Mostly Useless Thoughts on Stuff that Interests Me...

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Moving Pictures

While I've owned a high definition camcorder for a long time I've never used it much. Too fragile for first person use while skiing or mountain biking. I recently acquired a GoPro HD Hero helmet camera. Now this is more like it. Tiny and robust. Cheap enough that in the unlikely event I completely destroy it, I'll only cry for 20 minutes.

Still getting my feet wet with the camera's features and taking the tiniest of baby steps with editing, but I'm having fun.

FOMBA Hemlock Loop Trail from pburba on Vimeo.



This was my first video, it's too long and consists of only one scene. Only singletrack junkies are likely to find it enjoyable. Critical lessons learned:

  • The seatpost is the place to mount the camera for smooth video, especially if you stay seated.
  • The strap-on helmet mount produced nothing by jiggly footage that will have you reaching for the Dramamine.


Bear Brook from pburba on Vimeo.



This is my second video. Actually have several different scenes and it is slightly less boring. Switched from Adobe Premier Elements to TrakAxPC Pro, which is half the cost and twice as good.

4 comments:

C. Michael Pilato said...

Loved the second film. Okay, "loved" is a bit strong. But who can't at least really like a film with humorous titles, the classic "here he comes / there he goes" 45-degree-angle shot couplet, and a dramatic ride-mounting sequence filmed in shadow?

pburba said...

Hey, I'll take like. So I assume you had no problems with frame-rate during playback? Working on this yesterday on my old desktop, the dropped frames made it unwatchable. Same with my wife's older Mac.

C. Michael Pilato said...

Nope, no frame-rate issues here.

Hyrum said...

Enjoyed the second video, the soundtrack was especially, er, moving.

Almost makes me want to ride a mountain bike again. Almost. (But then there is the pesky bit about finding mountains in Texas...)