WARNING: Nerdy tech content. If you’re shooting a lot of video with all the video dSLRs and even the iPhone 3Gs, you’ve no doubt noticed the slight “wobble” when panning those cameras quickly. It usually translates visually into the slanting, or canting, of what are supposed to be vertical lines in image that you’re recording. This phenomenon is the result of the digital rolling shutter, the mechanism by which these cameras write to their chips. As it writes information to the sensor, it does so by writing from one side of the sensor to the other. And if the subject in view is moving faster than the camera can draw that image on the sensor, the camera perceives a bending or warping of that subject. As photogs/filmmakers rapidly adopt these new cameras there’s an increasing need to create elegant solutions around solving this problem. In comes the fine folks at the The Foundry in the UK.
“Rolling shutter effects are commonly found with video cameras employing CMOS image sensors, which record every frame line-by-line from top to bottom of the image, rather than as a single snapshot of a point in time. As parts of the image are recorded at different times, fast-moving objects, or objects that pass quickly through frame during camera whip-pans, become distorted with diagonal skews. Other typical distortions include image wobbles created when cameras are hand-held, and exposure problems with flashing or strobing lights….
Along with being ungainly and unwanted, these image distortions also increase the difficulty of 3D tracking during VFX post production, as the tracking points themselves can be equally affected or not deliver accurate results.”
Demo Rolling Shutter for free.
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This explains the crazy effects I get on my Blackberry camera! http://twitpic.com/8m7vr
Cheers Chase!
Pure genius. Very cool s/ware indeedy!
the rolling shutter effect is so minimal on the 5D Mark II that it's probably a waste of time and money to use this plugin.
I have only managed to get an ever so slight rolling shutter effect in very fast camera moves but it seems to be inline with the shutter effect I get on video cameras.
Very nice. Would be interesting to see if this footage I shot with my iPhone 3GS is beyond repair:
http://vimeo.com/5934808
Of course, I shot it primarily for the wonky effect.
Chase, don't lie… do you have a 5d MkII? I'm super sad over Nikon's response to this camera. A whole new industry sprang up and they have yet to offer a good solution one year after the 5d's release.
Thanks for the post!
@ marco. remember that nikon was actually the first manufacturer to put out one of these cameras. and that historically these brands leap frog each other. don't let this trickle into a nikon/canon thing. overall its that all these cameras have rolling shutter issues…and now we've got some options to repair that footy.
i should have said i shoot Nikon and i prefer their ergos. my feeling are just hurt, sorry.
several years ago I proposed this idea for Motorola, to embed into the camera. But they said "not interesting" (meaning it can't increase subscription payments
)
i'm considering getting a D300s and knowing that there is a (relatively) simple way to fix this has got me more hooked on the notion. I'm just glad you can opt to "rent" the plug in for a few bucks as opposed to shelling $500 for it.
There's a lot of potential for this software and software like it to become built into individual devices. That would be quite cool, eh?
Its quite ironical that we have the much famous and cool iphone in ther.e