camera movement - suggestions?

maccored

I was in a house in laois the other night as the owner had some stories for research I'm doing. Its currently uninhabited and it's quite old. As I say, it has a few apparent 'ghosts' with various sightings.

Any ideas on what could cause this? I have a camera, which is on a solid, flat surface. Over the first 15 mins it seems to move about - tiny movements over that period of time. I speeded the video up by 12 fold so its easier to see movements. I havent come across this before and I cant feasibly work out how its moving about.

Coincidentally, in the full video the movement stops when the owner knocks on the door downstairs and comes in. I haven't finished reviewing the full video, but so far there hasn't been any further movement of the camera. it just seems to move about for the 15 minutes or so before and right up to the owner comes into the building.

the camera cant be moving because of the surface its on, as its on a flat, hard boarded seat/chair which doesnt have any kind of curvature. Initially i thought the power cable may have been pulling on it (as I couldnt think of anything else), but I would suspect that wouldn't last over a 15 min period plus it would only pull the camera in one direction (to the right), and not back and forwards (and the odd time up and down). Ignore the big flash halfway through as that was the downstairs light. Suggestions welcome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36rft2T-7U4

maccored

jaysus, someone is bound to have some kind of suggestion. the house is an old estate house literally in the middle of a field, and a good distance away from any roads etc (just incase vibration is a suggestion). Note too that at the end, when we are upstairs, the camera movement has stopped completely - which again rules out floor vibration (even though theres no-one upstairs when its moving anyway). i also have no idea why the light is going out of focus like that either.

Riamfada

Very interesting. Was the camera "zoomed" in at all?

maccored

Riamfada wrote: »

Very interesting. Was the camera "zoomed" in at all?

nope - there was no need to use the zoom as the hall isnt that big.

Riamfada

This is really fascinating. Id recommend setting up again in the same spot and setting up a camera facing the position as close as possible.

frozenfrozen

Auto focus and or image stabilisation and or vibration reduction. The camera is on auto exposure too.

maccored

frozenfrozen wrote: »

Auto focus and or image stabilisation and or vibration reduction. The camera is on auto exposure too.

how would any or those make small movements though? As I say, its on a stable footing, nothing is moving and theres no vibration. I can understand image stabilisation making it look as though the camera is moving if the camera was on shaky ground - but the camera is stable. If your point is correct then the camera should be doing that every time its switched on. Dont forget, it only occurred for around 15 mins and not again throughout a 3 hour period.

Riamfada wrote:

This is really fascinating. Id recommend setting up again in the same spot and setting up a camera facing the position as close as possible.

Im trying - the key holder lives in the UK so I have to wait until he comes back over again.

mickmackey1

It must be a very small shake at normal speed in fairness, even air currents being warmed by the light might do it. Although that doesn't explain why it would stop after 15 minutes admittedly.

Riamfada

mickmackey1 wrote: »

It must be a very small shake at normal speed in fairness, even air currents being warmed by the light might do it. Although that doesn't explain why it would stop after 15 minutes admittedly.

A camera is quite heavy though. maccored what model camera is it you are using?

maccored

They are very small movements over a period of time. Its a sony digital. Its not that lightweight. I dont think air movement is the answer to be honest. Next time i'll turn off all the automatic doo daas as well.

FueledbyCoffee

Frightened the life outta me when the two people came running up the stairs, at about 1.07 it looks like the camera is trying to focus on something. I'm not very well read in the workings of recording so I'm not sure if that even matters.

maccored

I left the bit at the end in, just to highlight that the movement had stopped by then (around 1 m 4 ish) and even with people walking about upstairs, theres no movement.

Zebrano

I dont know about video but if u are taking stills on a tripod with image stabilisation it causes it to be blurry because it confuses the system. Maybe ask on the photography forum.

maccored

Zebrano wrote: »

I dont know about video but if u are taking stills on a tripod with image stabilisation it causes it to be blurry because it confuses the system. Maybe ask on the photography forum.

