Is Resolve panning digitally or is it my tripod?

Last month I was shooting on my tripod, and I noticed the footage would pan slowly, and perfectly over long periods of time from left to right.

It's almost unnoticeable as you're watching it, but it becomes apparent as you scrub through.

Now I just shot some doc work on an Alexa mini and the same thing happened. I'm trying to deduce if this is something happening on Resolve's end or if it's a weird tripod issue I need to sus out.

Here's a video of the issue:

https://vimeo.com/832012375/4d5e9dc8da?share=copy

The clip has had nothing done to it, it's 4:3 out of the camera.

If Resolve was doing it, it will reveal the extents at the opposite sides of the pan direction. Unless you compensate with a zoom in.

So if it was Resolve's doing, it would be pretty obvious to spot. So I'll assume you have a very spontaneous tripod.

It was a great idea to ask but no, this is no Resolve's initiative imho

If Resolve was doing it, it will reveal the extents at the opposite sides of the pan direction. Unless you compensate with a zoom in.

So if it was Resolve's doing, it would be pretty obvious to spot. So I'll assume you have a very spontaneous tripod.

Yeah only because it was so smooth I just had to ask to make sure it wasn't some feature I wasn't aware of.

No worries, I'll make it work.

Last month I was shooting on my tripod, and I noticed the footage would pan slowly, and perfectly over long periods of time from left to right.

Out of curiosity: Was the tripod "in level", was the position tightened, and was there any wind? What was the ground the tripod was standing on? Were the legs of the tripod fully spread (and fixed)?

When I'm doing portraits with my DSC using portrait mode, the weight of the lens loosens the screw frequently, so the trick is to have the lens on the other side, so the screw will tighten itself

As I'm poor in describing, here's the sketch of the situation described.

tripod.png (34.37 KiB) Viewed 350 times

Last month I was shooting on my tripod, and I noticed the footage would pan slowly, and perfectly over long periods of time from left to right.

Out of curiosity: Was the tripod "in level", was the position tightened, and was there any wind? What was the ground the tripod was standing on? Were the legs of the tripod fully spread (and fixed)?

When I'm doing portraits with my DSC using portrait mode, the weight of the lens loosens the screw frequently, so the trick is to have the lens on the other side, so the screw will tighten itself

tripod.png

Thank you for the image.

Tripod was definitely level but that makes sense to compensate so the weight tightens the screw and thus doesn't move.

Sounds like you have image stabilisation turned on, this can cause a drift.

That's my best guess.

Sounds like you have image stabilisation turned on, this can cause a drift.

That's my best guess.

Turned on where? In Resolve or in the camera? I don't think the Alexa mini has that.

To me it looks like the wind did slowly pan your camera, especially as you said you were filming this with an Alexa Mini which could pose a large enough area for the airflow to get affected by the wind.
You can see that there is definitively a panning movement around a nodal point. Watch closely at the forest tree tips behind the steering wheel and the legs - you can see that there is a slight parallax change.

Now I just shot some doc work on an Alexa mini and the same thing happened. I'm trying to deduce if this is something happening on Resolve's end or if it's a weird tripod issue I need to sus out.

You have a tripod issue.

I took the first and last frames from your video and tried to superimpose one on the other. It required me to rotate one of the images by several degrees. If you look at the two you'll see a very definite change in the perspective distortion typical of a wide rectilinear lens, which could only occur if the direction of the camera changed. And indeed if you look closely at the background forest visible beneath the steering wheel you'll see that there's a clear shift in the position of the camera.

There's no chance that this happened in Resolve, nor as a result of any in-camera image stabilization.

If you're using a tripod with a fluid head, make sure that all the axes are actually locked off. Fluid heads can be moved into a position and look like they're holding it, but they will slowly move unless you firmly tighten up the locking screws.

Pan.gif (172.32 KiB) Viewed 181 times