I Tried Out Google Photos' New Video Stabilization Feature and Came Away Very Impressed (Video Comparison)

Google Photos recently added a video stabilization option to their android app, a feature which likely will be rolling out to the web client and presumably the iOS app.

The feature is pretty self explanatory: it stabilizes video to make it less shaky, jumpy, or jittery. But how well does it work, exactly?

To test it out, I shot a couple of videos on my Nexus 5x. I should note that I took these videos in vertical orientation because I knew they wouldn't make it into a larger project as well as the fact that I am currently interested in vertical formats with the growing popularity of Instagram Stories.

That said, I will be doing a similar stabilization test with video from my GH5 which was shot at 4k/60fps, so stay tuned for those results.

Anyway, I'm not going to preface this anymore. Here is the video with the before and after shots that I took after work (I work near YVR, one of Canada's largest airports).

So, what did you think? I remember telling my friend it almost "looked too good to be true". Do you think it looks too unnatural? I feel like it has almost a cinemagraph look to it at times, especially for the more stationary shots.

Again, I'll be putting some footage from my GH5 onto Google Photos and seeing how it handles those files and how it applies the stabilization.

Currently, the video stabilization in Google Photos definitely exceeded my expectations. If you are doing a lot of Instagram Stories content and need to deliver smooth video from a phone in an in-the-moment timeframe, then I definitely would consider taking advantage of this new Google Photos feature.