Micro jitter help

[DanC1]

Hey, I'm using a 50mm lens with a Sankor 16c and it suffers badly from micro jitter. On a tripod if slight wind and also if it's hand held. Any solutions that don't involve a £1500 steady cam strapped to my waist greatly appreciated! ?

[Hans Punk]

1 hour ago, DanC1 said:

Hey, I'm using a 50mm lens with a Sankor 16c and it suffers badly from micro jitter. On a tripod if slight wind and also if it's hand held. Any solutions that don't involve a £1500 steady cam strapped to my waist greatly appreciated! ?

What camera you using out of interest...APS-C sized sensor or smaller?

3 initial ideas come to mind...

1.Configure or buy a camera cage or cheap baseplate with rods and attach handles and/or shoulder pad to act as a basic brace or full on shoulder rig for your camera. If your camera has fixed LCD monitor, grab a loupe to attach to it and configure a lightweight rig that suits your preference and budget. A loupe will also provide an extra point of contact between you and the camera to minimise shake and jitter. Building your own brace style rig can be done very cheaply by sourcing DSLR rig components on eBay.

2.Shoot at higher shutter speed than normal, so that each frame is crisp with minimum/no motion blur. Then feed the footage into Adobe's warp stabiliser in premiere or after effects to take the shake out. Having crisp frames enables the stabilising software to work much better. If you want to re-introduce motion blur to your shots afterwards, you can do this in Adobe after effects.

3.Buy a better tripod.

 

[DanC1]

Thanks Hans, I forgot to mention I'm using the bmpcc. I use a view finder and handle combination with my 12mn c mount which is fine even to walk with. As soon as I attach the 50mm lens and sankor it's a different story. I was thinking maybe one of those pocket rigs could be the way forward? The set up becomes ever more complicated! ?

[Hans Punk]

50mm makes sense on BMPCC - as that's about the widest taking lens without vignette. Often going as wide as you can helps reduce apparent shake when handheld. Sounds like an extra point of contact would be of benefit, either as a detachable stock like you mention in the pocket rig, or by making your own by using a baseplate and rods...extending the rods backwards towards the body and make or buy a pad to create a stock brace. Luckily, you can often find cheap parts on eBay to experiment with - to find what works for you.

Another thing to try which can work very well, is by using a monopod (even a very cheap one) - will allow almost the same amount of freedom as handheld, yet allow a solid point of contact to the ground, whilst you can still move the camera around freely. This is the best compact solution for shots where you are going 'handheld', but the camera is to be repositioned quickly  - rather than holding the camera steady by hand (and introducing shake) - the monopod takes the weight. You can also retract some monopods (with a ball or fluid head) down to be small enough to tuck into your belt to make an angled brace support.

I've often found a combination of monopod and higher shutter speed (to help stabilise in post) is a superb way of achieving smooth handheld results from a smaller camera.

[DanC1]

Thanks! I'd thought about a monopod and the other thing I'd considered is some sort of Hague steady cam hand held but I can't see that reducing the micro jitters ?

It's sometimes hard to know where to invest your money. I have been trying to find a wide enough ois taking lens? 

[Bioskop.Inc]

51 minutes ago, DanC1 said:

Thanks! I'd thought about a monopod and the other thing I'd considered is some sort of Hague steady cam hand held but I can't see that reducing the micro jitters ?

It's sometimes hard to know where to invest your money. I have been trying to find a wide enough ois taking lens? 

Get a cheep speedbooster - the new Zhongyi v2 aren't a bad investment for about £100 & you should be able to go wider (you could go wider now if you crop in post - use the 4:3 guide on the pocket cam menu).

Or just get a better tripod secondhand or a monopod (there's a topic in the general forum from Zac who recommended a good cheap monopod).

I use a BMPCC + 35mm + x1.5/x2 and a krasnogorsk-3 pistolgrip/shoulder mount with a cheap z-finder clone - 3 points of contact & no micro jitters.

Krasnogorsk-3 pistolgrip/shoulder mount - about £30 on ebay.

Z finder clone - £5/10 on amazon.

[DanC1]

Cool, I actually just bought a k3 on eBay to practice using super16 film and it comes with a shoulder mount! Which 35mm lenses do you use with the bmpcc and anamorphic lens? Thanks

[Bioskop.Inc]

15 hours ago, DanC1 said:

Cool, I actually just bought a k3 on eBay to practice using super16 film and it comes with a shoulder mount! Which 35mm lenses do you use with the bmpcc and anamorphic lens? Thanks

I'm using the Mir-24M 35mm f2 with the Isco Widescreen 2000 (M=M42 mount, but it comes in a Nikon mount which is designated as the 24N), but i've also used the Nikon ai-s 24mm f2.8 with the Iscorama 54 - very pleasing results (without speedbooster clone).

This is the last thing that I did that was completely handheld (no tripod at all), with the Mir-24m, speedbooster clone, widescreen 2000 & K3 pistol grip/shoulder mount:

 

[DanC1]

Thanks Bioskop, I'll definitely check out that lens. It should be all good if it has minimal vignetting with the sankor and I can crop suitably. I can always do with another lens ??

Enjoyed the music vid btw!