Great Camera Tracking Bang For Your Buck

As I’m sure some of you might know, when diving into the world of camera tracking and matching, it could be quite an intense experience. Depending on the type of shot and how much character and object movement you’ve got in the shot, it can quickly get from a simple few click solution to an all day event simply to mask out objects you don’t want to add to the camera solution. There are a number of solutions out there that range from cheap to downright crazy expensive. Today, I’m going to take just a couple of minutes and talk about the cheap side of the world.

You may have heard of this wonderful little UK company called The Pixel Farm. They have created a number of different applications, but the one I would like to point out and address is their “cheap” camera tracking app called PFHoe-Pro ($99-$199). When I first heard about PFHoe it was also introduced to me as a “cheap solution”. Right away I was a little weary about it because of that classification, but, after test driving it, I realized that for once that word only applied to what you wanted it to apply to: money. The app itself doesn’t have a ton of power or features to mess around with. Instead it does a few things, but it does those few things well.

The app itself is so simple to use. When you first open it you might be somewhat underwhelmed by its appearance and the lack of eight million buttons and options to press and customize. There in lies the beauty of this application. Simply load in your shot, add pre-made mask if you’ve got character or object movement, track the features, estimate the scene orientation, solve for the camera, and export. Done. Simple. The UI is set up in such a way that you’ll literally click the buttons from left to right as the progress goes on. It really does take the guess work out of getting a solid track from your footage. Of course, there is more to it than that if your shot calls for a little more love and care, but if your shot is something simple, the steps I just laid out are perfect. There are of course shots that are just “too complex” for PFHoe to handle and figure out. For that The Pixel Farm as another app call PFTrack. It’s basically PFHoe’s older more jacked up brother.

So if you need a (financially) cheap application with some power to get you a solid camera track go take PFHoe for a test drive. Along side their applications they’ve got a great community of users and developers to answer questions, and contests every now and then with great prizes. I kinda feel like this whole thing was in some way a plug…. Totally not the case! I’m actually doing a project now with a lot of steady cam and jib shots so this is something that hits close to home for me. Let me know if you’ve got any questions, I’m more than happy to talk it out with you guys and girls.

Be good.
Timmy.