A Bluebird Day

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Tim Seaver

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...and the birds were flocking together. You couldn't swing an Excel spreadsheet without hitting some grinning peakbagger, I say.

It was great to meet and see so many people from VFTT in the Presidential Range on Friday, a superb day to really relish the time above treeline, the sunshine inviting you to find a spot in the snow and just sit back and look at everything around you. And, to fiddle around with cameras, various supports and doohinkies in an effort to "capture" it all.

In other words, an ideal day for the above treeline debut of the Panomizer 5000, a simple panning device I designed for my GoPro 3 Black video camera, which I have been having lots of fun with lately (despite any hipster baggage that may come with owning one - at least I don't wear it on my head. Yet.) It's powered by a music-box wind-up movement with the noise-making fingers removed, placed in a housing I made from PVC pipe and a few pieces of plastic. It turns at about 40 rpm, a little slower in the cold. This is what it looks like on a GorillaPod Focus:

PanomizerOnMonroe.jpg


The bubble levels I epoxied to the unit are essential for setting up a decent pan. A few samples of some of experimental pans it produced:

Leaving Mount Monroe. This is shot at 60 frames per second, which I left that way to retain a natural walking speed:


From above Lakes. This was also shot at 60 fps, then changed to 30 fps to slow it down:


and from Sphinx Col. Also converted to 30 fps:


The GoPros also make time lapse sequences easily, with a built in intervalometer that can be set to take images from 1 to 60 seconds apart.
This one is about a 10 minute sequence at 30 second intervals ( click the thumb to view a short clip, double-click on the clip to play again):



Fun stuff!

more to follow...
 
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Good stuff Tim! I was up there Friday with my cousin and my dog. Great day. Thanks for sharing.
 
More Video Trickery

Another fun accessory I brought for the GoPro last Friday is a simple stabilizing unit for ( somewhat) smoothing out video taken while in motion. ( I can't stand shaky video - I'll get motion sick just trying to edit it!)

I used a Hague MMC, although it's fairly easy to make one of the units ( there are scores of YouTube videos on home-made versions).

Granted, watching a video of running down a snowy trail is not the most interesting viewing...unless you are watching it on a big screen while you crank away on an elliptical machine or treadmill - which is what I am making these clips for at the moment. Watching 35 minutes of this, a workout is much more engaging. This is just a low-res version for YouTube, but the full quality video is just amazing given the size of the camera.

The Jewell Trail was in ideal shape for running down, so I was able to record a pretty smooth video of the trip, FWIW.

Lower Jewell Trail, Part 1:


Lower Jewell Trail, Part 2:
 
Awesome Video. Did you modify the Housing on the Gopro? Looks like a circular polarizer maybe? If you do turn into one of those trendy guys get the chesty mount before the helmet mount. I personally like it better as your camera axis is much lower. This place will turn you into a real Gopro junky.

http://www.eyeofmine.com/gopro/
 
Thanks skiguy - the polarizer is mounted on an adapter made by Snake River Prototyping, which just snaps on - you can then mount any 55mm filter.
And thanks for the link - I'll definitely be checking that out!

I can see using a head or chest mount when it's windy - that's one of the weak spots of the stabilizer brackets, the swaying produced by even a small breeze. I've seen some cool experimental gyro-stabilized units, hopefully a lightweight mountain friendly version is on the horizon.
 
...and thanks for the link on the filter! I am going to give the homemade panning unit a try also. Your design looks awesome compared to some of the other ones I googled. GoPro seems to be knocking everyone else out of the market.
 
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