Any Video Suggestions?

[ipeters61]

Hey everyone, I've been wanting to make some highway videos and I have an "old" phone that has a very good camera for the job.

I tried making a video tonight and when I was stopped at a red light (I had just missed it and knew it would be a while until it was green again), I noticed that even when idling, the video was shaky.  When I got home, the entire video had stabilization issues.

To mount the phone, I have a vent mount, which I attached to the edge of the clock, to get it very close to the windshield and that also gives it about 1/2" clearance to the dash.  My car is a 2009 Toyota Camry with 92k miles and it rides fine so I don't think shocks are an issue.

Right now I'm running it through a stabilization feature on a video editor (Shotcut) and awaiting the results.  I can't imagine they'll be great though.  To the guys on this forum who make highway videos, what are your suggestions?  I don't want to invest too much into it, my phone's camera definitely can take good footage but it just ends up shaky.

[AsphaltPlanet]

I use software called Mercalli to stabilize my videos.  It works reasonably well, but not perfectly.

The best advice I can give is to find a way to mount your phone in such a way that it doesn't shake.  That might mean getting a different mount from Amazon or elsewhere.

Until recently I used a windshield mount to mount my camera to the windshield.  I used this method for a couple of years, but I've always found that because of the angle of my car's windshield, it was hard to get the camera balanced on the mount so that it wouldn't slightly rock back and forth when I drove.  On a recent trip I bought a new tripod, and have found that to be a bit more favourable, particularly if you can lean the tripod against the dash somehow so that the weight of the camera holds the tripod secure.  One of the advantages of filming with a phone is that it actually should be easier to find a stable mount because it's comparably light.

[MarkF]

I had similar issues with shaky video when I first got a GoPro a couple of years ago. It doesn't have stabilization.  I tried a few different mount methods (vent mount, clip to the visor) and found what worked best for me was a suction cup mount to the windshield.  I tried some software stabilization, but that took a very long time to run and resulted in some strange artifacts at times (cars on the side stretching, odd stuff with clouds).

[kphoger]

My car has a little tray on top of the dashboard, like for putting your sunglasses or breath mints in.  What I did a while ago was to take a foam block, contour it with a knife to fit the tray, then cut a shallow slot in the top with an exact-o knife.  I can squeeze my phone in the slot to shoot driving videos.  I ripped up an old black tee shirt to wrap around the foam block to eat up some glare, too.

The problem I have, however, is that it takes forever to upload from my phone to my computer–such that I've simply given up on taking driving videos.

[ipeters61]

So I looked at all of your advice and also talked to YouTube user roadwaywiz on Facebook to get some ideas.  He made a really good point: try to find a way to squeeze the phone between the dashboard and the windshield so that it can't move between the two.

When I was getting ready to film the new US-301 expressway in Delaware this morning (trying to set up in a parking lot in Millington MD), I realized that I had a pack of napkins in the car.  I took a napkin, folded it up, and placed it under the mounted phone.  Kind of tough to describe, but it was possible this way to have the top of the phone against the windshield and the bottom of the phone against the napkin and, by extension, the dashboard.  The video was definitely much more watchable than the last one I made (of DE-1 last weekend).