How to shoot bicycle "cockpit" video and turning it into a VR headset movie?

[Skybird]

Me thinks x2 is perfect as is the scenery and choice of music, all of it is very well put together. Great job!

Thanks! See you again in Spring!

When does the European tour start?

Not before the Dortmund-Ems-Channel tour I plan for. Will be around 120km.


I am happy with 2x speed, too, the only disadvantage is that the cam runs this 2x Timewarp only with those action-oriented, exaggerated colours and contrasts. The natural colours when choosing it all manually, look quite different, dark fields and contrasts are not as harsh, the colur palette is softer. I could do that in normal Timelapse, yes, but then the image stabilization would not be that good, making the film more unsettled. Its a real dilemma. Its the only design detail where GoPro really has lost something, and needlessly: that the stabilised Timewarp can only be had with the intense colour profile. I can understand that they had to save processor reserves for calculating the stablised timelaps and that no manual settings thus are possible, but switching off the Manual Mode and leaving it all to Auto mode (called ProTune) would have been enough, the camera shoots almost perfect images in full auto mode. Maybe I post a 1-2 minute snippet in normal image mode, so that people can assess the difference.



So again, both videos above are done with that exaggerated colour profil, called "GoPro" for sure. Just saying so in case you wondered.

[Skybird]

Some introduction to the photographic quality of this tiny magical cube.

Photos get shot with a resolution of 4000x3000.

As a photo cam, the 7 Black allows use of the narrowest and medium optics, the ultra wide (="Superwide") angle is not available. The narrowest is almost or is "linear", the distortion of lines near the frame limits are not different than when using an ordinary 50mm lens on an old analogue photo camera.

"Linear"



"Wide". Only a minor fish eye effect.



The following four pictures illustrate the basic four modes in which you can shoot photos.

"Superphoto Automatic" means the cam decides everything itself. It chooses whether to use HDR or not, as I understand it it also may or may not activate (action-focussed) "GoPro" colour profile and contrasts. By the way, HDR and GoPro colours are mutually exclusive, you cannot use both at the same time. Of course exposure also is all automatic. You point and shoot, done. You have three settings for this option: "Superphoto on", "off", or "HDR".

"Superphoto = Automatic . - Look at the clouds, how malleable, plastic they are.



With HDR used, the cam may use 1-4 seconds after shooting to process and save the image, I make it a habit to hold it still after releasing the trigger, for I am not certain when it atcually stops to shoot. Often I find the results to be the best possible amongst all options: the contrast is crisp, still details in darker areas get acceptably worked out, and in light fields colours nicely flow into each other. Not as plastic as the one above, however (clouds).

"HDR". - The trees in the foreground: you can see all details nevertheless.



When you activate the socalled ProTune mode, you essentially unlock a couple of manual options to influence exposure, colour etc. The following is with default settings in these options, and the colour-profile named "GoPro", which over-accentuates colours, contrasts, exposure. The net effect is extremely depending on the situation you shoot in , in some instances the difference to normal colour mode is minimal, on other isntances it is drastic. In the series of these images here, the differnce is visible, but not dramatic. You can see that dark areas loose visual details, they are - for my taste - a bit too dark. My biggest issue with the "GoPro" colour profile, also when filming.

"GoPro" colours



Last, there is the "matte" colour scheme, which is the second available mode beside "GoPro" colours. You immediately note that compared to the last image above it is softer, more pastel-like, and lighter, it loses in crispiness, but wins in overall visible visual details. However, the darker clouds on the right side lose in plasticity, compared to the Automatic shot. I think this is a great mode to shoot in when doing portraits, or documentary photos where priority is on clear documentation of visual detail even in dark photo areas.

"Matte" colours



There are options for exposure correction (in half-step-intervals), white-balancing (manual and table-based), ISO (100-3200) and shutter (from 1/125 to 1/3000, in the German menu this option gets irritatingly mislabelled as "Auslöser"=trigger )

Using the 7 Black as a photo cam, is not just an emergency solution, it actually shoots quite good photos, but the handling does not compare to that of a dedicated photo camera, of course. Its absolutely valid to keep in mind that this option exists when you carry a 7 Black with you.


