Anyone Ever Shoot Handheld w a Kenlab Gyro?

[George Stewart]

I own and have shot with a KS-8. The limits of my shooting have been with a DSLR from a self-flown aircraft. The system is clearly better than a stabilized lens alone. Because, time on station is typically short and costly, when flying, a digital capture system is recommended - for efficiency. I also believe that a MF digital camera would give results equal to 4x5 and perhaps 8x10 when altitude is sufficiently high. A gyro-stabilizer is highly recommended when shooting without a tripod in a situation where the photographer is moving.

[Jim C.]

What it does, is decrease the amount of acceleration and jerk in the motion. For those not familiar with the concept of jerk, it's a component of motion that's really uncomfortable -- so much so that it's one of the big focuses in car suspension design. One reason modern cars have better "ride" then their predecessors is control of jerk -- and it's one reason that, say, a BMW or an Lexus "feels better" than an entry level car. And it shows up in hand holding a camera as your muscles twitch back and forth trying to hold the camera on target.

There's no reason to think that decreasing acceleration and jerk won't be just as effective with a still camera as it is with cinema cameras.

Will it be as good as an active image stabilization system in, say, a Canon "L" series lens? Not likely. But it should be better than hand holding, especially a big heavy LF camera.

Just as you stated, the Steadicam will smooth acceleration and jerk, but that's for moving camera
motion picture shots, I don't see the effectiveness of it used with a LF camera and long exposures

I'm sure the Steadicam will work fine at shutter speeds of 1/60 or more with LF Camera, 1/60 is I believe the normal
shutter speed for motion picture cameras, but I still don't see it being useful at slower speeds
on LF still camera, if you have a Steadicam rig with a LF camera on it and you're shooting say at
1/8 sec. and you're a bit unsteady there is no way that I can see the resulting shot not have some blur in it.

Besides that, inserting the film holder and removing the dark slide would probably throw your composition off

[Bruce Watson]

...if you have a Steadicam rig with a LF camera on it and you're shooting say at 1/8 sec. and you're a bit unsteady there is no way that I can see the resulting shot not have some blur in it.

Some blur, almost certainly. But considerably less blur than if you handhold that same camera making that same shot. Because your muscles are twitching and firing as you try to hold the camera steady on target, and the constant changes in direction will exhibit higher acceleration and jerk than you'd get with the steadicam. Depending on the camera and photographer, perhaps considerably higher.

You don't have to believe me. It's easy enough to test and prove it for yourself. Almost all film/video supply houses have steadicam rigs for rent. If you ask nicely on a slow day, they might let you run your experiment in their building for free, or nearly so.

And I agree with Richard Mc -- I'd love an opportunity to see what a steadicam and a 5x4 could do at a horse race. I'll bet (yes, I meant to say that ;-) the results could be quite nice.

[Bruce Watson]

I'm sure the Steadicam will work fine at shutter speeds of 1/60 or more with LF Camera, 1/60 is I believe the normal
shutter speed for motion picture cameras...

Looked this up just to find out. Turns out that the "normal" shutter speed for a motion picture camera is 1/48th. That is, twice the frame rate of a 24 fps camera. This is also called a 180 degree shutter. I think this comes from a rotating shutter that leaves the film uncovered for 180 degrees of its rotation. Speeds slower than this, down to "no shutter" or 360 degrees, or 1/24th, result in "too much blur" and very fast shutter speeds (say, 1/125th and up) result in "too little blur" which makes the film look "stroboscopic" and jerky. Remember, the point of all this is for the individual frames to work together to make a pleasing motion picture. Therefore some blur in the individual frames is almost a requirement.

They typically use aperture to control DOF, but are sensitive to diffraction limited sharpness. They have to be -- putting an image from 35mm film on a 40 foot wide screen is a huge enlargement! Their diffraction limit occurs around f/8 for 35mm film cameras, and video cameras with capture devices around the same size.

Between limited shutter speeds and limited apertures, cinematographers have less control over the light hitting their sensors than we do. Their answer is neutral density filters which lets them decrease light to the film/sensor without having to either raise shutter speed or decrease aperture size. Many of the expensive digital machines come with two or three internal ND filters which should tell you something about how often this tool is used.

I had not realized just how little wiggle room there is in cinematography. Makes me glad to be an LF photographer. I've spent so many years feeling more restricted in what I can do compared to smaller formats. It's odd then to find that I'm less restricted than the cinematography world.

Cinema certainly seems to be a different world from still photography, and LF in particular.

[Frank Petronio]

That's why things are so heavily lit, they have to control their contrast ratios and open up those shadows, unless you want gritty crap like the Blair Witch Project.