Helicopter Parts Make For Amazing DIY Camera Stabilization 78
Iddo Genuth writes "Videographer Tom Antos developed an advanced DIY camera stabilizer which can hold almost any DSLR or mirrorless camera steady for video photography. Although this surely isn't as sophisticated (and super expensive) as the professional MVI M10 handheld 3-axis digital stabilized camera gimbal, its still quite impressive especially when you consider it only costs a few hundred dollars rather then tens of thousands — that is if you feel like building it yourself." Antos' design takes advantage of stabilized gimbal systems made for hanging cameras on remote-controlled helicopters, and does a very impressive job for its price.
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Romney is fascist, not communist.
Why isn't this done digitally? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why not take the same sensors data and apply the same computation but into digitally manipulating the image on the fly instead of actuating motors?
Re:Why isn't this done digitally? (Score:4, Informative)
Because then you lose a lot of the picture. Plus it doesn't help you if you're using longer shutter times that blur the image.
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Re:Why isn't this done digitally? (Score:5, Interesting)
Mechanical stabilization has the advantage of keeping the focal center in the center of the image. If you're moving a crop box around a frame, you're going to get this weird effect where the point that parallel lines meet bounces around the frame.
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Because a high-resolution high-framerate camera is more expensive than a complex mechanical stabilization device -- oh wait, it isn't.
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-resolution loss
-rolling shutter screws you over
basically look on YT for digitally stabilized vids - they all look wobbly
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Do you usually charge money for your spare time?
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More than that, this hack only takes a few minutes to do. TFA links to an advert-ridden blog, but Tom's own page has more details
http://tomantosfilms.com/?p=474 [tomantosfilms.com]
It's basically a model helicopter gimbal velcroed to an ordinary camera shoulder mount. Clever, and unchallenging to build.
Re:yes because of course labor is free (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of us *gasp* LIKE building projects like this in our spare time.
There's the door, please hand in your geek card on the way out.
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And that's before you consider that no /.'er would ever be heard uttering the phrase "look honey".
Re:yes because of course labor is free (Score:4, Insightful)
They might if they saw a bottle of honey in an odd place.
meanwhile your wife cnat drive anywhere (Score:2)
because the car doesnt work.
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That's a retarded comparison. Very few people would DIY a device they depend on for living. The reply to the bitching wife who can't drive the classic Mustang because it's in pieces is to take the other car.
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But if you factor in the costs of having someone work on the project (someone that would normally have to be paid, and for engineering work paid pretty well), then it's definitely not cheaper.
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Of course not, but then no hobby or home tinkering would ever be justifiable.
Would you do this if you were a movie studio and camera work was the primary source of your income? Hell no, buy the kit and make it a business tax deduction. But given the number of cameras out there and the number of hobby photographers I am willing to bet that most people would want something like this, can not afford it, and already consider their camera as an unpaid hobby.
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Yes, when you don't have money, but you do have time and nobody will give you money in exchange for your time, then your time is (almost) free.
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When I no longer need it, it gets donated or goes in the trash. It makes for a simple, neat, productive, and satisfying life.
And since everyone in the world is exactly the same as you, we should all follow this amazing advice and all be so much happier!
Oh wait, part of that is wrong. Can you guess which bit?
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The part that's wrong is the part hof that where you use snark to cover over the fact that the advice is the best for virtually everybody.
Things don't typically make people happy, and most people don't like spending time cleaning and organizing. Now, you might be one of the people that can pay others to do it for them, has a huge house and or loves organizating, but you're in the minority there. Most people are better off getting rid of things that just take up space. The replacement cost of a lot of these
Re: yes because of course labor is free (Score:4, Insightful)
But many people enjoy creating things in and of itself.
The whole idea of "why build when I can buy" is why people are so much worse at making things that mostly work, fully work than they used to be. Building things is fun. If it's also significantly cheaper, and nearly as good, why not learn something on the way?
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But, that wasn't what the GGP was arguing about. He's arguing about the advice that he quoted. And except for a minority of people, who probably aren't harmed by doing it themselves, it's sound advice for everybody.
go create. but dont try to claim you saved money (Score:2)
because if your creation cant be justified because its cool or fun, dont try to lie about why you are doing it. none of this shit saves money.
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That's called ADHD, and there are effective treatment options for it, to at least keep that down to a manageable level.
It's not typical to leave that many projects unfinished for most folks, but if you have ADHD it's more or less the status quo for most people.
Why [make it | fix it | climb it | run it | ...] ? (Score:5, Insightful)
summary claims the purpose was to save money (Score:2, Insightful)
the summary , and so so many other /.ers, claim they do this stuff to save money.
it doesnt save money. stop lying.
if you do something for the thrill of doing it, then just fucking admit it. dont lie about it and claim that its somehow a wise economic decision or that you did it out of necessity.
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Ah, but you would need to search for used parts. If not, you would be building a new car. Seems we have ourselves a conundrum.
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"look honey, we can either waste money buying a used car
15K car
, or i can build one myself out of spare parts. i can literally save $5000
14.5K
, and it will only take me 3 years"
~2 weeks
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Wish I had some mod points.
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Buy ready-made camera stabilisation arm intended for quadrotors
Attach to hand-hold
That's it. That's all he did. Literally bolting one ready-made object to another ready-made object. I was expecting something like using the high-speed servos for moving the swash-plate to and writing his own controller, but this is a VERY low-effort and low-labour approach.
