Image stabilization comparison

riredale wrote on 5/5/2008, 9:58 AM

I came across in another thread the news that a German magazine called c't did a comparison study in the 05/2008 issue. I can't read German and in any event couldn't find the specific issue, but was able to copy a summary table here. Sorry for the crummy image quality, but that's all I was able to find.

As I understand it, the stabilizers were tested under four conditions:

- stabilizing camera turns
- stabilizing continuous shaking/jitter
- stabilizing closeup scenes
- stabilizing single shakes
- stabilizing with default settings.

++ is the best, -- is the worst.

So they liked DeShaker the best, followed by Mercalli. The Premiere Elements stabilizer was poor, and the one in PinnacleStudio was awful.

If anyone can find the article and give us a translation, that would be great. Meanwhile, I'm going to try out that JohnMeyer script one of these days. Using DeShaker manually is certainly doable, but a bit of a pain.

Back to post

Comments

riredale wrote on 5/9/2008, 11:44 AM

I won't argue that a tripod gives a stable shot, but in my case it seems I'm often doing hand-held stuff. Given that, then DeShaker is a good friend.

is an example of two shots done with DeShaker. In the first, I'm walking over to and down an escalator as a high school choir is practicing in the downstairs lobby. In the second shot I'm walking to the front of a large cathedral in Paris. One mistake I made in that shot--as I transition from walking straight ahead to walking to the right, I seem to "tilt" the camera a bit. I've concluded that it's important to make sure the camera stays level, no matter what the operator may be doing at the time.

Dan Sherman wrote on 5/9/2008, 11:53 AM

Impressive.
Beats hell out of lugging around a steadycam.
Very smooth indeed.
How much does this add to render time, out of curiosity?
What of image quality, any appreciable degradation?
Kinda liked the bank there Rire.
Fooled me.
Was leaning!

DGates wrote on 5/9/2008, 2:59 PM

It's hard to tell how well it came out with the awful YouTube encode.

Jay Gladwell wrote on 5/9/2008, 4:01 PM

"But the way Mercalli fills borders is very poor and it has to be zoomed in to delete them."

What image stablizer doesn't do this? How else can it stablize the image and fill the screen without doing so?

johnmeyer wrote on 5/9/2008, 6:04 PM

What image stablizer doesn't do this? How else can it stablize the image and fill the screen without doing so?Answer: Deshaker!!

That's one of many reasons (besides being free) that so many people like it. Gunnar (the developer) really did his homework on this one.

How does it replace the edges? By taking video from adjacent frames and interpolating. In some cases, the results are darn near perfect. In other cases, it's a mess. While lots of people have been using that script hack I posted awhile ago without changing the default settings that I built in, if you play around (usually be decreasing the strength of the deshaking) you can often reduce some of the bad borders. If the results are truly bad, you can always go back and re-do with the edge compensation turned off, and then just zoom in, like you would with Mercali. However, about 90% of the time, the edge correction works great. Thus, you get stable footage without degrading the image by zooming in and losing resolution.

scottbrickert wrote on 5/9/2008, 7:09 PM

Excellent work. Anybody want to by an Indicam...;) I've had trouble with that 'banking round the turn' thing with both the FlowPod and Indicam. Getting better though.

OK, said Scott with a tone of confession, I've shied away from Deshaker and VirtualDub, but this I gotta try, even if I did just spend $95 on Mercalli.

So I downloaded the script. Where do I put it? What else do I need to run it? Wax? I'm on V8b.

Serena wrote on 5/9/2008, 7:10 PM

>>>Deshaker does not alter either the first or last frame of each event that it stabilizes.<<<

Thanks John, I hadn't noticed that.

Tripod? Yes, always first preference. When practical. Actually a disadvantage filming a yacht race from a crash boat -- one thing you don't want is imposing on the camera the leaping motions of the boat. Helicopter shoots. Crowded sidewalks. Why is the difficulty of hand holding a Cinealta EX1 mentioned in every review by a professional DP? Not because they're reviewing for amateur shooters.

johnmeyer wrote on 5/9/2008, 8:05 PM

So I downloaded the script. Where do I put it?

You double-click the EXE and it will install on the C: drive (sorry 'bout that, but I was really lazy). You then open Vegas, pick one or more events that you want to stabilize, and then select Run Script from the scripts menu option. Navigate to the C:\deshake folder and select the "deshake.js" file. Hopefully, that's all you have to do. You'll see various things happen, and in a few seconds (or minutes) you should have a new take on your selected event(s). You can press "T" to toggle back and forth between the original and the stabilized footage. I wish I could take credit for that bit of brilliance (using takes), but the guy who wrote the original script upon which I based my work, did that (and a lot more). You can read the script in Notepad and learn more about him.

scottbrickert wrote on 5/9/2008, 8:06 PM

<<Thus you can stabilize within a scene in "chunks.">>

Does this happen by slicing, or selecting regions, or?

Mercalli operates on the entire event, including the first and last frames, so there's an interrupt between the preceding and following clips. Deshaker definitely has strengths.

Can I remove only z-axis rotation from an event?

Tripods for stabilization...uhoh, you're not a zoom junky arr yuh? Here's a good line by DSE...move the camera not the lense.

BTW John, how'd you get bold into your post?