MUni "POV" vidcam question

yeah, or you get your mate to ride behind you when yo ride.

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What you're looking for is a steadicam

You can build one yourself

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/steadycam/

The homemade ones need two hands to operate, but work okay. You can use
them hanging down somehow, I think that site has instructions on how to
invert it.

Some of the bought ones are one handed and attach with a harness to
your body. They cost several thousand pounds though, and probably
wouldn't have the range to get low enough for you without hitting the
unicycle.

Joe

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MuniAddict said:

I just got back from my regular MUni ride in Palos Verdes, CA; not very
technical but fun singletrack with some rocky sections. I tried a new
idea for POV by attaching my mini vidcam to my tripod, and holding it
upside down near the ground, pointing it partially at my tire and the
trail ahead at the same time. The I figured I could rotate the footage
in Movie maker later.

I also had attached my wide-angle lens in hopes that it would help show
more action. When I reviewed it I was disappointed. It's just really
hard to hold it steady as you're riding, esp. over rough sections. I
also thought about making a type of "arm" holder that would clamp to
the uni frame and put the cam maybe 2-3' back to show the rider and
trail at the same time. The effect would almost be like someone
following you from behind as you ride!

Does anybody have suggestions or ideas for getting really good POV
action? I've been thinking about helmet cams, but wouldn't it be better
to have the camera way down low to ground? Plus those are pricey from
what I hear.😄

The arm behind the uni thing is acctually a really good idea, exept for
one thing. If you fall backwards the camera is gonna get broken really
fast. A helmet camera would be really shaky, but pretty cool though.
Pretty much anything attached to you or the uni is gonna shake alot.
The solution? A glide camera, but those are wickedly expensive. There
is a $14 alternative that works, but you have to have a person who can
do 3 things. 1) Use a glidecam effectively 2) Run fast enough to stay
right behind you 3) Ummm... what was the 3rd point.... I'll come back
with it later, but for filler now, they need to be able to operate a
camera.🙄

EDIT: What he said^^

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maximus unius

Quoted message said:

Borgshulze said:

That's not a stick, that's your brain matter.

dudewithasock said:

I'm sorry, but that's really one of the worst comebacks I've ever seen.
And I hang out with my friends.

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joemarshall said:

What you're looking for is a steadicam

You can build one yourself

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/steadycam/

The homemade ones need two hands to operate, but work okay. You can use
them hanging down somehow, I think that site has instructions on how to
invert it.

Some of the bought ones are one handed and attach with a harness to
your body. They cost several thousand pounds though, and probably
wouldn't have the range to get low enough for you without hitting the
unicycle.

Joe

No....Those keep the camera steady by being heavy. You dont want to be
riding along holding a tripod behind you, let alone a 15lbs tripod.
What your looking for terry, Is a helmet cam, they are wickedly strong
and can plug into the a/v port on your camcorder. Then with a
pipe/dowel and a hose clamp mount this to your frame. The cord can run
up and into your camc and you can have your cam corder safley tucked
away in your camelbak as usual. The cord running up to your camelbak
can be a quick release cord, and disconnect the second the uni shoots
away from you. You operate the helmet cam with the controls on your
camcorder, so all you would have to do is reach back and press record,
and go bomb your section all while getting it on tape. Check out
Viosport.com for some ideas on what a helmet cam is. The ones on
viosport.com are pretty nice, but you can get cheaper ones, just
whatever you do dont get the "Tony hawk helmet cam" its like 5fps and
worse than a cellphone video.

Similar setups were used in One Tired Guy, So ask nathan or kris how
that rig was setup, and if there was any image stabilizer or just
bolted to the frame.

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Evan Byrne

Its one hundred and six miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas,
half a pack of cigarettes, its dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.-
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Surely frame mounted camera = bumpy bumpy cam, and probably won't be
much better than the holding the tripod manually which is too bumpy
bumpy? At least on bikes frame mount is way too bumpy to use. I guess
that's why they tend to use the footage only for very brief moments and
you can see bugger all of what's going on other than the wheel
turning.

The ideal might be to have someone running behind you with a steadycam.
Find someone who trail runs, they'll be a fair bit faster than you
riding a muni particularly over any technical trails.

Once you've got footage you can stabilize it a bit digitally (there's a
plugin for virtualdub that does it), which helps, but you need sort of
stable footage to start with for good results.

Joe

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A few months ago I bought an 'Oregon HC18 '
(http://tinyurl.com/an7b2)for just that purpose. However, I was very
disapointed.