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Or mount it on an owl. (Score:4, Insightful)
Owls appear to be a pretty suitable stabiliser, too. [youtube.com]
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If you're scared of owls, or your owl won't let you mount a camera on its head, you can use a chicken instead [youtube.com].
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Owls appear to be a pretty suitable stabiliser, too. [youtube.com]
I tried attaching my Nikon to an owl with some duct tape once. The owl was no longer stable.
Re:Or mount it on an owl. (Score:5, Funny)
Get a smaller camera... or a bigger owl.
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I bet that was a hoot
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What's wrong with tripods or image stabilization?
Gimbal rigs are far more effective. You can make a gimbal rig out of a tripod, and throw digital IS on top of it for some great results. You can also buy these devices on amazon all day long for less than what this gentleman spent. This project is all about the DIY with helicopter parts I guess.
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What's wrong with tripods or image stabilization?
Gimbal rigs are far more effective. You can make a gimbal rig out of a tripod, and throw digital IS on top of it for some great results. You can also buy these devices on amazon all day long for less than what this gentleman spent. This project is all about the DIY with helicopter parts I guess.
Really??? Where? I looked on Amazon and all I see are mechanical stabilizers which keep the camera level and shoulder rigs with camera control, but no gimbals. The stabilizer that this guy uses for his DIY project is an active stabilizer with motors. It can be adjusted with the RC remote to have different camera angles and will keep the camera at that angle.
Re:Tripod (Score:4, Interesting)
You can't make these sorts of shots [vimeo.com] with a tripod.
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Movi (which this guy was apparently inspired by, he says so in the youtube clip at least) has an example movie shot by Vincent Laforet at Vimeo. http://vimeo.com/62917185 [vimeo.com] (He's the guy that shot the first 5D mk 2 video as well.)
The Movi system is for professional use though, and it costs $15k so it's not exactly for people to play around with.
If you want to understand more about why a gimbal system is so cool then look at the behind the scenes video from the Movi demonstration as well: http://vimeo.com/6335 [vimeo.com]
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Exactly. the clips I showed were steadicam shots, but the important thing wasn't that they were done with a particular rig, it's that smooth moving camera shots are an important part of a film's vocabulary. There's a sequence in Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice where the Netherfield ball is shown from the perspective of another party goer, another dancer--moving from room to room, listening in on conversations, and so on.
You can't do that with a tripod, where the camera is fixed in one position-- unless you
The point of a steady cam is to be steady. (Score:5, Insightful)
I like this man's ingenuity, and DIY ethic. But the final video is obviously jerky and unusable, which he explains by saying you need to balance the camera better than he did in an earlier step. Perhaps reshooting a better example with the camera balanced would have been better approach to get people interested. Because after watching the video, we have to take his word for it that this will actually work. Which doesn't really make me want to run out and try it.
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I disagree. Look at the terrain he's going over. That is a pretty extreme use of a handheld camera and the stabilization is quite impressive. On more more typical (flatter) terrain, where you are tracking a subject, not randomly panning up/down I think it would be quite usable. Certainly as good or better than the mini-steady cam setups that most of us could afford.
Re:get a new word for what they describe (Score:5, Funny)
Gimbal my arse
That shouldn't be a problem, I've managed to locate a suitable attachment point for the fixture right in the middle of it.
stabilize the sensor, not the camera (Score:1)
The latest Olympus cameras have 5-axis in-body stabilization that works with all lenses. They cost $1000, including the camera, and probably work much better than anything that tries to stabilize an entire camera. This third party review [youtube.com] shows off how well it works.
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Stabilizing the sensor does not work when filming with rectilnear lenses. Nearly all lenses are rectilinear, which means they scale the image differently in different parts of the field of view. If you move the sensor to stabilize the movie, then objects will appear to strech and contract as if they were made of Jell-O.
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There's also the issue of the view finder. If you're using an EVF it's not an issue, but with OVFs, the view you're getting is still as jerky as it was without stabilization, which can make it a challenge to frame what you like. Sure, it cuts down on some of the blurriness, but you lose out on a lot of the benefits.
Which is rather unfortunate. I've got a Canon lens with optical IS built in and I can really tell the difference, I can go from being unable to frame a shot, to being able to get a reasonably sha
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My son's a photography major you insensitive clod!
Google "DIY Steadycam" (Score:5, Informative)
Examples:
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The first two had demo videos. It's hard to compare, though, because the first one is a heavily edited short and the second is just a guy walking around on mostly flat ground. Both are better, sure, but this guy is walking through a very rocky and vertical trail. It's not perfectly stable, but it's also much more challenging terrain and he's clearly not really editing the shot to try to look professional.
I think this is an interesting concept that definitely needs more exploration.
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So, HE'S the chopper? (Score:1)
Not quite "DIY steadycam from Helicopter parts"
In fact, and I realise this is nothing new, the title is completely wrong.
hacker (Score:2)
And this, dear teenagers, is what the word "hacker" means.
Yaw (Score:2)
Finally after most of the video it showed how the shot looked like from the camera. What I noticed though was that it doesn't appear to smooth out yaw motion. Granted you have to turn it to aim, but it's twitchy. Since the pitch and roll have been well smoothed the yaw noise really stands out.
What it needs is a steadicam-like gimble that keeps it pointed in the same direction unless you intend to change direction.
Cheap, but not really "DIY" (Score:2)
It's a great money saving tip for sure, but bolting an unmodified Foxtech Falcon camera stabiliser [youtube.com] to a set of handles isn't really a DIY camera stabilization system. From the title I was hoping for something built from an arduino and some old hard drive actuators :)