I have the camera mode set to full automatic, linear angle, in case I want to "draw and shoot" quickly. Like in filming, the cam does a reasonably good photo job when being left to itself. I think the first of these four shots, Automatic, is the best, overall.


All images shot within one minute, so lighting has not changed.

[Skybird]

More messing around with the microphone.


I tried connecting it directly to the microphone port mon the back of thr tower, dirdctly into the mainboard. Terrible humming. I then bought a USB externbal soundcard, and following advice from the web, connected it to a USB port 2.0, also not via HUB, but directly into the main ports, I also disconencted all USB cables not needed. - ZERO DIFFERENCE.


Of course I tested various input levels.


For the time being, I found a working solution, not really elegant to work with, but giving acceptable results: I use the mike in the Rift headset. No background noise at all, the mike set to 90-100%. Very clear voice playback. It does not look professional to sit there and talk into an ugly headset mask held in my left hand, but it works okay.

[Skybird]

Unfinished business does not let me sleep.


I did the first video again, I had the full material from two cams - the other shot at normal speed, I then accelerated it to 2x. Its a longer film now, but much more pleasant to the eye -actually you can now catch quite some sights from the city. Subtitles are available. Not too much comment, though. I also paid more attention to sound.



Those who have watched the first version, I invite you to try again this one. The first pack was fine because it nicely matched the music's length, but in this one there is much more to see. 5 times as much.



The question now is: do I need a third camera?

[deleted April 18th 2020]

The whole way how this thing goes shows me what I should have known: you never stop learning and experimenting (did I really say two days ago that I would...?!) , and you never stop gathering experience. Baby steps.

[Skybird]

My first full tour video ("On Tour 1") is up.

3.5 hours compressed into a 1 hour film. This is the kind of work I had on mind all the time.

The second half is the nicier-looking half, due to the more attractive landscape. The Münsterland is all nice and well and flat and ideal for biycycles - but if you know one of its spots, then you know all the spots it has. The Osnabrücker Land is far more attractive. Thats also the reason why I did far more cuts in the first half, than in the second, which runs almost through all by itself.

If this stuff is not your interest, its okay. But if you find it to be relaxing, enjoy. Just reminding you again: 1 hour playtime.



[deleted April 18th 2020]


Its full HD and 60 frames for sure, 2x timelapse.


P.S. Windblockers that are foam cages that enclose the camera like a second skin, work wonders on the microhones. Inside the speed range I drive in, normally up to 25km/h with peaks of up to 40 km/h, they almost completely take wind noise out of the equation. Highly recommended.

[Skybird]

This afternoon I did what I had always on mind. My father came in, and I seated him at the VR station, he got the goggles over his eyes, I loaded a hugh virtual cinema complete with seats and amphitheatre, so he was in the middle auf die audience room, and then I had him watching one of the three long tour videos that I meanwhile have on Youtube.

Afterwards, the old man had tears of joy in his eyes.

These films are long, over one hour, and I do not claim they are special, although I do the little what my creativity allows me to edit and cut them well. They show my long bicycle tours at 2x speed, so the virtual speed in the film is usually in the range of 40-50 km/h, thats a-car-in-the-city-speed; I shoot one leg of the tour, usually sun in back, if possible. My father is 75 and cannot do such long tours anymore with all that up and down over hills, and after a light stroke one and a half year ago, he is suffering from light loss of balance when there are fast movements in his peripheral viewing field.

But to now sit in a cinema with a very huge screen filling his face and almost entire viewing field and seeing the landscape flying by in huge pictures as if he was sitting on the bike, was something very special for him. I was moved to see how happy it made him. I had told a lot of stories, but my parents only imagined the sights and places. Now they see extensive movie footage of it all.

The idea, camera on bicyle, shooting all tour and later cutting it, and the film shown in VR googles, works surprisingly well. Only in scenarios with high angular speeds the fact that the camera filmed with 60 frames, the editor processes for 50 frames (PAL, BluRay), and VR best used with 90 frames, can collide at times, keep that in mind. If you plan to use this setting like I do, try to film in a way where such high angular (? correct word?) speeds can be avoided. Drive turns gently, and not fast.

