Stabilizing a Traveling Shot

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‌Stabilizing a Traveling Shot

Other shots do not have a single subject, but continue to show new imagery. For example,

 A camera car, with the camera facing straight ahead

 A forward-facing camera in a helicopter flying over terrain

 A camera moving around the corner of a house to reveal the backyard behind it

In such shots, there is no single feature to stabilize. Select the Filter mode for the stabilization of translation and maybe rotation. The result is similar to the stabilization done in-camera, though in SynthEyes you can control it and have keystone correction.

When the stabilizer is filtering, the Cut Frequency spinner is active. Any vibratory motion below that frequency (in cycles per second) is preserved, and vibratory motion above that frequency is greatly reduced or eliminated.

You should adjust the spinner based on the type of motion present, and the degree of stabilization required. A camera mounted on a car with a rigid mount, such as a StickyPod, will have only higher-frequency residual vibration, and a larger value can be used. A hand-held shot will often need a frequency around 0.5 Hz to be smooth.

Note : When using filter-mode stabilization, the length of the shot matters. If the shot is too short, it is not possible to accurately control the frequency and distinguish between vibration and the desired motion, especially at the beginning and end of the shot. Using a longer version of the take will allow more control, even if much of the stabilized shot is cut after stabilization.

Start with a larger cut value, and decrease it (to a value that filters more) only after assessing the impact on the shot. If a shot contains large bumps and you try to filter them to severely, the entire source image will go offscreen: not only will zoom be excessive, but the output will be totally black.

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