Tracking pan shots - automatic tripods..?

ken c wrote on 9/30/2005, 7:01 AM

Does anyone know if there is such a thing as an auto-tracking powered tripod, that can automatically do hands-free pan shots?

example: the speaker would wear some kind of transmitter, the tripod would track the speaker and move with them ...

I want to do some training videos in my home studio, with the camcorder panning/tracking me if I move left to right, without having to have a cameraman ...

the only alternative would be to make a wider shot angle, and use Vegas pan/crop in post to create pan shots, but that would be at the cost of resolution ... so I'm trying to find a "shot tracking tripod" solution first..

appreciate if anyone has heard of something like this... recommendations?

thx,

ken

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 9/30/2005, 7:16 AM

http://www.grizzlypro.com/systems.htm
http://www.21best.com/

I believe both have tracking systems that requires you to put a transmitter in your pocket and it follows the transmitter. I have seen these at NAB, but never seen one in actual use.

ken c wrote on 9/30/2005, 7:43 AM

Thanks very much Douglas - appreciate it!

ken

birdcat wrote on 9/30/2005, 7:50 AM

You may want to look into video conferencing solutions - We have that here at work and it automatically tracks the person who is speaking. Just a thought.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 9/30/2005, 7:41 PM

> the only alternative would be to make a wider shot angle, and use Vegas pan/crop in post to create pan shots, but that would be at the cost of resolution

Not if you use an HDV camera. You’d have 5x the resolution to start with so you could do a lot of panning and zooming in post and still deliver an SD format with no resolution loss. This may actually be better that a tracker which may give too much or unwanted movement. With HDV source and an SD target, you can play cameraman in post. ;-)

~jr