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Stabilize 4k footage from small aircraft — Bahamas
Hey guys,
Im a pilot and photographer, and just got back from a cool flying trip in the Bahamas islands. I mounted 2x of the new Sony X1000V action cams on the plane and did a lot of 4k footage around the islands.
I am using just the included “feet mounts” that come with the camera and drilled the locking base into the plane for a direct and very solid connection.
Still the camera is mounted so far out on the wingtip and with the wind speed, Im getting a lot of bumps and shaking and roll effect.
I tried the Warp Stabilizer in AE/Premier and also Final Cut’s version and I cant get it smooth at all.
Anyway you guys could check my source footage in 4k, only 20mbs for 10 sec clip and see if you can make it smoother looking? Download link here
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22395679/client/BahamasSample1.zip
Really awesome scenery down there and Id like to post more so other people can enjoy it
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6 Replies
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You’re right, that is some really beautiful scenery!
One of the reasons it’s not stabilizing that well is because the airplane itself is fixed to the camera and it fills a bug portion of the frame. So that’s throwing off the stabilizer algorithm since you basically have two significantly different stabilization scenarios in one shot. You could try masking out the plane but I’m pretty sure it will still want to stabilize the whole frame, which would mean you’d need to export it out (with transparency first) and stabilize that but then it probably would not line up tot the airplane well. it really becomes a problem for an AE (or other) rotoscope artist at that point and will not be a quick fix.
The other reason (which is a LOT easier to fix) is that you have a jump cut at frame 332 (11:02 in time) which is going to mess with the stabilizer if you run it on the whole clip at once. Cut the clip at that frame and then apply warp stab to each new cut in the sequence. I just tried that and got some pretty decent results, at least on the first half of the clip (that’s as far as it’s completed so far).
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Thanks so much.
SO if crop out the airplane, WS will work a lot better?
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Before you crop it, just razor it at frame 332 and apply warp stab to each half of the cut clip. I did that and it made it look pretty smooth. You see some subspace warping going on but it looks ok, and you could always try changing that so it just uses the regular motion parameters for stability.
If you end up cropping it will be more complex then just applying a mask effect since that does;t actually crop out any pixels… it just hides them from your view.
Software Quality Assurance – Digital Video at Adobe Systems
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Awesome james thanks.
Anyway you could show me what your stabilized settings are for part1 of my clip?
I can send you my dropbox info or etc?
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I just used the default settings, which are:
Stabilization
Result : Smooth Motion
Smoothness: 50%
Method: Subspace Warp
Preserve Scale: unchecked
Borders
Framing: Stabilize, crop, auto-scale
Auto scale (108.6%)Software Quality Assurance – Digital Video at Adobe Systems
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I shoot with a gopro mounted on my Cessna Cardinal often. You shot 4K so you can resize in 1080 and maybe crop out the plane…of course you may want to see the plane in the shot…if that’s the case, you either have to stabilize for the horizon or the plane, obviously.
I would also recommend using Optics Compensation in AE or lens distortion removal in Premiere to fix the wide angle.
One more thing, I’ve found the Mercalli Pro typically has better image stabilization results than using the built in After Effects tool.
Bryan Keith
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