Filming From A Pedelec

[lemmy]

I was looking at a recent thread here about filming from bikes and thought that most of the solutions seemed a bit complicated.

The big enemy is vibration. Any camera mounted directly to the bike will shake like crazy. Not only will the vibration make the film look unclear and hard to watch, it will shake the camera to pieces after a while. This is especially true of cameras with anti-vibration mechanisms either in-lens or in-body. They are designed to counteract movement of the human hold, gentle and relatively slow. The kind of shock that is passed through a bike frame is both fast and violent. The cheapest stabilising mount that would cope with such use comes in at around £8,000. Even then, it would not take the shocks that a mountain biker would hand out.

But there is one great shock absorber we can have for free. The human body. The usual way is to mount a camera on a helmet and this works well in most ways. However, it gives a high viewpoint and makes the viewer feel a bit detached from the action and the movement of the rider's head as he looks around can be nausea inducing.

So, I wanted a lower viewpoint, preferably across the handlebars. Including a fixed point would give a sense of depth, speed and immediacy missing in the helmet cam scenario.

The answer was pretty simple. A Gorillapod braced against the body and held in place by a gilet. I have used a ball and socket head mounted on the Gorillapod because it enables me to point the camera how I wish after getting everything else comfortable.

I used a 28mm lens on a Micro 4/3 camera but the same setup would work with any camera with a tripod socket.

I have posted a sequence here: YouTube - Spogley's Channel

This is only a first try, so don't expect too much!

And here is the setup. Ladies, try not to get too excited by the lithe and manly body of the model

 

[allen-uk]

Very good, definitely one of the best solutions we've seen. (Either that, or the soft Surrey roads make it look nice and smooth).

Can you give some info, like what's a gorillapod, what sort of camera a Micro 4/3 is, etc.

 

[kitchenman]

A very enjoyable 15 mins. Morphix was looking at body mounts like that so he will be well impressed.

 

[lemmy]

Very good, definitely one of the best solutions we've seen. (Either that, or the soft Surrey roads make it look nice and smooth).
Can you give some info, like what's a gorillapod, what sort of camera a Micro 4/3 is, etc.

The roads are absolutely ******y awful around here and that's what forced me to look to body mount the camera. In principle I'd like to have mounted it on a riser clamped to the cross bar. But I found a rigid clamp useless and no easy way to build a suitable shock absorber. Maybe suspending the camera in a box of foam or something like that but it all starts to get rather unwieldy then.

The camera is a Panasonic GF2 Micro 4/3, about the smallest interchangeable lens camera you can buy. It's exceptionally well set up for movies, even able to do the top quality 1920x1080 HD mode. That's overkill, though and I use super high quality 1280x720 AVCHD which gives high definition results on the TV. It has a stereo mike built in, too.

Because of European legislation, you can only shoot 30 minutes in one sequence which wouldn't matter for regular movie use but is nuisance of you wanted a longer cycle ride all in one sequence.

The GorillaPod is a sort of flexible tripod with legs made from balls and sockets, so they can be bent to grip tree branches, bike tubes etc.

Here are links to both items: GorillaPod - The Flexible Tripod / LUMIX DMC-GF2 Panasonic

I'd emphasise that neither of these items are crucial. Any small tripod you can flatten against your chest and any camera with movie capability, pretty much all of them now, would do.

I have a feeling this idea might not be suitable for women, since the camera would need to be above or below the bust? On the other hand, she might be able to tuck a small camera into her bra which would be a good secure mount with the lens protruding between her shirt buttons.

In fact, a bra because of the stability combined with flexibility of the straps around the chest and over the shoulders might be an excellent basis for modification as a camera chest mount for either sex. Bit embarrassing for a bloke if you came off, though, trying to explain that "it's a camera mount, honest...."

 

[kitchenman]

The camera is a Panasonic GF2 Micro 4/3, about the smallest interchangeable lens camera you can buy. It's exceptionally well set up for movies, even able to do the top quality 1920x1080 HD mode. That's overkill, though and I use super high quality 1280x720 AVCHD which gives high definition results on the TV. It has a stereo mike built in, too.

Do you know if you can get a lens with a wide or panoramic view for video? ... Perhaps you can narrate a ride so we can hear the quality of the audio? ... Does your camera have a external mic input?

 

[lemmy]

Do you know if you can get a lens with a wide or panoramic view for video? ... Perhaps you can narrate a ride so we can hear the quality of the audio? ... Does your camera have a external mic input?

The lens I've used is a 14mm which is quite wide, equivalent to a 28mm on a 35mm film camera. I don't think you'd normally want to go wider than that because you lose too much sense of movement.

You can get much wider lenses than that, though. Panasonic themselves do a 7-14mm zoom. 7mm is very wide - very expensive, too You can also get a 3D lens for it which would be interesting. But any 4/3 or micro 4/3 lens will fit and there are many available.

The camera doesn't have an external mic input, unfortunately.

Yes, I'll take a ride around Richmond Park as soon as I can and try to add a few a words. The camera has a wind noise suppressor menu entry but how effective it is I'll find out on my ride.

 

[allen-uk]

Thanks Lemmy, interesting.

I've also got a Panasonic - Lumix DSLR, but with a big fixed lens, but I'll get hold of the gorillapod and give it a bash.

A.