Videoing STUFF

Found a great video then post it up here. It doesn't have to be about bikes.
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Thedktor
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Videoing STUFF

Post by Thedktor »

My Drift HD has conked out just when I had some inspiration for what I want to record.

I want to do short vids of a single trail, a section of interesting road, a pass up and down the gears on a particular bike.

Now, my question, is what do I need to capture the terrain i.e. the ground as usually anything even slightly moving becomes a blur and all trails (for example) look the same. I want to be able to see rocks, ruts, roots.

Initial research suggests I need at minimum a GoPro Hero 8 with stabilisation, to allow mounting direct on the bike. This would only be for short periods of time as I appreciate the damage potential, otherwise the camera would be mounted on me.

This vid highlights some of the issues, turn the sound down if you watch it as the wind noise is horrendous, but note that the beginning looks nice but as soon as I head off on the mighty DR it just gets all blurry and featureless. I do have excellent head stability though I must say!




Ideas and experiences welcome!

Steve
- Steve



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AlanHolt
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Re: Videoing STUFF

Post by AlanHolt »

Most of the 4k helmet cams (eg. Drift Ghost 4k) will record the detail you require, the downside to having all this detail in a video is that the file size is considerable larger, so transfer, editing, rendering and uploading will take a lot longer.
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Thedktor
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Re: Videoing STUFF

Post by Thedktor »

Thanks for the reply Alan. Yes file size and editing is a consideration, hence my plan to keep the recordings short and easy to work with, trawling through hours of footage is not fun!
- Steve



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simonw
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Re: Videoing STUFF

Post by simonw »

I've played with lots of cheap action cameras (£50 sort of thing), none of which have been stellar. Just about OK in ideal conditions is the best I've achieved (all bike-mounted). Then I saw some GoPro 7 footage on a forum, where the GoPro was bike-mounted too, and it was like chalk and cheese so I ordered one. It's been a revelation in terms of quality, and the image stabilisation is excellent providing the light is good and it's not mounted on anything that vibrates at high frequeuencies (some engine bars, etc.). All of my experience is on the road rather than on trails, so it might only be partly relevant.

Your posted footage is 720p and that's never going to be great. 1080p should be ok, or 2.7k if you need it. 4k will obviously be excellent, but takes up a lot of storage space and requires a heftier processor to edit efficiently, though it does offer the option to use parts of the frame still at a decent resolution if you want to crop or zoom in post production. There's quite a few half-decent YouTube videos which explain a bit more about resolution and frame rates which might help.
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Re: Videoing STUFF

Post by Sanqhar »

simonw wrote: Mon Sep 13, 2021 9:55 am I've played with lots of cheap action cameras (£50 sort of thing), none of which have been stellar. Just about OK in ideal conditions is the best I've achieved (all bike-mounted). Then I saw some GoPro 7 footage on a forum, where the GoPro was bike-mounted too, and it was like chalk and cheese so I ordered one. It's been a revelation in terms of quality, and the image stabilisation is excellent providing the light is good and it's not mounted on anything that vibrates at high frequeuencies (some engine bars, etc.). All of my experience is on the road rather than on trails, so it might only be partly relevant.

Your posted footage is 720p and that's never going to be great. 1080p should be ok, or 2.7k if you need it. 4k will obviously be excellent, but takes up a lot of storage space and requires a heftier processor to edit efficiently, though it does offer the option to use parts of the frame still at a decent resolution if you want to crop or zoom in post production. There's quite a few half-decent YouTube videos which explain a bit more about resolution and frame rates which might help.
Don't forget the frame rate.

tom
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simonw
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Re: Videoing STUFF

Post by simonw »

Yeah, hence my reference to it in the last sentence, but that's the top of the rabbit hole so I avoided talking about it too much! :-) Generally for road use I find 2.7k @ 24fps is fine, though sometimes I've upped it for some situations (slo-mo etc.). Obeying the 180degree rule doesn't always yield the best results, but it's a good starting point. And make sure you have a fast enough SDxC card (GoPro list cards that have been proven here: https://community.gopro.com/t5/en/SD-Ca ... a-p/394308.)

Let's talk about shutter speed, sharpening, ISO, exposure compensation, white balance and colour grading next. And then maybe touch on ND filters... ;-)
Thedktor
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Re: Videoing STUFF

Post by Thedktor »

Thanks for the replies, useful information. I am expecting a lot of experimenting with picture size, frame rate etc, all part of the fun.

As an aside the video link above I edited it down from 1080 to 720p to reduce the file size and see the effect on picture quality. Not a lot on a 15" laptop screen, and in fact YouTube degrades it more, another part of the equation to consider....
- Steve



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Re: Videoing STUFF

Post by Thedktor »

I splashed out on a GoPro Hero 8 and am very, very pleased with the quality - 4k and super-smooth,

The recording process has been somewhat frustrating at times but amongst many less-than satisfactory videos are some really nice ones. Here are some of the things I have learnt on the way.

First trip out and I discover the Hero 8 suffers from terrible wind noise despite having a “setting” to deal with it. Next time out I stuck a plaster over the two mics which helped considerably, and since this have had good results taping sponge foam over the mics. There is a foam case you can buy for this very purpose, will probably try that next.

These later action cams link into a phone app so you can view the camera picture from a phone to set the angle, brilliant The GoPro app works well, when it works. Not sure if it is my low-end phone but the wireless link is slow to connect and often just won’t connect at all, very annoying when you just want to do a quick picture preview before a recording.

Camera angle the next issue. I don’t mount my phone on the bike so once moving you have no idea where the GoPro camera is pointing. I found when I stood up I lean forward slightly and then the camera takes a nice picture of the ground with no horizon, which is not so nice to watch.

Mounting the camera: a helmet chin mount works really well, but is rather intrusive. Good for short clips and good for moving the shot sideways if you want to capture a view or something else of interest. A ruck sack shoulder strap mount works well, or it would but the one I have only adjusts up and down angle and not sideways. The rucksack strap is not straight up and down so the horizon ends up tilted, not much use.

I have just used a new shoulder/chest strap and it is perfect! Its an adjustable elastic harness that surprisingly stretches over my padded jack and body armour, and places the camera on your chest, straight, and doesn’t move.

File sizes. Yeah, at 4k it soon adds up. Short clips of say a minute are 500-750Mb, longer 3 or 4 minutes 1-2Gb. My phone won’t display 4k videos! Fortunately linking the phone to the GoPro allows you to watch a lower res version on the phone screen (the GoPro screen is tiny). To upload to YouTube I usually put the memory card in an old phone, hit Upload and leave it. My internet is slow and it can take 10, 15, 60 or more minutes, per clip!

Anyway, it has been fun experimenting and I have plenty of things I want to capture “on film”. I will share some of the better ones… ;)
- Steve



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simonw
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Re: Videoing STUFF

Post by simonw »

Interesting, and not surprised you're impressed with the GoPro quality. On the subject of 4k, there's plenty of debate out there that questions whether it's that much better than 1080p. It depends on the subject matter, how it's shot and what you play it back on of course, but there's a strong argument that for a lot of use cases 1080p is easily good enough and doesn't come with the massive storage and processing overhead that 4k brings.
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