Wobbling in Samsung video footage

Dexcon wrote on 12/9/2022, 6:46 AM

I've used a number of Samsung phones over the years and have been concerned about the 'jello' effect in video recordings. Recently, I used a Samsung A52S to record some heritage trains running on the local suburban rail line:

Some of the video has been stabilised in Mercalli 5 SAL - but not all. Notice the 'jello' wobble on the wire fences on the other side of the rail tracks, and it's there in the original recordings before Mercalli stab.

I've discovered the problem. I've always set Samsung camera settings to enable stabilisation - and that was the cause of the 'jello' effect. I went back to one of the same locations the next day and used the same Samsung phone camera to record some trains passing by - but without stabilisation enabled. Result: there was no 'jello' wobble on the fences in the original video. Stab in Merc 5 SAL did not introduce any 'jello' problems.

I could kick myself that I didn't test phone stab on/off settings ages ago.

Comments

Musicvid wrote on 12/9/2022, 9:55 AM

Yes, in-phone stabilizers tend to cause more problems than they cure. I would never have stabilizer turned on if I was shooting from a tripod. Would likely be lots worse if you were shooting high fps for slomo.

Reyfox wrote on 12/9/2022, 3:08 PM

Wow! Thanks for sharing that! Have you road any of them?

Dexcon wrote on 12/9/2022, 4:19 PM

Have you road any of them?

@Reyfox ... Not so far on the SteamRail trains, but back in 2017 my wife and I travelled from Sydney to Melbourne on 2 heritage trains, the first being in one of the old Southern Aurora (1963-84) silver steel sleeper carriages:

... then changing to the restored Spirit of Progress train that began service in 1937. It is claimed to be the first fully air-conditioned passenger train in the Southern hemisphere:

The T378 diesel entered service in 1964 but the Spirit was originally hauled by a streamlined steam engine:

Reyfox wrote on 12/10/2022, 5:41 AM

@Dexcon nice!! Really NICE!!!

Former user wrote on 12/11/2022, 6:50 PM

Looks to have been a problem with that series of phones, Havent' seen anything like that on S21 Galaxy

It surely can't be OIS doing that, so only need to turn off any EIS modes.

Dexcon wrote on 12/12/2022, 2:42 AM

@Former user ... Unfortunately, it happened with my previous 2 phones as well: Samsung Galaxy S8 and S5. I can remember many years ago using several stabilisers including Mercalli and Mocha Pro attempting to fix the problem, but particularly in Mocha Pro, once a selected area of the image was stabilised, another area of the image was in doing its own 'jello' thing even if just slightly. To be fair, it wasn't as bad as the fence jello in the train video.

When recommending to turn off EIS, I take it to mean that would just mean turning off stabilisation in the camera's settings - I can't see any other user selectable options. In settings, the only camera setting I now have activated is the Location Tags option having already turned off Stabilisation.

Former user wrote on 12/12/2022, 7:40 PM

@Dexcon Higher end Samsungs typically have 2 stabilization modes, OIS which is activated when turning on stabilization and EIS which is called Super Steady and has the hand icon.

If the EIS worked well, the advantage would come from the camera using an initial resolution higher then what's recorded, so you get real 4K, real 1080P etc, with NLE stabilizers you lose resolution due to the crop factor. I typically only turn it on where required except in lower light where EIS or NLE stabilization will give poorer quality results.

EDIT: EIS on S21 looks like it sets minimum shutter of maybe 1/120 second, which will help with low shutter speed EIS problems, but makes it no good for low light.

Dexcon wrote on 12/13/2022, 1:05 AM

@Former user ... Thank you so much for explaining the difference between OIS and EIS - it is much appreciated.

It is only OIS that I had selected (from the camera's Settings menu). Turning that off stopped the jello effect. Even though the camera has the Super Steady (EIS) option from the camera's on-screen icons, I've not used that so far. Just for interest's sake, I think that I'll take the Galaxy S8 to the railway crossing and see how that goes with EIS enabled. As you say, it could be a problem unique to the A52S.

Thanks again. Cheers.

Dexcon wrote on 12/25/2022, 3:41 AM

To finalise this issue, I've now tested the other Samsung phones at the railway crossing.

Samsung Galaxy S5: 4k (no stab with 4K); HD with and without stab.
Samsung Galaxy S8: 4K with and without stab

For all modes tested, there was none of the wobbling (jello) problem in the background wire fencing as occurred with the A52S with stab on. But overall, the A52S produced a better result than the others - I just need to keep stabilisation turned off.

Reyfox wrote on 12/25/2022, 4:20 PM

Glad you have come to a conclusion of sorts on how to set things up.

Dexcon wrote on 9/3/2023, 6:05 AM

Just to update, I got a Samsung Galaxy 23 Ultra several days ago, and the video quality is so, so much better than the A52S' video quality - and is without the jello effect of the A52S.