Shaky POV running footage

[Tim Pearce]

Hi,
I'm planning on shooting some POV style running scenes on an off-road trail. I'll be editing the footage in Final Cut Pro on my mac. I'm looking into ways to reduce camera shake while shooting, but I'm wondering if there are any ways to reduce the shaky footage using a program in post that will fix things all in one change (so something fairly automatic). Thanks!
Tim

[Mike Wilkinson]

Try the smoothcam filter in FCP.

Maybe consider shooting in a higher frame size than your intended output, so you can utilize stabilization without seeing the edges of your frame.

[Tim Pearce]

Originally Posted by Mike Wilkinson

Try the smoothcam filter in FCP.

Maybe consider shooting in a higher frame size than your intended output, so you can utilize stabilization without seeing the edges of your frame.

Thanks for your advice Mike. I'll see if I can play with the camera and do some tests.

I tried to find the smoothcam filter but couldn't. I googled it and found that it looks like it's a new filter for FCP 6 while I'm stuck with FCP 5.0.4 I do have Effects>video filters>vivdeo>video stabilization Have you tried this? Does it work as well as smoothcam? I checked the online FCP manual and the description seems to be what I'm looking for (walking, running). I'll do some tests on this older filter and failing everything I could always try to find another computer with a newer FCP version - or upgrade myself if the newer filter works wonders.

[Martin Pauly]

If you rely on stabilization in post, I would experiment with different shutter speeds while recording the scene. The reason is that you will pick up a lot of motion blur while running with your camera, which will look wrong in the stabilized image. A faster shutter should pick up less motion blur, and you can always add more later if needed.

- Martin