Gyro Stabilized shooting
Posted in Tech Talk 14 Dec 2008
My point with this Tech Talk is to show the advantage of using gyro system while shooting from a helicopter. The system can also be used in cars, planes, on boats, and a lot of other applications. But for now I am going to stick with shooting out the side door of helicopters. I have used the system in three different helicopters for the last 6 years a R44, Hughes 500, and EC120 Euro copter. The system worked great in all machines. I will also give a video example of shooting in a R44 with my custom shoulder mount and two Kenyon KS-8 gyros if you are on a lower budget. But this system will not let you zoom you will have to stay full wide to stay sort of stable.
First off if you are going to shoot from a helicopter for a client make sure you use some type of stabilization system. A ball mount is the best choice but they are very expensive and I think with a year or so of experience you can get very close with the Aerial Exposure rig. Most shooters think they can take care of the shaky footage in postproduction. Some postproduction stabilization software will help but it is software after the fact this will blur your footage if it is too shaky. So take a few flights and get use to the system it takes 10-15 flights of 2 hrs to dial in your best settings with the same pilot to know you will produce great footage. Once you have 20-30 flights you can take the system from pilot to pilot and if the pilots are up to the job you will get results. Since our job is to please the client and give them stunning HD footage.
My first example this client who would not pay for the additional cost of even a hand held gyro setup and the footage shows it. This was shot 1080p 30p full wide with a custom shoulder brace (not gyro) using a Canon A1 years ago. We were very close to the boat at the start maybe 50 feet away in a straight line.
I tried to get this client to pay the extra for the gyro rig telling him it is worth every penny in the end. He said we only need a few clips to put up on HDTV at trade show. What HDTV and no gyro not a smart move. At this point in my career I will no longer do aerial shoots without a gyro system. It is just not worth my time since my goal is to give the client the best possible HD footage for their production. Hand-held shooting with out a gyro will not cut it on a 60” HDTV or the big screen. Now there are some tricks like over cranking but what if the client wants full speed 1080P? And over cranking will only cut the movement to half speed and is not going to let you zoom from my experience.
Second clip is shot at 1080p 30p full wide, EX1 on a custom hand held rig that has two Kenyon KS-8 gyros. One gyro is in line under the lens and the other off the back perpendicular. You can see the vibration of the machine in this clip since I am shooting the landing out the front glass of a R44. I am in the back seat. The two gyros in my opinion is the minimum need to keep a client happy. Most of my clients who have me use this rig the fist time say “How come the footage you showed us from …… shoot is rock solid steady?” Well you need to go to the next level for that and most do.
Third clip is shot EX1 1080p 30p 1/3 zoom on our custom aerial exposure rig. Not much else to say except I did not nail the focus for the whole clip. But this post is about stability of the shot not composition that comes in later Tech Talks.
There is a second delay between clips. Three examples