MICRO LESSON SEVEN SMARTPHONE FILMMAKING. USING GIMBAL TO GET STEADY SHOTS WITH A SMARTPHONE
Imagine that you are walking on a beautiful beach with golden sand and blue waters. You are keen to capture its beauty in your smartphone. But you encounter one problem, As you are walking towards the sea, the video comes out a bit jerky and shaky. The challenge is how to get a smooth, steady, and stable shot even if you are running with your smartphone.
The best way is to use a Three Axis Gimbal which has an inbuilt stabilizer. A gimbal is a pivoting support that allows you to rotate an object along a single axis. It helps to get good smooth videos even when you are walking or running on a bumpy or shaky surface. It is like the shock absorber of a camera or smartphone.
To operate the gimbal you may need a little practice. But once you have mastered it you could get amazing shots with this gadget. It is ideal for shooting tracking shots. It is called Three Axis gimbal because it has three types of movements – the Tilt axis, Pan Axis and Roll Axis.
A gimbal is very useful for smartphone filmmakers, documentary makers, and Vloggers as it can be used for nearly every shot of filmmaking. You can get a decent one. Three Axis gimbal for around Rs 8000/- from Amazon.
In case you do not have a gimbal or do not want to spend money on this gadget now, you can a jugad instead. Here are three ways of doing it.
1) Use a selfie stick in your smartphone and walk towards your object in a straight line taking care to see that there are no jerky movements.
2) Go to a chor bazaar ( flea market), and buy working roller skates. Go to a welder and attach a straight pipe or rod in the middle of the skates where you can fix your selfie stick. You can use this for forward or backward tracking movements. You may get a decent result provided the rolling surface is smooth.
3) You could also use an old toy car or a trolley with wheels to get this effect.
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