Best shooting technique for hand held video

[John Nantz]

Originally Posted by Duncan Craig

AFAIK he invented all this stuff himself, and it's a shame his designs have all been ripped off..

Knockoffs and counterfeits are a problem. This spring I attended the Seattle Boat Show and stopped at a booth that had a display of a new watermaker setup (watermaker converts salt water to drinking water). The watermaker was interesting so I took my cell phone and was about to take a picture when the booth person asked me not to. Reason: He said that previously he had a Chinese (or Asian) person take some pictures of their previous new product and then manufactured a knock-off so now he doesn’t allow anyone to take pictures.

We had a good discussion about the problem with western companies that have to deal with Chinese copies and counterfeits and how it hurts western economies. Adding insult to injury, the US seems to be almost powerless to stop the counterfeits coming in.

Nearly all the major western microphone companies have Chinese conterfeit copies of their products in stores and circulating around on the Internet so trying to find a legit mic, especially a used one, at a good price isn’t easy.

[Mark Watson]

Just want to make a shout-out for the Sony balanced optical steadyshot (BOSS). I bought one 3 months ago, the FDR-AX33. It was an impulse buy at the check-out stand and now I wish I'd bought the FDR-AX53 with its longer reach zoom and other features. But, point is, if looking for a way to get stable hand-held footage, this is very effective at eliminating the shakes. I even set that little camera on my dashboard and drove around and it was rather hilarious watching the LCD as that magic eyeball worked frantically to produce a stable image.

I carry my tripod and fluid head just about everywhere because I think shaky footage makes my video look unprofessional. Despite the fact that TV shows and feature movies have lots of shaky footage, it remains a pet peeve of mine. I considered getting a Kenyon Labs gyro but was concerned about the noise of the gyros being too much in some applications. The advantage with that system would be that they make several models and I'd be able to find one for my heaviest to lightest cameras. I only wish Sony would find a way to use the BOSS with their 1-inch type sensor cameras.

Mark

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Duncan Craig

Also Danny's splendid Moustache (long before November) at the IOV show in 2007.

Thanks for that photo blast from the past. I think it was the 2008 IOV show where I met Danny after I had bought my MultiRig on recommendation from this forum.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Mark Watson

Just want to make a shout-out for the Sony balanced optical steadyshot (BOSS). I bought one 3 months ago, the FDR-AX33. It was an impulse buy at the check-out stand and now I wish I'd bought the FDR-AX53 with its longer reach zoom and other features. But, point is, if looking for a way to get stable hand-held footage, this is very effective at eliminating the shakes.

.....

I only wish Sony would find a way to use the BOSS with their 1-inch type sensor cameras.

The BOSS on the AX33 is very effective. I was able to directly compare it side by side with the 1" sensor AX100 & the stabilisation was clearly better but unfortunately the image quality was obviously inferior. Unsurprising really as it's a smaller sensor & a consumer model that is half the price of the AX100. It's probably a mechanical issue that makes BOSS so effective on the 1/3" sensor.

[Dave Blackhurst]

The BOSS system would be "great" for the 1" class sensor, but the camera would likely end up rather large! I think that's why we haven't seen it "yet". The physical size of the sensor/lens block would present significantly more mass to deal with...

I saw in another section of this forum that Sony has made a "micro" BOSS for their action cam, and it looked to work quite well... not sure the exact engineering for upsizing - it's not impossible, just probably a complete redesign based on the existing concept... They also seem to have improved the stabilization in the RX10M3 over the M2, so the engineers are always up to something!

Who knows, maybe one of these days they will have to have a "DE-stabilizing effect" to achieve early 21st century "wobblycam" video!

[John Nantz]

Dave -

Originally Posted by Dave Blackhurst

Who knows, maybe one of these days they will have to have a "DE-stabilizing effect" to achieve early 21st century "wobblycam" video!

Anyone that was around during the days of 35mm (that’s film, not sensor size) will remember the various types of “soft focus” filters available so I’m sure you’re correct.

Hey, since you thought of it first here maybe you could could shoot for a patent on “Daves Retro Wobblycam”!

[Steven Digges]

I confess, I was one of those guys. I had a Kokin plastic filter kit just to degrade my Nikon glass. Of course they were reserved for shoots when girls were taking clothes off so they were justified!

And shaky cam is a professional style already. The show The office is the biggest example of it. I hate it.

Steve