Three axis repeatable motion is an outstanding thing. You might recognize similar shots from Frozen Planet or Planet Earth.

With repeatable motion, you can take multiple passes of the same scene and then layer them on top of one another in your editing software. Once lined up you may cross fade or cut between them. This creates a visually beautiful transition over time without having to shoot over that entire time. :) Think about fading between day and night or between winter and fall, or in this case, between a pristine swath of snow on our deck and a Japanese garden thing that my buddy Chris imagined and built.

We took two video passes, one of the clean snow, and the second of the finished product to allow the fading. Additionally we took a time lapse shot (shoot, move, shoot) sequence of the entire build.

All of these shots used exactly the same motion. We are learning a bit more about how snow doesn't offer the best tripod base, so the footage isn't perfect, but it is pretty darn close.

Look for how to videos on this and other repeatable motion techniques coming from the eMotimo lab soon. Another thing we might mention is that this entire solution will be available for about $1500 if you use the Dynamic Perceptions Dolly and the eMotimo TB3 as the devices. As you look at other solutions coming into the market, ask about the all in cost for their three axis repeatable motion control solutions.

Reach out to me at brian at emotimo.com if you have any questions!

This is integrating DragonFrame Version 3.03 with eMotimo TB3. This was shot from a crappy integrated webcam on my laptop. More later with better cameras, but this was shot to give others an idea about what is possible with the eMotimo TB3 coupled to a rail.

eMotimo TB3 has a precision pan and tilt with over 400 steps per degree on either axis.

The slider is a custom stepper module powered and driven from the TB3 and mounted on the Dynamic Perceptions Stage 1 slider. Not accounting for belt stretch this technically should have great precision than .0001 inches. In reality, this should be repeatable within about .005 inches even with the slip since there are backlash compensation and backlash rollback built into the software!

Playing around Sunday morning with an eMotimo TB3 mounted on top of the Dynamic Perceptions Stage Zero Dolly. There are quite a few good examples of time lapses out there with this configuration, but not much good real time stuff so here is something I threw together to say Happy Easter.

Using the game controller, you use the thumb wheel to control the pan and tilt. You "lean" the controller side to side to control the third output. In this case the TB3's third output is a custom stepper module that drives the Dynamic Perception's Hardware. In this configuration the MX2 controller is not used - everything is controlled by the TB3's board.

I shot this real time (no program). You can see that it is pretty darn smooth - even at 2x speed. This was my first an only attempt this morning, but it worked great. The module is accepting higher weight loads, but this was shot with a cheapy solid state camera from Canon.

eMotimo creates motion control hardware for photographers and videographers at all levels. We are focused on creating highly capable, easy-to-use, portable pan and tilt heads. Currently the PT (Pan and Tilt) and TB3 (The Box 3-Axis) are available for sale on eMotimo.com

Music is Starry by General Fuzz