Where’s all the video shooters at in here? I’m curious what you guys have personally found works the best for stabilizing video.
I’ve used Catalyst Browse, but it downsamples any video format down to 100 mbps and noticeably softens the whole image. I have only used it with 180* shutter. I’ve seen people say it might look better if you at least double the 180* shutter (30 fps would be 1/120 or higher). Does anyone have input on this from personal experience? I’m afraid motion blur would be very choppy doing this.
I haven’t tried Gyroflow yet, but it supposedly exports at the full bitrate instead of downsampling to 100 mbps. I’ve seen complaints about its stabilization performance compared to Catalyst Browse though.
The other option is to just use Active stabilization in camera. This gives full quality (other than a slight crop which the stabilizing software does as well) and it stabilizes very good. I have noticed while panning, it sort of locks in place at first and then follows your movement. This might be the best tradeoff though because you get full quality and excellent stabilization. Let me know your thoughts, thank you!
In my testing all the post processing stabilizers benefit from faster shutters speeds to avoid the jello effects. I find that any choppiness is much less noticeable than the image distortions. The ones that I find most effective are Catalyst Prepare on video files that have recorded the gyro data, and Davinci Resolve's stabilization. Using Catalyst Prepare, I like that I can see the amount of stabilization required and set the amount of crop that will be used. I don't recall the difference between Catalyst Prepare and Browse. Davinci Resolve has a few modes and parameters to fiddle with to find the best result, but, if it works, "camera lock" is excellent. Sometimes the amount of cropping required can be a problem. Most of the time I find that stabilization in DR is all I need. I believe all the image stabilization capability is in the free version of DR, so you can give it a try.
dclark wrote:
In my testing all the post processing stabilizers benefit from faster shutters speeds to avoid the jello effects. I find that any choppiness is much less noticeable than the image distortions. The ones that I find most effective are Catalyst Prepare on video files that have recorded the gyro data, and Davinci Resolve's stabilization. Using Catalyst Prepare, I like that I can see the amount of stabilization required and set the amount of crop that will be used. I don't recall the difference between Catalyst Prepare and Browse. Davinci Resolve has a few modes and parameters to fiddle with to find the best result, but, if it works, "camera lock" is excellent. Sometimes the amount of cropping required can be a problem. Most of the time I find that stabilization in DR is all I need. I believe all the image stabilization capability is in the free version of DR, so you can give it a try....Show more →
Thank you. I should have mentioned that I’ve also used Davinci’s stabilization, but I find that it doesn’t work well for anything really shaky. It gets very distorted and does a weird zoom during the clip. At least in my experience. I haven’t used camera lock yet, I had no idea what it did. Catalyst Prepare is the same as Browse, except it allows you to batch export and adjust stabilization intensity.
I feel like maybe the in-camera Active Stabilization could be the best overall option, but it doesn’t seem like many people actually use it and I don’t know why. I haven’t played around with it much yet, but I would think that it wouldn’t have that jello effect and it would stay much sharper than putting it through Catalyst. I’m just trying to avoid getting a gimbal lol
I use the in-camera/lens stabilization, as well as the DaVinci Resolve stabilization when needed.
I find that if I have a long clip where I’m moving the camera around a lot and the Resolve stabilization gets weird (or crops in too much), I will cut the clip in places where the camera is about to move around and it helps a lot. (yielding shorter clips with less motion per se.)
I use the built in tools and practice being smooth. IBIS is good, digital stab is better, and dynamic active is flat out amazing. The post stabilization with Catalyst requires shutter speeds that kill any motion blur, so it looks awful. Yes you can fake it in post, but that’s a double slow workflow to complete both steps, compared to just using the camera’s tools and good technique.
