasons along with its FS7 comparable codecs was the reason to acquire an A7iv. Trust you find a solution.

Chris Young

Instead of mounting such an expensive camera I’d use a GoPro. I agree the sensor or lens stabilization probably causing the issue.