“Why can’t I catch what I see!
The snap looks good but it’s not epic!
The smile looks unnatural and odd
’tis better to get a reel than a pic!”
The basic principle or secret to a good videography is to understand two key features. Of course a professional (and actual videographer!) would tell you that there are other factors involved but primarily there are two!
The second one surprisingly is done better by a bird!
Intrigued?
read on!
The most important in getting a good video is light! How you use the light to your benefit or how much you use is your skill! Most of the time photos and videos depend on the time of day and the position of the light with respect to the subject!
There have been photographers and videographers who have been waiting for the ‘perfect moment’ and most of the time the perfect one is dependent on light! Some photos and videos come in proper use of low light also!
The other important factor in photo and mainly video recording is image stabilisation. The industry which is dependent on image stabilisation is huge! There are multitudes of devices and factors which are placed in your camera to get a good image or a stable video!
Whether capturing still images or recording moving video, image stabilization will always be a major factor in reproducing a near perfect digital replica. A lack thereof will result in image distortion through pixel blurring and the creation of unwanted artifacts.
Capture of a good snap or video then needs steady hands! Even when there are components like zoom, they always come with an attachment of a stand or a tripod because even a little movement can distort the image especially if it is in zoom. Know that many new cameras come with latest technology for great image stabilisation but still there are limitations.
So then comes a whole industry of products which have the only aim to stabilize your camera! Apart from the mounts and the tripods you have some things called the Gimbal!
Now, it may sound like a Gym ball! And actually it is like on!
But for all the practical purposes it is a shock absorber for your camera!
Technically a gimbal is a pivoted support that allows for the rotation of an object about an axis. Most gimbals will either be two-axis or three-axis.
The amazing thing about a Gimbal is that like the image rotation in your phone, even this design is inspired by the one of the organ of balance in our body! The inner ear!
The semicircular canals are the tiny components which are present in all the directions and whichever direction you move, they get stimulated in at least two. Like the Gimbal which moves in two or three axis!
So when the body or the head moves in any direction the canals get stimulated or inhibited and depending on the signal sent to the brain in milliseconds, the brain then calculates the orientation and stabilises the image or the scene for you to see! Which is why when the speed of movement is fast either of the body or the image, the clarity is less!
The most modern Gimbals thus try to increase the sensitivity of the image as much as possible and then they help in ‘stabilizing’ the video or image!
Since this is a technology derived by the equilibrium system it is safe to say that it can never be as good as that! But there is an equilibrium system in nature which is dependent on another system found in certain birds that is much more effective in keeping the image stable or straight!
If you see a Hen or a cock and hold its head and then try to move its body you can see how the neck and head stays straight almost like magic! There are so many videos you can see in the net if you still are not amazed!
That reflex which makes the bird maintain a steady head is called the Vestibulo collic reflex! In chickens, the VCR particularly controls neck and head muscles to stabilize their vision. Consequently, chickens compensate for the limitations in their VOR system through the inner ear organs triggering their VCR system.
The result is that a bird stabilizes its vision when its body is in motion by activating its neck and head muscles to keep it’s head still. This head stability (and thus eyes stability) allows for chickens to clearly focus on a object even when their bodies are in motion.
So the nature has this amazing natural Gimbal for us! That means, chickens have “steady-cam” heads and humans don’t!
Since optical image stabilization is all about keeping the camera still even as the housing shakes or otherwise moves around. So why not strap a camera onto a chicken’s head and turn the guy (or gal) into a fowl-stabilized action cam!?
The “galluscam” commercial was put together by LG, but it’s certainly not the first to take advantage of the fact that chickens have an uncanny ability to keep their head still while the rest of their body moves around and all of them, however, can be said to have been inspired by this SmarterEveryDay YouTube video from 2008, the same one shown in the commercial itself. Destin, the man behind the original video, even went so far as to create his own chicken-powered steadicam in 2010 after nobody had tried it yet!
So the next time you want a steady video, all you have to do is to adopt and domesticate a chicken and place a camera on its head! Catching one though is not an easy task though! That’s a good message or sandesham! Which of course reminds me of birthday celebrity and one of the best actors Palappurathu Keshavan Surendranatha Thilakan!
Now set an alarm for yourself since no Rooster will wake you as apparently the one who tries to wake people gets eaten!
Shubh Ratri!
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