I had a gimbal, but that’s a process in itself and extra bulk/weight. And quite frankly after getting a body with dynamic active, I never used it, so I sold it. I have a pocket 3 and a couple drones if I absolutely want a gimbal shot.
joychris wrote:
I use the built in tools and practice being smooth. IBIS is good, digital stab is better, and dynamic active is flat out amazing. The post stabilization with Catalyst requires shutter speeds that kill any motion blur, so it looks awful. Yes you can fake it in post, but that’s a double slow workflow to complete both steps, compared to just using the camera’s tools and good technique.
I had a gimbal, but that’s a process in itself and extra bulk/weight. And quite frankly after getting a body with dynamic active, I never used it, so I sold it. I have a pocket 3 and a couple drones if I absolutely want a gimbal shot.
Thank you! This is some great feedback and it’s what I’ve been leaning towards since researching the topic a bit more. In Catalyst with 180* shutter, I notice this weird aberration flashing effect on edges of objects after it’s been stabilized. I think it’s just a limitation of it creating information that wasn’t there to fix the shakiness.
I also had a DJI gimbal before and I hated to use it so I ended up selling it. The process of balancing and setup wasn’t necessarily “quick” to be useful in run-and-gun shooting.
Duramaxjon wrote:
Thank you! This is some great feedback and it’s what I’ve been leaning towards since researching the topic a bit more. In Catalyst with 180* shutter, I notice this weird aberration flashing effect on edges of objects after it’s been stabilized. I think it’s just a limitation of it creating information that wasn’t there to fix the shakiness.
I also had a DJI gimbal before and I hated to use it so I ended up selling it. The process of balancing and setup wasn’t necessarily “quick” to be useful in run-and-gun shooting.
Catalyst needs faster shutter speeds for crispy sharp frames to interpolate, as you mentioned motion blur crates artifacts so 180* is out. And the free version won't batch stabilize, so I'd have to pay to use it. Pass. I have custom settings programmed for 24/60/120 fps and I would need to create more for catalyst specific shooting. That's just a lot of hassle ! And with only 3 custom banks on the mode dial, I'd have to menu dive or start spinning dials to get it correct. For me that's just too much to think about on top of shooting, I like to keep it simple and the camera is fine IMO.
Honestly, after getting my first body with Dynamic Active stabilization - the a7cII which has since been upgraded to the a7v - I really don't see myself owning a gimbal outside of the pocket/drones again. It's just that good. Yes there's a ~1.3x crop, but shooting wider or small APS-c lenses (the 11/1.8 is one of my favorites, and I don't own a crop body) make it easy to work with and the results are fantastic. Plus virtually no weird artifacts, no hideous wobble *Canon cough* or that bizarre slideshow jolt *Fuji cough*. And of course the pocket 3 needs no balancing, just flip the screen and hit record.
It's really underrated IMO and it doesn't add to the post workflow at all. Plus newer bodies like the a7v and a7rv have noticeably improved IBIS compared to previous gen bodies like the a7IV and a7sIII. Even with paid work I literally did 2 "walk and talks", and really never used it outside of those specific shots. Dynamic Active can handle that now haha. As always YMMV.
joychris wrote:
Catalyst needs faster shutter speeds for crispy sharp frames to interpolate, as you mentioned motion blur crates artifacts so 180* is out. And the free version won't batch stabilize, so I'd have to pay to use it. Pass. I have custom settings programmed for 24/60/120 fps and I would need to create more for catalyst specific shooting. That's just a lot of hassle ! And with only 3 custom banks on the mode dial, I'd have to menu dive or start spinning dials to get it correct. For me that's just too much to think about on top of shooting, I like to keep it simple and the camera is fine IMO.
Honestly, after getting my first body with Dynamic Active stabilization - the a7cII which has since been upgraded to the a7v - I really don't see myself owning a gimbal outside of the pocket/drones again. It's just that good. Yes there's a ~1.3x crop, but shooting wider or small APS-c lenses (the 11/1.8 is one of my favorites, and I don't own a crop body) make it easy to work with and the results are fantastic. Plus virtually no weird artifacts, no hideous wobble *Canon cough* or that bizarre slideshow jolt *Fuji cough*. And of course the pocket 3 needs no balancing, just flip the screen and hit record.
