Point of View

[GeoffM]

In early March, I'll head up to the north of my state for a vacation centered around bike riding. I plan to video much
of what I do, but that's where my question comes in. When I take a video of a trail around here, if I don't like it I can
always go back out and reshoot it. Up north I don't have that option. Most of the videos will be of one time things.
Any advice for shooting is appreciated, but here is my main question:
I can shoot from two points of view, mounted on my chest, or mounted on my helmet. They have their ups and downs;
The chest one gets a good general shot, the helmet one seems exactly what I see. But, they can both be shaky,
The chest one is much harder to aim at something not right in front of me, the helmet one seems to shake more
and what satisfied me by breifly glimpsing at something in real life seems far to short in the videos.
Examples are below:

Above is the helmet cam. I just realized I haven't uploaded any of the chest ones. Not necessarily because of the POV,
but because I'm having issues with water condensation on my lens. I'll see if I have a short one I can upload.
The half hour ones take almost 4 hours to upload!

[deevergote]

Get a second camera, do both at the same time, and split-screen it!

[illinois_erik]

maybe one you can mount one your shoulder, then itll be the average of your head and chest and kind of out of the way of rooster tails have you thought about one on your handle bars with some kind of damper base

[GeoffM]

Get a second camera, do both at the same time, and split-screen it!

$300 each.
I need a transmission, exhaust, and a field coil. And a better bike.
Extras cameras are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down the list.

maybe one you can mount one your shoulder, then itll be the average of your head and chest and kind of out of the way of rooster tails have you thought about one on your handle bars with some kind of damper base

I don't have the handle bar mount, and don't really want one. The reviews I've
read say they're very shaky. I don't know of any shoulder mounts off the top
of my head.

[almostJDM]

get those anti fog strips if you are having trouble with condensation

[cloudasc]

^^ Theres fluids you can treat the lense of your camera with to keep it from fogging up. Rain-X anti-fog might work, but its meant for the inside of a window. I remember when I was snowboarding there was this alchohol based fluid I would rub/wipe onto my goggles to prevent them from fogging.

[ChIoVnIdCa]

Those trails suck eh???
Nothing better in the area?

But you bike a great deal huh..? I can tell by your shifters you have a lower end bike... Sub $400? For someone that puts that kind of miles on a bike are you planing on upgrading..

[Mista Juice]

one thing that annoys me about that video is that you can see whats coming up on the trail.. i keep thinking "look up fucker!".. maybe tilt that camera back so that you can see further up ahead of you on the video..

[GeoffM]

All good posts.

get those anti fog strips if you are having trouble with condensation

They do, but they wear out and cost money. I'm thinking of making my own.

^^ Theres fluids you can treat the lense of your camera with to keep it from fogging up. Rain-X anti-fog might work, but its meant for the inside of a window. I remember when I was snowboarding there was this alchohol based fluid I would rub/wipe onto my goggles to prevent them from fogging.

Rain X anti fog left me with a bad taste in my mouth about Rain X products. Every other one I've ever used has worked perfectly. This one left the inside of my windows VERY streaky and didn't work.

Those trails suck eh???
Nothing better in the area?

But you bike a great deal huh..? I can tell by your shifters you have a lower end bike... Sub $400? For someone that puts that kind of miles on a bike are you planing on upgrading..

The trails aren't that bad. There are better ones, but that was just the one I chose to post. You can watch all of them here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Halosapian?feature=mhee
The most recent is Polly Ann trail. The one I posted is a very difficult mountain biking trail.

I don't know how much it cost. The bike shop guy told me $400-$500. My mom actually bought it for my sister. She never used it. I got really big into biking on a 40 year old bike. It started having issues so I started using hers.

Like I said above I don't have a ton of money to play with. Next year I'm looking at either getting a dual suspension mountain bike or a road bike.
FOr now, these tires are wearing out. I'm going to put slicks on them for an event soon (the one I talked about) and hopefully gain a bit of speed.

Btw, 2010 I'm estimating I put on about 700 miles on this bike and my other ones. 2011 1600 miles all on this bike. So far this year (started using this tracker in April) 225 miles. I'd like to hit roughly 700 or even 1000 miles in May alone.

one thing that annoys me about that video is that you can see whats coming up on the trail.. i keep thinking "look up fucker!".. maybe tilt that camera back so that you can see further up ahead of you on the video..

That's EXACTLY why I made this! With the chest mount, it's generall angled correctly. With the helmet, it's usually aimed at the ground (Actually shifters) which is where I'm looking.
I'm uploading a decent chest mount now. It's the first one I did, so the angle is incorrect on this one too, but it'll give you an idea. Once I saw this video, the ones after had a better, steadier angle.


Edit: One of the trails is 62 miles long. I had planned on video taping as much of it as I can, but my camera just won't take it. First, the battery and the back up battery will run out. If I buy another one to change mid way, I'll then run out of memory card space, or the battery again. This is all shooting video in 1080p. Taking pictures or shooting in lesser video will allow me to fit more on the card and get more out of the batteries.
The description is here, and I'd really like to get as much on there as I could.
http://www.traillink.com/trail/north...-trail%29.aspx
I'm also faced with the issue of running out of juice on my cell phone. I use it for tracking, and more importantly I'll use it to call my ride in Mackinac. I'm looking at a solar charger to help me with that.

[GeoffM]

It isn't done processing yet, but here it is embedded.