Tag: Video

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Zip lining with a GoPro HD Hero 2

In the end of July, I went on a zip line tour in Whistler, while Svetlana and Anna took the grandparents up the mountaintop in the gondola.

I never done zip lining before, so I had to consider which photo gear to take with me. I definitely wanted to take my GoPro HERO camera, but was not sure about the bulky DSLR. Upon consulting with a lady, who worked for Ziptrek, the company offering the zip lining tours, I decided that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to take interesting shots during the actual rides, so I went with only the GoPro.

Our group of six people (a couple from Vancouver, a father with twin girls from Cobble Hill, and me) assembled in the foyer of a building in the Lower Village, filled out the forms stating that we subscribed to the impending dangers and general foolishness willingly, and went to receive our harnesses and helmets from the Ziptrek hut near the Blackcomb gondola. I requested a “GoPro helmet”, which had a plate for the camera mount. It should be noted that just the part of the mount that is attached to the helmet by the sticky tape was provided. If you plant to take advantage of it, you need to bring your own part that attaches to the camera and clips to the helmet-mounted plate.

I also brought a chest mount, as I thought that the video from the helmet mount would be too shaky. The chest mount proved to be completely useless, though, because the harness would block the entire field of view of the camera. I did try it on the first line ( the entire tour consists of several lines, each with a different length, speed,and views), after which I moved the camera to the helmet. The footage was not as shaky as I expected, so a helmet mount is definitely the way to go for shooting zip lining videos.

Another thing to consider is the battery life. The entire tour lasted about three hours, but I turned the camera off between the actual rides, so it was running for about one hour. In the end, the battery was nearly drained. I did carry a spare, fully-charged battery, and although I did not have to use it, I would have had to, if the tour had been a little longer. It is easy to underestimate how power-hungry a GoPro camera is, especially with an LCD BacPac.

The result of my zip lining adventure is this video, which I edited down to about four minutes.

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Time lapse movie: an hour in a child’s day

20120530-185543.jpgAfter exchanging the Contour+ camera for the new GoPro HD Hero 2 (the push-button interface of the Contour+ was just too inconvenient), I set up a test, again using my daughter as a model. She was hanging out with her toys, while my wife and I did some housework. I aimed the camera at the baby and let it roll for an hour, taking a still picture every 1 sec. The camera was set to “wide” (170 deg field of view), and the image resolution corresponded to 5 megapixel sensor size.

To assemble the images into a movie, I created a new iPhoto library on my MacBook Pro and imported all pictures into it (about 3000 files altogether). After that, in iMovie, I imported the stills into a new project, setting the mode to “Fit”, disabling the default Ken Burns effect, and setting the duration of each still image to 0.1 sec.

The entire clip was initially 6.5 minutes-long, and I edited it down to about 3.5 minutes. I wanted to keep the final clip as short as possible, but found it very difficult to cut it down – as a parent, I find my daughter’s every smile and gesture adorable and just cannot get rid of the otherwise rather boring footage.

The result is this clip:


Note that the image above was not taken with the GoPro. It was shot with a Canon 5D Mark II with a 24-105 mm lens.

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POV video: sports or family movies?

20120525-015930.jpgA common advice for using point-of-view (POV) video cameras is to experiment with a variety of camera placements and angles. After all, the main advantage of the POV cams is their ability to be installed where the conventional cameras cannot fit and/or survive (helmets used in various sports, surfboards, motorbikes, etc.)

Actually, my plan for the new Contour + camera is to use it on my motorcycle. The first experiment, however, was to let my 7-months-old daughter lay her hands on the camera. This was the maximum amount of extreme action that could be readily arranged in our living room. The result is this 1-minute clip.


Perhaps, documenting my daughters adventures will be the main use for the Contour + ? It is interesting how various projects often develop into something quite different from the original idea. For example, my wife recently pointed out, that our interest in travel and portrait photography stemmed from the interfacing an SLR camera with a telescope for astrophotography – something that we both wanted to do but never actually did.

P.S. The image above was not taken by the Contour +. I used a Canon 5D Mark II with a 100 mm macro lens.