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Basically when shooting outdoors, or indoors but not on a flat leveled floor, and I am panning with a tripod, the tripod will often start out level, but then when I pan, it goes on a slant, cause the location is not completely on a flat surface. Here are two clips for examples:
This one it goes on a slant while panning at 10 seconds into video:
And this one it goes on a slant while panning at 50 seconds into the video. Notice how the lamp poles are on a slant. Where as before the video starts out straight but then goes on a slant while panning:
Okay thanks, but I did that. The head is level. The problem is, is that the actual location is on a slant. Like where I am shooting it's level, but where the camera is aimed at, the view becomes slanted about 50 feet away from the camera like so.
I'm not sure I understand. The absolute #1 rule when using a tripod is to level the head, perfectly - you can then screw around with tilt angles and stuff all you want. If you level the camera, and it stays level, then everything you pan to should be vertical. This sounds a little more like lens distortion from a wide-angle, and perspective issues.
Shooting architectural is a bugger, because getting a combination of view and parallel lines (especially vertically) can be contradictory. That's where tilt-shift lenses come in, for example - you level the film plane to the building and literally twist the lens to get the coverage you want.
But if you're panning around with a level cam, every beam and corner that's vertical should film as vertical, even if there are vertical perspective issues. Any lens wider than about 20% off 1:1 (around 40mm, for standard cameras) is going to exaggerate perspective problems.
Oh okay thanks. What about the lens in the second shot? I was zoomed to 450mm on the lens, if I remember correct, so that is not a wide shot at all.
I was told by someone that even though I was leveled, the part of the ground where the woman was walking on was not leveled. I was told that I should level to where the subject is going to be walking, and not where the tripod is actually standing.
Like for example, the ground that the tripod is on, is leveled, but the area that I a zoomed into, about 50 feet away or so, is not. What should I do then?
Level is level and vertical is vertical. The usual rule is to level everything "true" to your location, using bubble levels and the like, and then figure out the problems from there. (That is, setting up a tripod or mount that's deliberately off-axis usually leads to more problems.)
If someone is walking 50 feet away, i assume the gravity isn't any different for them and they are vertical regardless of the ground slope. It makes no sense to "level where the subject is" - level, again, is level.
If you are trying to point the camera up or down a slope, that's a slightly different problem. If you start level and point the camera down ten degrees, then swivel, you're going to get a slanted image as the camera spins off its forward-facing level. The solution there is a tripod or mount that pivots UNDER any tilt, so if you level the base, point the camera down, and turn it, the film plane stays level even though the viewing angle is not.
Put another way since we don't have diagrams - if you point the camera down and the mount pivots on the vertical center of the tripod, you'll view a circle of ground all around the tripod. If the camera is pointed down and the pivot is on the (tilted) vertical center of the film plane, you'll get a halo image that shows the ground on one side and the sky on the other. That make sense? It really should be simple if you're standing there with it. Make sure to pivot the right element of the tripod or mount (usually the stem), not the camera on its base.
Okay thanks. I think my bubble might be defective though, as it says I am level when I am not, it turns out sometimes.
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