Remote control

buffalo123

I've been told that a good way to reduce camera shake in stop-motion animations is by using a camera remote, as pressing the button on the camera itself causes noticeable shake, though I'm not sure what remote to get. My camera is a Fujifilm Finepix AX550, and I'm not sure if it can be remotely controlled. Is there a way to convert it so it can be? Or is there another cheap(ish), but good quality camera to use that can be remote controlled?

BooTheMightyHamster

Looking at the specs, there isn't the option to use it with an external shutter release.
What you could do (and it would be time consuming), is to use the self timer. I'm assuming that you're going to have the camera on a tripod for stability, you'd then set the camera to self timer mode, press the shutter, and you'd have about 10 seconds before the shutter fires, giving the camera time to stop any wobbling.

To be honest though, if the camera's on a tripod, you have a light touch, and the model is well lit, so that you have a shutter speed of about 1/125 or faster, you shouldn't get noticeable shake.

CCC

It has a 2 second delay (as well as 10s) for the self timer. I guess it depends how much changes from shot to shot, but if you are moving more than a minifig then chances are 2s is negligible compared to the modifications to the scene.

The other form of "shake" is more wobble over shots due to the camera changing position. Even on a tripod it is possible to move the camera when pressing the button. So make sure you press it very gently, or use a very heavy weight pulling down on the tripod so it doesn't move.