Video Stabilisation at 10x Zoom - anyone else noticed or can reproduce a "wobble effect"?

[ssj100]

With my previous phones (S7 and S9+), I found video stabilisation did more harm than good. With the S21 Ultra, it actually does a very good job stabilising video when moving.

However, I've disabled video stabilisation by default even on the S21 Ultra now. I rarely record video while moving, so there isn't much benefit in my context, and there can actually be a lot of "harm". One example of this is when recording video with the 10x zoom lens - I've noticed significant "wobble" effect when switching to this lens. It's hard to describe, but it's as if the whole picture/video is "wobbling" and distorting when using this lens. This only occurs when video stabilisation is enabled and only with the 10x Zoom lens (I think I may have noticed it on the 3x Zoom lens a few months ago too). When disabled, this issue goes away.

Can anyone else reproduce this? You may need to test in different lighting conditions - I find it's most noticeable with outdoor lighting. A separate issue is what I would describe as "micro-jitters" appearing when video stabilisation is enabled.

 

[SpookDroid]

Re: Video Stabilisation at 10x Zoom - anyone else noticed or can reproduce a "wobble effect"?

Makes sense since there's no OIS on that lens, so the stabilization will depend a lot on the image/scene being recorded (which isn't as noticeable when you're actually moving). The phone picks a scene to stabilize... so if the phone isn't moving but the scene is, well, it kinda kicks the effect in but onto the scene.

 

[L0n3N1nja]

Re: Video Stabilisation at 10x Zoom - anyone else noticed or can reproduce a "wobble effect"?

Does it do this with a tripod? It's very difficult to hand hold a camera stable at that focal length, a cell phone would be even harder due to poor ergonomics. My best guess is there is too much shake and the image stabilization is over compensating but I could be wrong.

However the difference you notice between indoor lighting and outdoor lighting can be explained because they don't use the same camera. Anytime there isn't adequate light Samsung uses digital zoom on the primary sensor instead of switching to one of the other lenses. So outside you get the wobble due to the 10x cameras behavior while inside it's just cropped off the main sensor. Stabilization would behave differently.