I've noticed in several videos which have been posted recently that the panning is not smooth. I've noticed this in my limited drone experience also. I'm wondering if flying by an object of interest in Smart mode while rotating to view the object would be preferable to rotating the camera in Angle mode while flying by. I intend to experiment but thought others might have experince with this or other ideas about smooth video. Anyone? Camera pitch, or tilt if you prefer, seems unsmooth also but one thing at a time.
Smart mode rotation vs. angle mode camera panning
- Thread starter jandjfrench
- Start date
It comes down to trying each, and using whichever one produces better results. One note... you will usually end up with a more fluid result if you pan slowly, and speed up in post, as opposed to the reverse.
There are other things you can do as well... experiment with the placement of the knobs on your sticks. I found that if you remove the upper knobs, you can reset the lower bolt to the top of the stick... just leave about 3 threads visible to re-attach the upper knob. Doing so, will give effectively lengthen your sticks by about ¼ inch that can give smoother results. YMMV depending of personal preferences.
As to your second question regarding tilt... see this thread:
New K2 Gimbal Settings
There are other things you can do as well... experiment with the placement of the knobs on your sticks. I found that if you remove the upper knobs, you can reset the lower bolt to the top of the stick... just leave about 3 threads visible to re-attach the upper knob. Doing so, will give effectively lengthen your sticks by about ¼ inch that can give smoother results. YMMV depending of personal preferences.
As to your second question regarding tilt... see this thread:
New K2 Gimbal Settings
My concern is with regard to keeping an object of interest in view during a flyby without any distracting speed up or slow down of the camera movement while keeping the object centered. I'm not following how a change in post could address this. Thanks for the Gimbal setting reference. It's a bit beyond me right now but I have bookmarked it as it seems to address my concerns directly.
Many videos show less than smooth pans because of panning quickly and the information being written exceeds the capacity of either the the camera or the card being written to.
My reference to changing speed in post, was a suggestion that if panning in a slower manner and subsequently bring back up to speed in post, would improve the visual results. Following an object will not allow for this strategy. Is the object of interest also moving or is it stationary?
That sounds like a perfect application for the CCC mode. Once you start the H moving it will fly itself so you just concentrate on the camera while the H flies the route.
As well, there are methods to control how fast that CCC route runs, as well as forward or reverse running of the route.
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2017
- Messages
- 2,997
- Reaction score
- 3,185
- Location
- Central Florida
- Website
- copperdawg.com
Horizontal camera movement such as when someone flies to altitude, hovers and begins to pan, can cause a pulsing effect as @Eagle's Eye Video points out; due to the data speed necessary. But there are a couple more factors. Our cameras such as the CG03+ and C23 use rolling shutters and there can be slight registration errors as the sideways movement of the subject/ground is being exposed to the sensor via the vertical passing shutter. This is why movement that is traveling vertically up or down the screen is usually smoother. But there is another reason and that is simply on the playback end, if the person viewing the video, whether it is being played locally or via some host like Youtube; does that person have a fast enough computer graphics card, processor and so forth.
Flight modes have nothing to do with it other than to say; which will allow the user to more accurately control the correct speed of camera movement to yield the best picture.
One subject that has been beat to death but bears repeating is to do with that second cause mentioned above - Shutter Speed. A basic principal of videography or film exposure is to have a shutter speed that is twice that of your FPS. This allows longer exposure to the movement of the subject which; will yield the appropriate motion blur and help smooth out those pulsing stuttering pans.
Flight modes have nothing to do with it other than to say; which will allow the user to more accurately control the correct speed of camera movement to yield the best picture.
One subject that has been beat to death but bears repeating is to do with that second cause mentioned above - Shutter Speed. A basic principal of videography or film exposure is to have a shutter speed that is twice that of your FPS. This allows longer exposure to the movement of the subject which; will yield the appropriate motion blur and help smooth out those pulsing stuttering pans.
All good points. There is a significant difference between panning vs flying past an object which you follow with the camera. The later will always produce better results.
PatR
Premium Pilot
Jandj,
Getting back to your original question, the practice of using Smart mode and aircraft yaw to pan the camera works quite well but requires some practice to obtain consistent results. You have to “learn the sticks” in order to establish how much left stick is needed for yaw rates. The speed slider can be very helpful for this as well as its position affects rates of control response.
Having used this method quite a lot, I’ve found that “straight line” flights to film using yaw to pan in Smart mode can present one irritating factor; it’s very easy to end up with a flight path that diverges from the image subject. You have to start the flight path in perfect alignment with the subject or else the distance separation between the subject will either increase or decrease. In many cases this method makes panning a little easier as you still have both hands on the control sticks instead of fumbling with a tiny pan knob and bumping the left stick with your wrist or forearm.
Using Smart mode and yaw to pan is the best reason I am aware of to even have a Smart mode. It works well once you become comfortable with it.
Using cruise control is also often very helpful, especially when using the pan knob, as cruise control takes manually controlling speed out of the human work load. If using cruise control we have the ability to use very small yaw inputs if desired but large yaw inputs will disengage cruise control.
Ultimately, we have a bunch of different colocated construction tools that we can use in combination as we see fit to build the picture we want.
Getting back to your original question, the practice of using Smart mode and aircraft yaw to pan the camera works quite well but requires some practice to obtain consistent results. You have to “learn the sticks” in order to establish how much left stick is needed for yaw rates. The speed slider can be very helpful for this as well as its position affects rates of control response.
Having used this method quite a lot, I’ve found that “straight line” flights to film using yaw to pan in Smart mode can present one irritating factor; it’s very easy to end up with a flight path that diverges from the image subject. You have to start the flight path in perfect alignment with the subject or else the distance separation between the subject will either increase or decrease. In many cases this method makes panning a little easier as you still have both hands on the control sticks instead of fumbling with a tiny pan knob and bumping the left stick with your wrist or forearm.
Using Smart mode and yaw to pan is the best reason I am aware of to even have a Smart mode. It works well once you become comfortable with it.
Using cruise control is also often very helpful, especially when using the pan knob, as cruise control takes manually controlling speed out of the human work load. If using cruise control we have the ability to use very small yaw inputs if desired but large yaw inputs will disengage cruise control.
Ultimately, we have a bunch of different colocated construction tools that we can use in combination as we see fit to build the picture we want.
Last edited:
Thanks for all the replies. A lot of helpful info to take into consideration. I've bookmarked Eagle's link to " New K2 gimbal settings. It'll take a while for me to get a handle on the information provided there.
Similar threads
