Blackmagic Forum

Does the stabilizer information on the BMPCC 4/6K written to Prores or just with BRAW? Also, how effective is the BMPCC stabilizer on zoom lenses like a 70-200mm? What’s the ideal setting for such lens focal length?

Ellory Yu wrote:Does the stabilizer information on the BMPCC 4/6K written to Prores or just with BRAW? Also, how effective is the BMPCC stabilizer on zoom lenses like a 70-200mm? What’s the ideal setting for such lens focal length?

I can give some answers as a BMPCC 6K owner. Only BRAW files have gyro data.
Regarding the effectiveness of stabilization: for me it is fully usable up to 35 mm focal length. I did some tests with a 50 mm lens and it was not good enough for me. The longer focal length, the less accurate gyro data.

Did your gyro stabilization include the specific lens focal lengths in the metadata when you compared lenses?

I have used the Canon 70-200mm lens at 200mm with the gyro stabilization. In my opinion, it works pretty well. At least to me it looks good.

If I use a monopod with that lens, I usually set the shutter angle to 90 degrees. If I shoot handheld, I set the shutter angle to 45 degrees. Also, if you haven't used gyro before, make sure you disable the lens' image stabilization, or else your gyro data will be useless.

RaulAndres wrote:I have used the Canon 70-200mm lens at 200mm with the gyro stabilization. In my opinion, it works pretty well. At least to me it looks good.

If I use a monopod with that lens, I usually set the shutter angle to 90 degrees. If I shoot handheld, I set the shutter angle to 45 degrees. Also, if you haven't used gyro before, make sure you disable the lens' image stabilization, or else your gyro data will be useless.

Thanks for this response Raul. I’m going to use a monopod so I’ll set it at 90 degrees.

rick.lang wrote:Did your gyro stabilization include the specific lens focal lengths in the metadata when you compared lenses?

Rick, when you say including the specific lens focal lengths in the metadata, did you mean going to the lens data screen and setting it there? If so, it automatically shows the focal length and stops as I zoom in/out. I assume that info is recorded in the metadata.

A couple of last question on the stabilizer. How do you turn it on/off? I can’t find a menu option for it. Also I got the Canon 70-300mm lens which has IS. Has anyone tried to compare the lens IS of this Canon with that of the BM gyro? Which gave the better result?

Ellory Yu wrote:

rick.lang wrote:Did your gyro stabilization include the specific lens focal lengths in the metadata when you compared lenses?

Rick, when you say including the specific lens focal lengths in the metadata, did you mean going to the lens data screen and setting it there? If so, it automatically shows the focal length and stops as I zoom in/out. I assume that info is recorded in the metadata…

On the camera, with my BMPCC4K, I define the lens information including the focal length, say 20mm.

In DaVinci Resolve, with the Media Pool drop-down in the Media tab, selecting the Camera item, you can verify the focal length is included in the clip metadata which for me is 20mm, or set it there appropriately if it’s not defined accurately.

On Resolve’s Edit tab, with the timeline clip selected, in the Inspector scroll to the Stabilization toggle and select it. Then select the Mode as Camera gyro. Hit the Stabilize button.

A couple of last question on the stabilizer. How do you turn it on/off? I can’t find a menu option for it…

On the first page of the camera Setup tab, there’s a button at the bottom called Lens Stabilization. When shooting manual lenses as I do, the button is greyed out in the Off toggle. That means when I record BRAW, the gyro data is also recorded.

On a lens that supports lens stabilization, if you want to record camera gyro data, toggle the Setup menu stabilization switch Off, otherwise toggle on to use lens stabilization. Makes sense but may not be transparent to the shooter what’s happening.

Ellory Yu wrote:A couple of last question on the stabilizer. How do you turn it on/off? I can’t find a menu option for it.

You can't turn its off so far as I know other than the special case of some MFT lenses on the BMPCC4K which can have OIS turned on or off in the camera menu, in which case turning OIS on blocks the gyro data from being recorded. However with a lens with a physical OIS switch, the data gets recorded in both the on and off positions, and the in-camera switch is greyed out and does nothing at all.

It's the pan, tilt and roll data from the camera's internal motion sensor which is recorded into the BRAW file. The clip only gets stabilised when you process the file in Resolve and apply the option for "Camera Gyro" in the stabilisation panel, which you only see with BRAW clips.

BM also state that you should calibrate the motion sensor before use and, if using a manual lens, enter the focal length into the slate metadata. However this is not necessary for many electronic lenses which supply the lens data automatically.

I can't speak for your Canon lens, but here's a quick hand-held test I did today with my BMPCC4K with the Oly 12-100 at 12mm at 45°, 90° and 180° with OIS off, OIS on, then OIS off with BRAW gyro stab applied in Resolve. I was just walking normally, no special care taken (i.e. no ninja walk). The results are more or less this:

• plain hand-held walking is totally unusable as we already knew
• hand-held walking with OIS is better, but not by much
• BRAW gyro stab is pretty good at lower shutter angles, especially if you take some care with your movements
• gyro stab chops off a significant amount of the shot, so you need to allow for 10% or more extra in the frame
• gyro stab can get weird motion effects at 180° shutter angle with large verticals in shot - it's not so visible here, but I've seen enough odd stuff in my previous tests that I wouldn't rely on gyro stab for anything shot at 180° - it sometimes works fine, but often doesn't

Whoops, sorry Rick! I see you already posted most of what I said while I was writing it

No problem! Thanks so much for your video testing the gyro stabilization. I agree the Gyro performs very well at 45 degrees and well at 90 degrees. Excellent.

