AirCanada881

Hi all

I love doing videos in flight, timelapses or just video reports, I own a Galaxy note smartphone & Sony RX100 III.

What I want to do is find an arm that would be strong enough to put on the window without any shakiness. I bought some before which weren't really good. Even with the Note smartphone there would be alot of vibrations. I see alot of videos on youtube where the filming is completely still & while I'm sure the wide angle of a go pro helps, I'm just wondering if there isn't anything out there I could buy so I could get similar results with my little RX100 camera or smartphone?

Many thanks for your help.

reft

There are suction cups available which end in a 1/4"-20 screw stud that can be used to attach to a flat surface. One product is the Delkin Gecko. There are reports people have used suction cups on aircraft windows, but without some 'help' using one of the techniques mentioned below, if the window shakes, so will the image.

This isn't a specific answer, but a number of ideas that you may want to select from to build a solution that suits your specific need.

Camera Stabilization
To start: Some cameras have an internal software or hardware image stabilization (IS) mode which can help reduce shake. Sony markets this as "SteadyShot" and I think the Sony RX100 III has a version of it. Test this and see if it helps.

You didn't mention which version of the Note you have for a phone, but check the features for IS. Some cameras in phones have this feature as well in hardware or software.

Editing Stabilization
Many video editors have a way to de-shake the image after the fact, so the videos you saw may have been processed. Youtube announced their own a couple of years back for uploaded videos. If you didn't use IS during filming, it may improve things, if you did, it may provide the final polish.

Surfaced Studio on Youtube has a video on stabilization @ Even if you don't use that software, it'll give you an idea of how image stabilization in edit can be done and what the result might look like.

Gimbals & Attachments
For hardware, a gimbal is an active device attached to the camera which tends to dampen movement. These have come down in price and size recently and are available for go-pro's and cell phones. You'd still need to decide how to secure it to something for longer movies.

Joby sells a "Griptight" mount which grabs a cell phone top and bottom. It comes with 3 legs that attached to a 1/4"-20 threaded hole. Remove them, and you can attach the cell phone part of the mount to something else, like a suction cup adapeter. Your RX100 may have a standard tripod mount so the GripTight wouldn't be necessary.

sbm12

Doesn't matter how stable the mount is if what you're mounted to is shaking. The GoPro software is pretty good at removing most of the vibrations on my videos, but there is always some left behind.

I'm a big fan of the suction cup method for my recording. I haven't come up with anything better than that for making a timelapse of a full flight.