Handheld Camera

Apply organic handheld camera motion with accurate motion blur using data from real handheld cameras.

Choose from 21 different handheld presets, each with a different "character" recorded from real camera movements - from subtle interview setups to intense action sequences.

Add an intimate feel to POV shots, or "grit" to moving shots to add interest to motion that is too bland.

Overview

Handheld Camera brings authentic handheld camera movement to static shots, or "too smooth" footage:

• 21 Motion Datasets - Real captured camera movements
• Motion Blur - Physically accurate blur based on shutter angle
• Full Control - Independent rotation, translation, and scale adjustment
• Frequency Filtering - Separate high and low frequency motions - so you can easily get smoother or shakier character to your motion.
• Adaptive Sampling - Quality automatically scales with motion intensity

Motion Data Credits: Camera motion datasets captured by Jan Klier, Maury Rosenfeld, and Ian Hubert.

Quick Start

The best way to get started is to use the presets to get familiar with the range of effects, then delve into the individual settings.

Easiest: Use the Presets!

Select the effect from the ofx list, and drag it onto a corrector node (color page) or onto a clip (editor page).

In the presets group, there are two dropdowns: "Factory Presets" and "My Presets". Try out the various factory presets to quickly get a look you like.

Later, when you develop your own looks, you can save your own presets; Give your look a name in the "save as" field, and click "save". Then, your own presets will be available in the "My Presets" drop down.

1. Apply the effect to your clip
2. Choose a Shake Type from the dropdown
3. Adjust Shake Amount to control intensity
4. Set Image Scale slightly above 1.0 to avoid black edges
5. Enable Motion Blur for realistic results

Inputs

Mocap Datasets

The effect includes 21 motion datasets, each with different character and duration (frame count shown in parentheses):

Interview & Documentary Style

Handheld Walking

Mobile/Action

Subtle/Observational

Vehicle/Special

Parameters

Main Settings

Core controls for the Handheld Camera effect.

Speed

Controls how fast the shake pattern plays:

• 0.5: Half speed, slower, floatier movement
• 1.0: Original recorded speed
• 2.0: Double speed, more frantic

Shake Amount

Master intensity control:

• 0.0: No shake (useful for A/B comparison)
• 0.5: Half intensity, subtle
• 1.0: Original recorded intensity
• 2.0+: Exaggerated shake
• Negative: Inverts the motion

Motion Blur

Simulate realistic motion blur based on camera movement.

Shutter Factor

Maps to traditional shutter angle:

• 0.0: No motion blur (infinite shutter speed)
• 0.5: 180° shutter (film standard)
• 1.0: 360° shutter (full frame exposure)
• 2.0+: Exaggerated blur, dreamy effect

Effect Scale

Independent control over different motion components. These Multiply the values - to increase or decrease the range of motion.

Use these to customize the feel:

• Set Rotation Scale to 0 (or a low number): When you want the camera to feel like it's on a tripod, with an unlocked head.
• Zet Zoom to 0 (or a low number): When you don't want any zooming.

Effect Offset

Add static offsets to the motion. For instance, when you'd like to add a small amount of tilt that remains constant, or to move the whole scene left or right, up or down.

Frame Offset

Start at a different point in the motion data:

• Avoid repetition when using the same preset multiple times
• Avoid a specific "bump" in the effect by offsetting past (or before) it.

Advanced Filtering

Separate high-frequency jitter from low-frequency drift.

This is a powerful feature, that lets you quickly change the character of the sampled motion.

The easiest way is to use the "Balance" knob - it's kinda like the "tone control" on an old school radio. Move it left, and it makes the motion smoother, by cutting out the jittery component. Move it right, and it cuts out the "swimmy" motion, by removing the lower frequency components.

You can still dial in the highs and lows manually, with the individual high and low frequency knobs.

That last slider, the filter size, is what defines the boundary between high and low. In practice, you'll rarely need this control. The useful range is from 2 to 5 or 6, and 4 is the sweet spot for most cases. As you lower the number, the highs include less content, and it is higher frequency, while the lows include more content, and include some of the highs.

Miscelaneous

Show Overshoot/Overshoot Color/Overshoot Tolerance

Because we are moving the frame around, you'll have to enlarge the frame a little, to prevent "shooting off the frame". Enabling Show Overshoot is a diagnostic tool, that can help you tune the effect, so you minimize the amount that you have to blow up the image to get the best results.

When Show Overshoot is enabled, the image will turn a color (the color you select in the "Overshoot Color" parameter) when you are sampling outside of the image. It will also turn the specific pixels that are at issue the complimentary color, for easy identification of where the problem lies.

You can increase the image scale, or animate the offsets to minimize this issue - but often, setting the edge treatment to "mirror" will make the issue unnoticeable.

For your convenience, there's also an overshoot tolerance, in percent. If you set it to 0.5%, then an overshoot of 0.5% will not trigger the overshoot indicator.

Edge Treatment

This is how the edges are rendered, if you sample off of the image. The default is mirrored, but you can also repeat the edge pixels, or just render black outside of the original image.

Tips & Tricks

Handling "Overshoot"

The most common issue is when the motion is large enough to "shoot off the edge of the image" as the camera moves:

1. Increase Image Scale to 1.05-1.15
2. Or reduce Shake Amount to keep motion within frame
3. Or animate the offsets to keyframe for a few problem frames.

Use the "Show Overshoot" diagnostic tool to help identify problems.

Matching Footage Feel

To match existing handheld footage:

1. Choose a preset similar in energy to your target
2. Adjust Speed to match timing
3. Use Effect Scale to emphasize certain motion types
4. Enable Filtering to fine-tune jitter vs. drift