[Skybird]

My first "green" video, meaning the season now is such that the trees are no longer naked, but the freesh green turns the videos I now shoot into somethign more friendly to watch. The earlier videos were okay, but nature did not really play ball with my intentions.

Its my fourth full tour video, following a part of the small river Werse, a very idyllic, enchanted track of only a few kilometers. The full tour was only 27 km, and was a racetrack pattern starting and ending at the lock Münster, so the Werse is only part of the film, lasting one hour, its a full track coverage. the way home was along the Dortmun-Ems-channel in the urban area on Münster's almost inner city.

At 00:01:00, there is a map showign it. The river is met first at 10m30s, and lasts until roughly 37m00s. The camera angle is super wide for the first time, I used just wide angle in my films before, and playing speed is 2x timewarp. Like all my videos, they are not narrating stories, but are more documentary in style and illustrate the sights and course of a depicted track from drivers view. Führerstandsmitfahrten one would call it in German.

I have done three earlier tour videos already, of different tracks and longer length, but they all took place earlier, and so mother nature still was not properly dressed up. I currently edit a fifth tour I did short time ago.

Maybe some of you enjoy it. If not - sorry to have wasted your time. I post this since it is in parts a lovely tour to cycle, and not long.

[deleted April 18th 2020]

P.S. The wind slayer for the seocnd cam teared apart just when I prepared the camera for the tour, so I could not use it and thus had some accoustic problems at times with the still shots, it was a windy day and trying to filtei it out in post production gets you so far only, and not further.


NOT maximising video window size, and setting resolution to 720p50, seems to offer best compromise. The data loss from compression by youtube is quite significant, unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about it, the original film is laser-sharp.


P.P.S. I am happy to discover that the cams, set up correctly, perform better when driving agauinst the sun and into the light, than I feared. The stale coklopurt profiule one can chose for the cams, low contrast, low colour saturation, high brightness, is iedal for post processing and then chnbaging the picture quality. Does not always work equally well, but mostly it works better than I thought possible (from analogue photography experience...)

[Skybird]

I invested into a new camera, the Hero 8.

Not because of the mild improvements in its digital stabilisation that everybody speaks of, but because its integrated stabilised timewarp 2.0 feature. It was already present on the Hero 7, but they ruined it by attaching very lousy image settings to it, which could not be altered (STUPID IDEA from all beginning on!!!) which prevented most people from ever using a feature that otherwise was in very high demand. They changed that now, they improved the stabiliser for it AND made the picture settings fully available to manipulate, like the ordinary video shots would be, too. This is what I wanted, waited for - and boy, does it work sensationally great! The sequences are so much smoother than if I shoot a normal video and in post-processing add timelapse to it by killing frames.

This does not just alter the image quality decisevely, it also has other advantages. I can skip most of vidoe editing if filming in 5x, for example, and not needing to cut and delete much material to get the duration of the film down. I need less storage on the SD card. It consumes less energy, surprisingly (it seems that writing to SD card costs plenty of power, its the only thing I could think of why there is less power demand in timewarp compared at normal mode filming). And the filmed sequence of movie is smoother since the camera accelerates and stabilises it already while recording it. Timewarp is superior in all regards over timelapse. I also will most likely increase the filming speed from 2x last year to 5x in interesting places and 10x in monotonous, more boring parts of my tracks.

I did a first more extensive test with it today, a simple video of 12 minutes with three longer sequences on bike, the first is at timewapr 5x, the seconds is 10x, and the last is 2x (to be compared to the manual 2x timelapse videos I did last year). Sorry for the German text screens, but after all this is the language of my place.

[deleted April 18th 2020]

The video is interesting for everybody considering to buy the Hero 8 and wondering what he get with this feature. Pictures say so much more thna words. All others might not find it too interesting, at least not because of the place it shows, the place is not the point - but maybe for the smoothness of the ride (what do I know about other people'S interests...).