Firstly, the spec of the camera is not great. At it's best resolution
it only does 15fps, or to get 25fps you have to settle for 160x120

That said, however, the mountings it came with were great for attaching
to the uni. My muni has a 24" wheel and 26" frame so it goes quite
nicely just above the tyre. The problem though is that unicycles,
particularly municycles are just not suitable for this kind of camera
mount. There's just too much backwards and forwards sway. All I
seemed to get was a couple of seconds of sky followed by a couple of
seconds floor, whoosh, sky again, then floor again.

Mounting it to my helmet gave much better results, although the lack of
view finder or instant playback meant it was very much trial and error
before I could point the camera towards what I wanted to record. Being
so high off the ground really lost the 'feeling' of being on a
unicycle. I recorded my commute through central London a few times,
and watching it back was about as exciting as being on a bus.

Hope you have better luck than me.

STM

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semach.the.monkey
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semach.the.monkey said:

A few months ago I bought an 'Oregon HC18 '
(http://tinyurl.com/an7b2)for just that purpose. However, I was very
disapointed.

Firstly, the spec of the camera is not great. At it's best resolution
it only does 15fps, or to get 25fps you have to settle for 160x120

That said, however, the mountings it came with were great for attaching
to the uni. My muni has a 24" wheel and 26" frame so it goes quite
nicely just above the tyre. The problem though is that unicycles,
particularly municycles are just not suitable for this kind of camera
mount. There's just too much backwards and forwards sway. All I
seemed to get was a couple of seconds of sky followed by a couple of
seconds floor, whoosh, sky again, then floor again.

Mounting it to my helmet gave much better results, although the lack of
view finder or instant playback meant it was very much trial and error
before I could point the camera towards what I wanted to record. Being
so high off the ground really lost the 'feeling' of being on a
unicycle. I recorded my commute through central London a few times,
and watching it back was about as exciting as being on a bus.

Hope you have better luck than me.

STM

What would be really awesome would be to have a small "monitor" to view
while riding so you could make adjustments on the fly and see realtime
what was being taped. I'm thinking something that would mount almost
like a rear-view mirror, except that is would be a mini-monitor! Cool
eh? 😄

I'm still gonna try making an "arm" extention that clamps onto the seat
tube and projects about 2' back, then attach my mini cam. I could also
easily pad the cam in the event of a upd! At least the lens would be
facing forward, so only the back of the cam would be subject to impact.
We'll see how it goes!😎

--
MuniAddict

"There is an -idea-, of a Patrick Bateman"

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MuniAddict said:

What would be really awesome would be to have a small "monitor" to view
while riding so you could make adjustments on the fly and see realtime
what was being taped. I'm thinking something that would mount almost
like a rear-view mirror, except that is would be a mini-monitor! Cool
eh? 😄

I had already considered that. Sadly the AV connection does not work
in Record mode. I began to wonder about ripping it apart to see if I
could find a 'live' optical output on the board anywhere, then I began
to think about how practical it would be to find a monitor suitable,
mount it, power it, connect it, and use it whilst riding...

MuniAddict said:

I'm still gonna try making an "arm" extention that clamps onto the seat
tube and projects about 2' back, then attach my mini cam. I could also
easily pad the cam in the event of a upd! At least the lens would be
facing forward, so only the back of the cam would be subject to impact.
We'll see how it goes!😎

Sounds interesting if nothing else. I'd love to see both footage from
it, as well as a photo of it. Keep us updated.

STM

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semach.the.monkey said:

I had already considered that. Sadly the AV connection does not work in
Record mode. I began to wonder about ripping it apart to see if I
could find a 'live' optical output on the board anywhere, then I began
to think about how practical it would be to find a monitor suitable,
mount it, power it, connect it, and use it whilst riding...

Sounds interesting if nothing else. I'd love to see both footage from
it, as well as a photo of it. Keep us updated.

STM

Gonna try to make it with some aluminum and other light-weight
materials, then try it out tomorrow!:p:p:p

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I dont think a frame mounted camera would be that bumpy at all, Unis are
too slow to get the super high speed vibration that bikes do.

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Its one hundred and six miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas,
half a pack of cigarettes, its dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.-
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MuniAddict said:

I'm still gonna try making an "arm" extention that clamps onto the seat
tube and projects about 2' back, then attach my mini cam. I could also
easily pad the cam in the event of a upd! At least the lens would be
facing forward, so only the back of the cam would be subject to impact.
We'll see how it goes!😎

Dan Heaton did a shot like this in the beginning of Defect, I think
with Mike Clark doing a crankflip down a set. I could be wrong about
it being Mike, but check out that shot. The only point that it becomes
shaky is when he actually leaves the unicycle, so there's not much mass
to absorb most of the shock. I could see it being maybe slightly shaky
doing Muni, but I think it would still make some awesome shots.

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better than nothing, therefore a ham sandwich is better than eternal
happiness.

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