- So there's a pretty cool feature
that the A7S Mark three has access to.
It's Gyro scopic stabilization.
So basically A7S Mark three
is recording the data of how the camera moves.
And then when you bring it into Sony's catalyst browse,
it can stabilize the shot
and give you a super smooth shot
based on gyroscopic data,
rather than using like a warp stabilizer
or trying to do it in camera.
So right now I'm using a gimbal
and I'm walking through an orchard
on the Belcampo farms.
I'm up here shooting a little mini documentary
about regenerative farming practices,
which is gonna be on my second YouTube channel.
It's all story-driven content.
So if you guys are interested
in seeing how this camera performs
in a full documentary style,
running gun style shoot,
then I highly suggest you head over
to that channel and hit the subscribe button.
I'll put a link down below in the description.
Okay, so now I've switched over to handheld.
I've turned off the stabilization
because you can't have the stabilization on,
if you wanna get the best results
out of this gyroscopic stabilization in post.
Now, let me add the stabilization to the shot.
So as you can see this shot,
it becomes much more stabilized.
And I wanted to show you comparisons side by side.
Here's the gimbal shot on the left,
and here's the handheld with the gyro stabilization applied
on the right.
Now there's a few things you really have to think about
when you're using this gyro stabilization
to get the most out of it.
And I wanna kind of discuss when you might wanna use this,
and also when you might wanna avoid this.
So in this video,
I just wanna dive into whether this is a good solution
to stabilize your footage or not.
All right, guys, let's get into it.
(upbeat beat)
So we're back in the office.
I have a ton of footage
where I shot while using this gyro stabilization,
but unfortunately I had to send back my A7S Mark three.
So I'm gonna have to wait until mine shows up in the mail
so that I could keep using this camera
because it is a stellar camera.
And I'm super pumped, especially after shooting it
in this documentary setting.
So when it comes to the gyro stabilization,
there's a few things you have to think about.
First, is that you're gonna have to shoot
at a high shutter speed.
And the reason for this is motion blur.
So here is a sample where I shot at a low shutter speed.
And you can see that when you put it through
the gyro stabilization,
you see all the bumps of the motion blur happening
in different directions, not just sideways.
So say you're panning the shot,
while your motion blurs should be panning
from one side to the other.
But if you're having bumps up and down with the shake,
your motion blur is gonna be moving in different directions.
So when you stabilize it,
that's when you get like these weird motions
every direction.
So that's one key thing
when you're using this gyroscopic stabilization
is that you're gonna have to bump up your shutter speed.
For some of you, that's not gonna be a big deal,
but if you want proper motion blur,
then gyro stabilization just is not gonna work for you.
Now the second thing that you have to think about
when you're using this gyro stabilization
is you have to turn off the internal stabilization.
Because if the internal stabilization
is correcting your shot,
and then you apply the gyro stabilization,
it might create some weird warpy artifacts.
One of the coolest things that I've found
when using the stabilization method
is that it doesn't have the weird warpy corners
that you get when you're shooting
like typical in-body stabilization.
So right now I'm shooting on my S5.
And when I take this out and I go vlog with it,
the corners get wobbly.
Same with like the GH5.
And most cameras have all this warpy stuff going on.
And I think the only camera manufacturer
that's really solve that problem was Olympus,
but nobody's gonna go get the Olympus cameras.
I mean, I do like my EM1 Mark 3,
but as soon as my A7S three shows up,
I'm not gonna have any use for that camera.
So let me give you the big picture of how this works.
You shoot your footage
with the intention to use the gyro stabilization.
Then you take it into Sony catalyst browse.
In here, you'll apply the stabilization,
export it out,
and then that clip that you exported out
will then be brought into your editing software.
And another thing that I've stunned on some shots
is added a little bit of additional stabilization
in my editing software.
So there's a few things I wanna show you
in Sony catalyst browse,
which might make you wanna rethink
using gyro stabilization rather than bringing a gimbal
when you're out shooting.
So here's Sony catalyst browse,
and I have a ton of footage.
This is all the footage from the dock,
and you'll see this little icon next to the footage.
This means that there is gyroscopic data,
which is gonna allow you to do the stabilization.
So you're gonna double click on one of your shots.
It's gonna open up the full screen browser
in the lower left hand corner,
you'll hit the stabilize button,
and then it's gonna stabilize your shot.
Now there's two modes of stabilization.
Up in the right hand corner,
you have auto or you have manual.
And you're always gonna wanna flip it over to manual
because auto is just kind of guessing how much stabilization
you wanna apply to a clip.
And when you apply the stabilization,
what it's doing is cropping in
and then stabilizing based on gyroscopic data
versus what it's seen.
So when you use like a warp stabilizer,
it's finding points within your frame
and stabilizing based on that,
versus gyroscopic data is actually recording
how the camera moves in space.
So there's a sensor in the camera
that tells how much it's moving
and wobbling and things like that.
And then that data is being used by Sony's catalyst browse
to then stabilize the shot.
So you're gonna crop in,
and you can use this slider bar
to show how much you wanna crop.
And this brings up one of the big issues
with using this style of stabilization.
You're cropping in on your footage.
So if you don't want to lose resolution,
that's a huge reason
why you're gonna wanna use a gimbal
over this style of stabilization.
And depending on the shot,
you might only have to crop in 10%, 20%.
But if your shot is all over the place,
you might have to crop in 30, 40%,
you're really gonna start losing a lot of resolution.
And when you start punching in too much,
then it just really kind of defeats the purpose
of using this.
Alright, so I did some tests when I was out
at the Belcampo farm
and here's some side by side of the gimbal
versus the gyro stabilization,
shooting, very similar shots.
(upbeat music)
So does gyro stabilization replace gimbal?
You know, I think it comes to a case by case use.
It's definitely a tool to put in your toolkit
and something that, yeah, I'll use here and there.
But one thing that I really noticed works well
with the gyro stabilization, is vlog style content.
So it eliminates the weird warpy effect.
However, you do have to take into consideration
the workflow.
You're gonna have to put it through Sony catalyst browse.
So taking it through that step,
is going to add more time
editing in the whole process.
So for me, this is an interesting tool to have,
I think there's definitely times
where I'm not gonna always have access to a gimbal,
or I'm not gonna wanna pull a gimbal out of my backpack.
When I was out at this farm,
there was a lot of situations
where like something would just happen
and I would just have to turn on the camera
and start shooting.
And so what I do is I set up my custom menus
on the top of the camera,
so that one of them is set up
to get ready for gyro stabilization.
And then I have custom settings set up
for when I'm using internal,
and when I'm using the gimbal.
There's just times where it doesn't make sense
to always pull out a gimbal.
And I think that this gyro stabilization
is better than the internal stabilization.
However, the two things that really stand out
that cause problems is a high shutter speed,
and also you're cropping in on your footage.
So two things you have to kind of keep in consideration
as you're using this style of stabilization.
Super cool feature that Sony added into this camera.
Guys, if you want to see the full mini documentary
about the BelCampo farm,
I'm gonna be posting it on my second channel very soon.
So make sure you go to the description,
head over to that channel,
hit subscribe
because everything was shot on the Sony, A7S Mark three,
except for some drone shots,
which I use the DJI Mavic Air 2, great combo.
Those were basically the two cameras
I ran with for four days straight shooting on this farm.
And I got a ton of awesome footage
and I can't wait to share the whole story with all of you.
Alright you guys, let me know down in the comments,
whether you think gyro stabilization is useful or not.
And guys that's it, I'll see you on the next one.