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questions using gimbal for rig and rolling shots
  • I am compmetley new to gimbals. I do a lot of vehicle photography and when doing a rig shot (riding passenger in another vehicle and matching the speed of your subject vehicle, use slow shutter speed around 1 second but would like to start doing 2 second to capture the picture of the car, the picture should have a very blurred background and the car should be crisp, well except for the rotation of the wheels) to ensure more blur on the background and a more crisp car pic I would like to be able to hold the shutter open longer with less camera movement. Will a gimbal work for this if wind is blowing on it while driving in a vehicle?

    I also do rig shots of vehicles where there is a long pole attached and extended from the car about 18 feet and then the camera is attached to the pole as well. You push the car slowly to minimize the vibrations and then hit the shutter button and get sort of the same effect as the rolling shots but more blur. Now with this i would like to start being able to get pictures of the cars doing burnouts and having the camera catch that image. The problem is when the car starts up or makes a hard movement then the pole shakes up and down. Will attaching a gimbal help with the up and down movement of the pole? The pole sometimes bounces up and down about 4 inches.

    If you need any other info on what i am talking about then let me know and i will explain further. Thank you very much in advance for any help with this.
  • Here is a link to an example of one of my rolling shots

    https://flic.kr/p/qjFWw9

  • And here is a crap version of what a rolling shot looks like


    https://flic.kr/p/qwHHJ9







  • A gimbal will do good job for stabilising Roll, Pitch and Yaw, and during 1 s these would stay probably within some 0.0x degrees.

    However if there is any lateral movement between the target and camera, that will show.

    Wind will of course be a problem if too much of it, but how fast do you really need to go? For the blur effect not that fast if the time is long enough.

    the above mentioned is theoretical, I have not tried this.
  • what about vertical movement when I attach the Gimbal to a pole to do the Rig shots on the car? Is that a 4th axis needed to complete this job?
  • If it is attached to the car that it photographed, with a solid rig, then there is minimal lateral/vertical movement. If it is attached to a separate car, then there is probably lateral/vertical/angle movement between the 2 cars. Vibrations are also a concern if it is fixed to the car body. handheld eliminates the vibrations quite well.

    Best thing would be to try it. Maybe it is perfect, maybe 1 of 10 shots succeeds, maybe that is good enough?
  • If all of your still shots are like this, why not just isolate the car and wheels as layers in Photoshop, and blur the background, and wheels. This is a very easy process in Photoshop, and would save a lot of time, money, and a sharper looking car.