I only trying to be logical here, but image stabilisation - if it is the culprit - should surely cause this to happen constantly if its an issue. In this case theres camera movement for a small portion of time only, nevermind that through many hours of use this hasnt happened before. I dont think thats the answer tbh.

philstar

the two lads walking up the stairs made me jump!!

btw - is there a busy road nearby? whats the plumbing like? is there a boiler in the attic that could cause vibration?? is there any drafts coming from a window or door?

maccored

philstar wrote: »

the two lads walking up the stairs made me jump!!

btw - is there a busy road nearby? whats the plumbing like? is there a boiler in the attic that could cause vibration?? is there any drafts coming from a window or door?

nearest road is probably a mile or so away as its an old estate house, up a very long driveway and in the middle of nowhere. the house is unused so theres no heating etc running (in fact it doesnt have heating as far as Im aware). I cant say I noticed any draughts - well certainly none strong enough to move a camera about.

maccored

all i can really do is wait to go back again whenever the owner is available in the summer, and turn off all auto components on the camera and see if it happens again.

screamer

If it's an old house upstairs is probably done with wooden boards under the carpet, they can cause movement in a camera as they contract and expand, even after you walk over them, they can "settle back" and of course, you'd not notice as a human but the camera would move. If it's a concrete floor then, yep, I can't explain it, but as an owner of an old house, that's what I'd put money on...

maccored

screamer wrote: »

If it's an old house upstairs is probably done with wooden boards under the carpet, they can cause movement in a camera as they contract and expand, even after you walk over them, they can "settle back" and of course, you'd not notice as a human but the camera would move. If it's a concrete floor then, yep, I can't explain it, but as an owner of an old house, that's what I'd put money on...

definitely a wooden floor and I can see where you're coming from. Out of three hours of video though, it only did this for 15 mins. didnt do it again regardless if people were upstairs or not. I would assume that if it was the floor, it would have kept on moving about.

screamer

Depends really, with floor boards, you can step on one in a certain place that will cause another to move..... you can step on the board in a slightly different place and it won't move..... If going back there, I'd try and figure out how the boards run, and take a nice thick plank with you a few feet long and lay it across the boards so that it's sitting across multiple boards and not just on one. That should distribute the cameras weight and be sufficient that one board creaking will not make it move and then re-test.

maccored

remember though it was on a solid wooden topped chair and probably spanned three or four floorboards. I can see where you're coming from, but I cant see it being a floor board expanding. it wouldnt explain the slow duration of movements over a 17 min period. In saying that though, I will definitely try out your idea when I can get in there again so as to rule out the floorboards.

Ziycon

I would go with a very small vibrations resonating through the house, and it stopped when the owner came in due to the owner opening the door and disrupting the source of the vibrations, does it start moving again after everyone leaves the house?

frozenfrozen

It's image stabilisation 'hunting' just sped up and looks like vibrations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBX4G9J28nM

maccored

I dont go with the image stabilisation idea mainly because the camera was on a solid surface and it only done it for a short period of time. nevermind the same camera has and has since worked without the same thing happening. the point of speeding it up was to make them more obvious since they are such small movements.

maccored

Ziycon wrote: »

I would go with a very small vibrations resonating through the house, and it stopped when the owner came in due to the owner opening the door and disrupting the source of the vibrations, does it start moving again after everyone leaves the house?

I hate to look like Im shooting down ideas, but surely it would havent happened at all in that circumstance considering it was moving when I was there, but stopped after the owner came in. None of the other cameras in the house (plus the other one that was upstairs not too far away from this one) had any movement.

Ziycon

maccored wrote: »

I hate to look like Im shooting down ideas, but surely it would havent happened at all in that circumstance considering it was moving when I was there, but stopped after the owner came in. None of the other cameras in the house (plus the other one that was upstairs not too far away from this one) had any movement.

If it was vibrations, the owner coming in and it stopping could be a coincidence, don't rule it out with other further investigations, people being in the house might not have anything to do with the movement starting and stopping just a coincidence.

Put in two cameras, one camera facing downwards onto the surface used in the video with a fine powder put into a neat circle with a circle edge drawn around the powder and another camera facing the first camera and powder side on. This will give an idea if the unit has vibrations running through it or if it a camera issue etc., I always try to use a non electronic indicator in these instances hence the fine powder, to rule out electronic devices being the source of the camera movement.

