Quick video tip – Fast tilt

Everyone who shoots with DSLRs for video knows the problems with high speed panning, the dreaded “jello vision” or rolling-shutter effect. This is caused by the way the camera’s sensor records the information, top to bottom. As you pan, the image that the sensor starts to record at the top, is shifted slightly to one side by the time the sensor has finished recording the data at the bottom so the subjects appear to bend to one side. But this does not really effect your video if you want to perform a tilt at high speed because relative to the vertical lines on the sensor, the subject is not moving. A couple of days ago I wanted to try out my 300mm f2.8 L IS for filming with my 1dMKIV. I was attending a snowboarding competition and I knew that with such a long lens I was going to need to follow the action pretty fast. Instead of setting up for a standard panning movement, I climbed high above the action and shot a high speed tilt instead, thereby making full use of the cameras abilities and not allowing it’s main weakness to effect my ability to get a cool shot. There is some panning motion in there too but it is a much smaller amount than it would have been if I was side on to the action. Also bear in mind that I have conformed this from 60p to 30p in cinema tools, so the actual speed of tilt was twice as fast as it appears, and the footage held up nicely.