Fix Extreme Camera Gimbal Vibrations in Post Prod

[zorich]

Hello guys,

I shot the following videos a few weeks ago and as you can see this is extremely shaky and unusable...

First I thought about a software or hardware problem, but it seems it was because of the strong wind in that place...

I read many threads and learnt about a jello effect/rolling shutter problem but I am not sure this is similar, what is your opinion? I'm quite desperate because I know I won't go to this place ever again...

And do you have any idea if I can fix it in post production with AE/Premiere/whatever software?

Any help will be greatly appreciated, thank you so much!

My best

 

[Just_nick]

 

[GrammatonxXXxCleric]

 

[Jimmers]

How old are your props?
Are your props balanced?

 

[volace]

How old are your props?
Are your props balanced?

My P4 is shaky too do you think new propellers will fix it ? I never change mine since I bought the phantom 18 months ago and I fly nearly daily

 

[GrammatonxXXxCleric]

Unbalanced props would contribute to shaking as well as disconnected rubber grommets on the gimbal plate. I use a Du-Bro balancer to balance props. The motor casing can also be unbalanced, but requires a more complex operation to correct and is usually not the issue.

 

[zorich]

Thank you for your tutorials links and replies. Well I spent the entire afternoon to try the tools on Premiere Pro which are said to fix the "Jello Effect" : Rolling Shutter Repair and Warp Stabilizer, but none of them had any effect, the video remains exactly the same with different settings... Do you know anyone who had a successful experience with this?

@Jimmers my Mavic was only one week old when I shot these videos so I don't think it was because of the propellers, moreover the problem never occured again since then, so weird... But as you can see on the 1st video, the cloud speed is huge so I guess the wind was really strong, could this be a reason?

 

[JarrodF]

Sorry you're having to deal with this. The sad truth is that with the vibrations you have, you also have motion blur each time the camera shakes. That makes normal forms of motion stabilization not work very well. They can stabilize the movement but the image will blur each time there is a shake. I've seen some plugins that supposedly do a better job with this that the ones mentioned but I've never tried them. ReelSteady is one of the best (though not cheap). It works with After Effects. Check out the demos on their website and decide if the $$ is worth it. Good luck!

 

[Raptorman0909]

Unbalanced props can be a real problem and one way to determine that without a balancer is to use a different set of props. If the results are the same then it's probably not the props so look at the gimbal mount.

Fixing shaky video in post is possible, but it comes with several costs. First, the time needed to create the stabilizer effect. Next the huge increase in file size of the project. Then you have a reduction it true resolution. And finally you have a huge increase in render time. Useful to fix a temporary problem but not a long term solution.


Brian

 

[ddh1313]

This will be the nuclear option reply of the thread but I did have a similar issue that involved removing the gimbal to correct it. There is a ribbon cable that comes up and out of the camera support arm and it had made contact with a piece of tape that was placed across the mounting frame of the gimbal. I think this was transferring vibration across the rubber isolation rings. The picture below is after i separated the ribbon cable from the underside of the tape and cut a square out of it so they could not make contact again.