Shaky camera, shaky cam, jerky camera, queasy cam, run-and-gun or free camera is a cinematographic technique where stable-image techniques are purposely dispensed with shaking. It is a hand-held camera, or given the appearance of being hand-held, and in many cases shots are limited to what one photographer could have accomplished with one camera. Shaky cam is often employed to give a film sequence an ad hoc, electronic news-gathering, or documentary film feel. It suggests unprepared, unrehearsed filming of reality, and can provide a sense of dynamics, immersion, instability or nervousness. The technique can be used to give a pseudo-documentary or cinéma vérité appearance to a film.
Photograph of a tree, sun, and grass while deliberately shaking the camera
Sign at an AMC theater warning customers about side effects relating to motion sickness due to the shaky camera technique being used in Cloverfield.
Image stabilization (IS) is a family of techniques that reduce blurring associated with the motion of a camera or other imaging device during exposure.
Photography of a sound reinforcement system prior to a pop concert, wherein the room was nearly dark except for the blue spotlight and the dim white light from the device rear panel itself. Though the exposure time of 1⁄4 s at (35 mm equivalent) 180 mm focal length would typically result in a relatively strong blur according to the "1/mm rule", the image is quite sharp – which is the result of the activated image stabilizer of the employed Lumix digital camera.
Free-hand museum shot of a historic universal theodolite taken without flash light but with dual image stabilization. The image was taken with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX8 and a Nocticron with almost two times the normal focal length of the camera system (42.5 mm) at f/1.2 and with a polarizing filter in order to remove reflections from the transparent glass of the display case. ISO speed = 800, exposure time = 1⁄8 s, exposure value = 0.5.
A moving TV camera that is remote controlled and gyro-stabilized through a Newton head on rail dolly system.