Just one suggestion.

frozenfrozen

The IS is hunting the same way the light source in the video becomes brighter and darker -- inherent noise floor of electronics + automatic features = inconsistency (of both the framing and exposure).

Notice how drastically the framing changes when the light source turns on at 33 seconds in the video.



Have you mimicked the camera setup exactly in a non-spooky location and sped it up 12 times and seen 100% completely movement free footage? Image stabilisation is constantly making slight adjustments even on a completely still scene so I'd doubt you could get the aforementioned shake free footage.

maccored

frozenfrozen wrote: »

The IS is hunting the same way the light source in the video becomes brighter and darker -- inherent noise floor of electronics + automatic features = inconsistency (of both the framing and exposure).

Notice how drastically the framing changes when the light source turns on at 33 seconds in the video.



Have you mimicked the camera setup exactly in a non-spooky location and sped it up 12 times and seen 100% completely movement free footage? Image stabilisation is constantly making slight adjustments even on a completely still scene so I'd doubt you could get the aforementioned shake free footage.

I have hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of footage from the same camera that is completely shake free. Why should this one be any different?

A camera would be pretty useless surely, if it started wobbling when being used - unless of course it was on an unstable footing. It was wobbling enough to be noticeable before being speeded up.

so I'd doubt you could get the aforementioned shake free footage

I also cant say I've ever seen any of my other cameras do anything similar As much as Im looking for explanations, that one doesn't actually make sense, with all due respect. I've tons of 'shake free footage'.

Still though, thanks for the feedback. I don't think theres much point in any kind of heated debate on this. You say its image stablisation, I say there was no need for image stabilisation to activate. You say that speeding up any video will show slight movement, I disagree as I cant make any of the other video do the same thing speeded up.

maccored

Ziycon wrote: »

If it was vibrations, the owner coming in and it stopping could be a coincidence, don't rule it out with other further investigations, people being in the house might not have anything to do with the movement starting and stopping just a coincidence.

Put in two cameras, one camera facing downwards onto the surface used in the video with a fine powder put into a neat circle with a circle edge drawn around the powder and another camera facing the first camera and powder side on. This will give an idea if the unit has vibrations running through it or if it a camera issue etc., I always try to use a non electronic indicator in these instances hence the fine powder, to rule out electronic devices being the source of the camera movement.

Just one suggestion.

I'll try that - cheers

frozenfrozen

maccored wrote: »

I have hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of footage from the same camera that is completely shake free. Why should this one be any different?

A camera would be pretty useless surely, if it started wobbling when being used - unless of course it was on an unstable footing. It was wobbling enough to be noticeable before being speeded up.


I also cant say I've ever seen any of my other cameras do anything similar As much as Im looking for explanations, that one doesn't actually make sense, with all due respect. I've tons of 'shake free footage'.

Still though, thanks for the feedback. I don't think theres much point in any kind of heated debate on this. You say its image stablisation, I say there was no need for image stabilisation to activate. You say that speeding up any video will show slight movement, I disagree as I cant make any of the other video do the same thing speeded up.

I'll leave you be but just for the sake of anyone else coming across this, "I say there was no need for image stabilisation to activate." If image stabilisation is turned on then it is working constantly (which is where these little movements are coming from.)

The way IS works is that there's constantly a floating box which if it touches the corner of the frame the frame bounces it back in slightly which cancels out shake -- in theory. This is apparent when the downstairs light is turned on and the framing changes drastically for a moment because the floating box is trying to reframe to what was there before (which doesn't exist momentarily because of the huge change in light.)

As the clip progresses you can see the light source clearly becoming more bright, this change is enough to make the IS make even more small changes above what would happen in a 100% controlled situation with no change (where the small movements would be caused by the noise floor of the electronics.)

I'm not looking for a heated debate I'm trying to explain the phenomenon taking place here, the movement is caused by your camera being on auto modes. You can't compare other footage you've captured unless you've got the same light levels, zoomed in the same amount, same camera settings and so on.