By intention, I did no post-processing on this footage, so that one can see what the camera puts out all by itself in 1080/60. The colour profile is "flat" , exposure correctness -0.5 (was not even needed, but I set this by reflex with every camera - photo an video alike - that I get into my hands). This is a prifile that ivnboites and even demand post procxessing of colour saturation, contrast, brightness, I now that - but as I said, that I did not do it is intentional. This is no tourism video, or preciosu memory keeping, but a techncial test video.

GoPro might be the most expensive brand on the market for aciton cameras, and their softwmare might be rubbish and total crap, yes - but their hardware sure as hell puts out the best quality in business. I love them.

Hero 7 with 64 GB cards gave me 2:38 recording time at 1080/60 (or 50, it doe not matter). 'The battery lasted for aorund 75 minutes this way (no GPS, no speech control no WLAN, monitor off). The Hero 8 gives me 2:32 minutes of storage,m and surorinshgly the battery, old and new ones alike, last signficantly longer, by aroudn one third. Also, it seesm it does not get as hot anymore.

Would I recommend to buy the Hero 8 if you have the 7? If you are like me and eye it for the timewarp imrpovmenets - hell, yes! If you are just about the imrpoioved general stabilisaiton (hypermsooth 2.0, and boost) - I would not nhave bought it for thta alone, the changes are visible, they are positive, but not big enough to justify the money. The Hero 7 is no in the lineup for a reduced price. The overall colour of the images:_ hero 7 is slighty - slöightly!! - more blueish, the 8 is slightly - I said slightly...!! - nmore reddish. Both are fully okay. But I like the new colour profile - well: slightly better, its slightly - oh this precious word - warmer.

The higher bitrate that can be set optionally (jumps from 40 to 100) escapes my eyes. Maybe at higher resolutions (about which I cannot say anything, i do not use them, so dont ask me ).

I am no fan o f the new mounting,m first it needlessly invites greater give, and there is a reaosn why they call this an actioncam, second the lens cover canot be replaced easily anymnore, and third chnaging the mount by using the old cages worked much faster.



Microphones are generally improved, wind filtering sounds better. No dramatic improvement, but improvments for sure.



Menu has more options and is a bit more complex now, but features some new tricks that I really like. Improved.



I will do my tour videos different this year, no more time-consuming manual cutting and pasting (got a bit tired of it, thats why I still have three films not processed), but simply using speed as my ally to do the job for me. Looking forward to it. Also, 5x is pelasna ton the eye with this new eye, and so the videos would get shorter while still showing more.

[Skybird]

I did the first movie in a new format, timewarp 5x. It was originally meant to be just another test run over 80 minutes of a short bike tour, but then I turned it into a 12-minute-movie nevertheless. It illustrates nicely that the Hero 8 has improved capability to handle direct sunlight from the front and right in the middle of the lense better than the predecessor. It illustrates further the nice function of digital stabilising timelapse recording while it already is beng recorded, the picture is much smoother and calmer than the way I did it last year with adding timelapse in postprocessing of normally recorded material. The film gives a nice idea of how it feels to watch such a fast movie for a longer period of time, and to my surprise it works better than I feared. Indeed I even prefer it to the old videos I did last year. This year, I will cut my films less than last year, there is no need. I will increase the 5x footage by additional 2x factors to get the speed to 10x in parts, instead of cutting them out. Nevertheless I get much short running times this way, even if not cutting stuff out. The video this way is more complete and still more easy on the eyes.

Simple tour through the Rieselfelder and then upwards the channel, then back on the other side . The mood was quite captivating on the way home, time of day was approaching sunset. Youtube'S compression has messed up the music, however, it is not that over overamplified in original. The first 40 seconds or so are even in 10x.


The financial invetsment of getting the Hero 8 just after having bought the 7 last year, to me was worth it, the imrovmeents and the manual controllabilty of the Timewarp mode alone are worth it - I did not use Timewarp in the 7 at all, now I us enothign else anymore. There are some more improvements int he camera as well, and the colour prfile in general also is more to my taste, less blueish, slightly more reddish, warmer. Penty of gold in colours in this film are due to the already low sun, however, and you could manually chnage colour temperature in thje camera anyway.

If you know what you get for the money, I recommend the buying of the 8 even if you have the 7. Its expensive, but an incredible kit. I love it.

[deleted April 18th 2020]