It's really underrated IMO and it doesn't add to the post workflow at all. Plus newer bodies like the a7v and a7rv have noticeably improved IBIS compared to previous gen bodies like the a7IV and a7sIII. Even with paid work I literally did 2 "walk and talks", and really never used it outside of those specific shots. Dynamic Active can handle that now haha. As always YMMV.
Cheers
Chris...Show more →
Thank you, it definitely sounds like active stabilization is the way to go
From my experience, the best stabilization still comes from regular active stabilization + Catalyst software, BUT the free version (catalyst browse) downgrades the image quality greatly (8 bit / artifacting), hence it is unusable for me. I was tempted to go for the 1 year subscription of catalyst prepare plugin for da vinci resolve (you can do a trial run with it, but it will have a watermark), but then I tried gyroflow, and that worked pretty well for free.
Gyroflow plugin + Da vinci resolve would be the best free option, and like others have mentioned, try to keep the shutter speed high and at most use active stabilization (not dynamic active stab).
Dynamic active stabilization by itself is great for static shots, but walking/panning shots have the "lock in" effect like mentioned earlier. Dynamic active stab also does not work well with gyroflow (haven't tested with catalyst software, but im guessing its similar), as dynamic seems to add some software stabilization over the gyro data which makes it shaky when combined.
When comparing between gyroflow or catalyst software (I'd skip catalyst browse as theres too many limitations like lower quality video export, limited stabilization setting where you can only set to 3, no batch stabilization, etc.), my experience is that the catalyst browse has less warpiness whereas gyroflow has some warpiness in the corners (not as bad as Canon's IBIS wobble).
Currently I am using gyroflow + zv-e1 in active stabilization which has been really good in my opinion, minus the minor wobble at times (I use a laowa 10mm f2.8 so maybe thats why).
hsiunghsiung wrote:
From my experience, the best stabilization still comes from regular active stabilization + Catalyst software, BUT the free version (catalyst browse) downgrades the image quality greatly (8 bit / artifacting), hence it is unusable for me. I was tempted to go for the 1 year subscription of catalyst prepare plugin for da vinci resolve (you can do a trial run with it, but it will have a watermark), but then I tried gyroflow, and that worked pretty well for free.
Gyroflow plugin + Da vinci resolve would be the best free option, and like others have mentioned, try to keep the shutter speed high and at most use active stabilization (not dynamic active stab).
Dynamic active stabilization by itself is great for static shots, but walking/panning shots have the "lock in" effect like mentioned earlier. Dynamic active stab also does not work well with gyroflow (haven't tested with catalyst software, but im guessing its similar), as dynamic seems to add some software stabilization over the gyro data which makes it shaky when combined.
When comparing between gyroflow or catalyst software (I'd skip catalyst browse as theres too many limitations like lower quality video export, limited stabilization setting where you can only set to 3, no batch stabilization, etc.), my experience is that the catalyst browse has less warpiness whereas gyroflow has some warpiness in the corners (not as bad as Canon's IBIS wobble).
Currently I am using gyroflow + zv-e1 in active stabilization which has been really good in my opinion, minus the minor wobble at times (I use a laowa 10mm f2.8 so maybe thats why). ...Show more →
I’m using an A7IV so I don’t have the dynamic active option. I just have standard and active. I’ll try the Gyroflow plugin on some clips I have and see how it does. I didn’t realize that Catalyst Browse only outputs 8 bit, that makes sense why my stabilized clips were looking different overall from the originals. Using a plugin would overcome that
I use gyroflow and resolve so I've never had to completely create a new video - gyroflow can generate a small file that provides resolve with how to stabilize the file.
! And with only 3 custom banks on the mode dial, I'd have to menu dive or start spinning dials to get it correct. For me that's just too much to think about on top of shooting, I like to keep it simple and the camera is fine IMO.