How to Fix Jerky, Jittery or Shaky Gimbal Footage in Post with DaVinci Resolve’s Planar Tracker.

Close up screenshot of the Davinci Resolve Planar tracker UI. The Operation Mode drop-down menu is highlighted.

Prologue

The best way to fix bad gimbal footage is, of course, in post. Kidding aside, the reality is that on shoot days, we f*ck up constantly because we’re usually trying to think in three dimensions while a bunch of corpos stand around, watching our genius at work. For those moments when things don’t go as planned, hopefully, this can help.

Today, we’re exploring the planar tracker solution within Davinci Resolve’s Fusion. It’s important to note that this solution doesn’t work on all footage. The planar tracker tool needs something in the frame to track, so if your shot lacks clear reference points, fixing it might be more challenging. Assuming you have the right elements to work with, this may be your lucky day. Before we jump into the process, you can take a glance at the before and after results below. These are two examples where the planar tracker really shines.

Before & After 

Sample 1:  Jerky Panning

In this example, the camera pushes in on the subject while panning, but the deadband setting wasn’t properly calibrated, resulting in a jerky pan.

Sample 2:  Shaky Camera Operator

In this shot, there’s no panning—just a pullback. The camera operator was leaning over the table with the gimbal fully extended, straining to pull the camera back.

Planar Tracker
Step one:
Select your clip and click on the Fusion tab.
A screenshot of the Davinci Resolve Edit tab, used in a Fusion Planar Tracker tutorial.
Assuming you already have your Davinci Project setup, ensure the playhead is positioned over the clip that needs stabilization, then click on the Fusion tab. Make sure no other clips are layered above the one you want to stabilize, as Fusion defaults to grabbing the top-most clip. The process will be the same for both example clips.
Step Two:
Add the Planar Tracker.

Now that you’re in the Fusion tab, select MediaIn1 and press [Shift + Spacebar] to open the node menu. Search for ‘Planar Tracker’ in the node menu and select it. Then click the add button.

Step Three:
Set operation Mode and Track Mode.
Close up screenshot of the Davinci Resolve Planar tracker UI. The Operation Mode drop-down menu is highlighted.
Close up screenshot of the Davinci Resolve Planar tracker UI. The Motion Type selection box is highlighted.

In the Planar Tracker panel, set the Operation Mode to Track and the Motion Type to Translation. Translation works best for simple vertical and horizontal movement and will give the best results in most cases. Translation, Rotation, and Scale may work better if your footage has more complex motion. You can try Perspective if your footage has a significant amount of perspective change or parallax. Feel free to experiment with these settings.

Step Four
Define the area to track.
Davinci Resolves planar tracker, close up image of tracking area on the back of an office chair.
Davinci Resolves planar tracker, close up image of tracking area around a book on top of a table.

When choosing an area to track, it’s often best to start in the middle of the clip and find something visible throughout. In this case, the back of the chair works best, even though it’s partially cut off at the end. And for the other clip, the book on the desk in front of our subject worked well.

Close up screenshot of the Davinci Resolve Planar tracker UI. The Reference Time buttons, Set and Go are highlighted with yellow.
Close up screenshot of the Davinci Resolve Planar tracker UI. The Track forward and track backward buttons are highlighted.
With the playhead near the middle of the clip, select the area to be tracked and click the Set Button under Operation Mode. This tells Fusion which frame to start tracking from. Once set, use Track Forward and Track Backward (the order doesn’t matter). You can use the Go Button to quickly return to your reference frame and continue tracking the rest of the clip.
Step Five
Run the Stabilization

Now that Fusion has tracked the footage, you can proceed with stabilization. Switch the Operation Mode to Stabilize. I find the best results often come from unchecking Rotation and Scale, but feel free to experiment. Finally, click Compute Stabilization.

Step Six
Crop the Footage

The final step is cropping the stabilized footage to remove any black edges that may appear after stabilization.

And with that, you’re all done. While this method works well for many situations, it may not be suitable for all types of footage. Hopefull you found it helpful. We appreciate your feedback, so if there’s anything in this tutorial that we missed or could improve, please let us know!

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