Rick, Bob, Thanks for sharing your experience and knowledge.

I am trying to get the Gyro Stabilizer on the Pocket 6K G1 working. I see the lens data display but I cannot find the OIS on/off in the camera menu. So if I want to use the Gyro Stabilizer instead if the OIS in the lens, do I just turn off the OIS of the lens? What if I want to use the IS of the lens instead of the gyro stabilizer, do I just turn the lens IS on and the gyro stabilizer just turns off? Is that even possible?

Reread my post #6 if you need to. You’ve got the idea.

rick.lang wrote:Reread my post #6 if you need to. You’ve got the idea.

Okay Rick. So after re-reading your and Bobs post, are you both saying that the on/off switch in the setup is only for the BMPCC 4K and certain MFT lenses? In that case, the BMPCC 6K won’t have it.

Correct. The camera menu option to turn OIS on or off is a BMPCC4k option only. I believe it applies to some Panasonic MFT lenses which don't have an OIS switch on the lens itself. The latest manual describes it all pretty will starting on page 104 under the heading Gyro Stabilization.

But you got me doubting myself, so I just double-checked and found out that my previous post was wrong about my Olympus lens's OIS switch having no effect on blocking the gyro data. It turns out that on each clip:

• where the lens OIS switch was Off, the "Cameras Gyro" stabilisation is available in Resolve.
• where the lens OIS switch was On, then that option does not appear in Resolve

I'm sure I tested this several times when the gyro update firmware first appeared, and the gyro data got recorded in both positions? Maybe I made a mistake back then, or maybe BM updated something in later versions of the firmware. Either way, it seems that my lens OIS switch does indeed behave as described in the manual to turn the gyro data recording on or off.

bobosola wrote:Correct. The camera menu option to turn OIS on or off is a BMPCC4k option only. I believe it applies to some Panasonic MFT lenses which don't have an OIS switch on the lens itself. The latest manual describes it all pretty will starting on page 104 under the heading Gyro Stabilization.

But you got me doubting myself, so I just double-checked and found out that my previous post was wrong about my Olympus lens's OIS switch having no effect on blocking the gyro data. It turns out that on each clip:

• where the lens OIS switch was Off, the "Cameras Gyro" stabilisation is available in Resolve.
• where the lens OIS switch was On, then that option does not appear in Resolve

I'm sure I tested this several times when the gyro update firmware first appeared, and the gyro data got recorded in both positions? Maybe I made a mistake back then, or maybe BM updated something in later versions of the firmware. Either way, it seems that my lens OIS switch does indeed behave as described in the manual to turn the gyro data recording on or off.

Thanks for the reply and checking Bob. Before I saw your reply, I did some test and what you’re saying was true as well when I tested it with my canon lens last night. OIS Lens “ON” gives incorrect gyro info on DVR. When it is “OFF” gives the correct gyro info on DVR. I’m guessing that with the lens ON, it conflates the info from the lens and that of the gyro and that is what’s written on BRAW metadata. I said I’m guessing because IDK what it’s doing. I hope there is some better explanation of how this is really handled. For now, I think it is on us (me) to make sure the lens OIS is off if we/I want the gyro info correctly captured. Maybe a future firmware will add a switch to turn on/off gyro data recording.

In recording the music festival with the BMPCC4K locked down and unattended while recording the central portion of the stage, I thought the footage would be stable. I was so wrong, probably due to a lot of foot stomping on the same floor as the camera from people very close to the camera. Some of the clips looked like one was rocking a baby back and forth. May have been unusable? However using the Gyro data for stabilization and all of the footage is rock solid, with no strange behaviour, just what one would expect.

It takes some time to stabilize 8 hours of 4K video, but I’m applying it to everything. Thank you BMD!

rick.lang wrote:In recording the music festival with the BMPCC4K locked down and unattended while recording the central portion of the stage, I thought the footage would be stable. I was so wrong, probably due to a lot of foot stomping on the same floor as the camera from people very close to the camera. Some of the clips looked like one was rocking a baby back and forth. May have been unusable? However using the Gyro data for stabilization and all of the footage is rock solid, with no strange behaviour, just what one would expect.

It takes some time to stabilize 8 hours of 4K video, but I’m applying it to everything. Thank you BMD!

I did some test yesterday and since I have a shaky hands due to past injury, small jitters made the shot jerky when I tilted the camera. I tested it with a 180, 90, and 45 degree shutter angle. With the Gyro data and stabilizing it in DVR, at 45 gave me the smoothest stabilization; however 90 and 180 had given nice stability in that order. It does crop the picture a bit and I had to adjust stops or play around with getting more light in as the lower the SA the less light it gets. Overall I found my technique on how to keep stability as much as I can (I.e. monopod, etc.) to assist with the jitters and minor shakes.

Since I wasn’t anticipating any problems with a remote locked down camera, I didn’t use a small shutter angle. The gyro stabilization results were excellent in that scenario.

There is a serious problem with Camera Gyro stabilization. If you try to use it in Resolve with longer focal lengths, there is a drift and the subject will be run out of the center of the frame. BM has acknowledged this issue, but has yet to fix it as of DR 18.6. It's a Resolve issue, and nor corrupted gyro data. The same thing can be seen at all focal lengths, but it is so pronounced a longer focal lengths that it is totally unusable.

Question: For using Gyro

1. Do we need to calibrate the motion sensor every time we power up the camera for a new use?

2. Every time we change lenses?

3. Just once when we first get the camera?