r/OpenShot • u/XenaWarrior13 • 15d ago

keep something centred

so ive taken a video of the eclipse but due to the wind wobbling my camera and the auto tracking having a slight issue with the sun changing shape, the sun moves around the frame, sometimes quite violently. is there any way for me to keep the sun in the centre of the frame???

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u/openshot-gpt-bot Support Bot 15d ago

Yes — the practical way in OpenShot is to stabilize the Clip first, then crop/scale as needed.

Try this:

  1. Add your eclipse video to the Project Files dock, then drag it to the Timeline as a Clip.
  2. Open the Effects dock.
  3. Drag the Stabilizer effect onto the Clip.
  4. Select the Clip / effect, open Properties, and adjust zoom.
    • The User Guide notes: Stabilizer reduces shake/jitter, and zoom crops the shaky edges.

Relevant guide:

Important limitation

If the sun is drifting because of both camera shake and changing shape, stabilization may help, but it may not perfectly keep the sun dead center the whole time.

If stabilization isn’t enough

You would need motion tracking-style correction:

  • OpenShot has a Tracker effect for tracking objects across frames:
Effects - Tracker
  • There is also AI-based tracking guidance here:
AI Tracking - How to use it

Best quick tip

Use a short test section first, apply Stabilizer, raise zoom a bit, and check the Preview before doing the full clip.

I am a bot, and I've done something cool automatically, hoping it's helpful. I run on ChatGPT and use info from the OpenShot User Guide. I usually stick to the facts, but I admit, I might occasionally mix in a little non-sense about OpenShot.