First few times i've taken my still dig camera on the boat and all the vids get shakey from the bounce of the boat. <BR> <BR>Wheres the best place to take vids from to prevent this? Any hints on ways to stop it like how to hold it? <BR> <BR>What i do atm is look though the view finder because i think my arms absorb the bounce to much. I sit as close to the back of the boat as possible because its the front that does all the bouncing. <BR> <BR>I was thinking of making a small tripod that i can attach to the back of the boat somewhere, and still have it swivel so i can pan with the rider. <BR> <BR>Any hints on how to stop the bumpiness? All the vids i see that are posted don't experience this, but i thikn these are the video camera's, not still camera's pretending to be video cameras.

I find that if I prop my elbows on my legs (or in a pinch against my abdomen) it significantly reduces the shakiness. <BR>I have found that most of the shaking when we film comes from our arm absorbing the bumps.

ya i think a tripod would work good because it would bounce with the boat, i was gonna try it this year but i never did.

I've found that videos I shoot with my still camera are much more shaky than ones I shoot with my digital video camera. I think it's just the way the still cameras shoot fewer frames per second just makes the bouncing more noticeable. <BR>

1. Get as far back in the boat as possible. There is less boat movement back there. <BR> <BR>2. Tripods suck. There is no shock absorption so any little bumps that the boat hits are directly sent to the camera. <BR> <BR>3. Dont use the view screen. If you keep the eye piece on your eye and look throught it you will have 3 locations to steady the camera from (2 hands, and face).

funny, i find the opposite of putting elbows on legs. i keep my arms away from my body and the camera a little away from my face. the more you can isolate the camera the better - that's the principle behind something like the steady cam (kinda). <BR> <BR>for the same reason that scott gives for the tripod i wouldn't have my hands resting on any part of my body or the boat - any movement gets directly generated to the camera, your body just becomes the tripod. the camera needs to float as much as possible on shock-absorbers, which the arms do a great job of. <BR> <BR>same reason for learning how to look thru the eyepiece without having your eye up to it. if your face is in contact with the camera, that's another place the force can transfer to it. <BR>

Taking video with a digital <b>still camera</b> has two disadvantages: <BR> <BR>1) it's small and light so it's going to be harder to hold steady (no steady shot like on the video cameras...) <BR> <BR>2) The video is compressed. This will make it difficult to capture quality video while panning and trying to capture fast moving action. <BR> <BR>Most of the videos on wakepics are taken with a video camera and then compressed. Once compressed they might look similar to your "still camera" videos. <BR> <BR>

What i usually do when I shoot stills is I position myself in in the far back in the right corner, then I pinch the side of the boat with my outside elbow to steady myself and keep my left arm as still as possible in the air, this is NOT easy, your left arm will get VERY tired very fast, but I've gotten some great shots that way. In terms of using a still camera for video... I wouldn't recomend it for the exact same reasons Kung Fu said. But, play arround with it and try different techniques, where there is a will there is a way. I'm sure you'll find a way to make it work, when you do let us know, have fun and good luck!