Saturday afternoon bike ride film

[morphix]

Yesterday I decided to have a go at filming a bike trip I had planned across town to view a property I'm interested in.. I haven't had any success in finding a special purpose mini bike camera, so I decided to try using my Toshiba Camileo S10 pocket flip camcorder, which I somewhat precariously wedged into my handlebar bag..

I recorded the 45 minute trip using the camera's lowest resolution (VGA mode) to reduce file size as I was limited to a 2GB card..

Here is the result...

YouTube - ebike ride across town (1/3)

YouTube - ebike ride across town (2/3)

YouTube - ebike ride across town (3/3)

Camera shake is terrible (this is even with the camera's image stabilisation feature enabled)...camera shake aside, the video quality came out surprisingly well for VGA mode..this is a HD camera capable of 1080p filming... The 36 min journey took up 600MB of storage space (read my video comment to see why the footage is 10 minutes shorter than it should be - I had a wee mishap!)

Although the S10 is an excellent little camera, it didn't attract the kind of following the big names like Flip, Kodak and others attracted. In my opinion the Toshiba S10 is by far the best of the bunch.. they can frequently be picked up inexpensively on eBay (I paid just £37 for mine "as new").. the only problem is, small as it is, it's not the best design camera for filming on a bike as you need the LCD flipped out to film, so it's not practical to wear it around your neck or in a pocket like you can with the Flip and Kodak cameras.

In anycase I'm convinced now from my experiments so far with different cameras, that mounting *any* camera on the actual bike is a bad idea as they just pick up too much vibration and movement. I'm sure helmet or body mounting is the way to go..or perhaps a camera with very good image stabilisation or some clever mounting device?

It's certainly got me interested in exploring other cameras and experimenting further..

 

[PennyFarthing]

Ah what a pity about the camera shake - you were right, it is hard on the eye. Great idea and keep on trying!
.

 

[PennyFarthing]

Part two is easier on the eye - btw. At least the beginning is.

I'm interested why your motor suddenly seems to sound like its surging when you are going downhill on the bike path in town (near the beginning)? (Please bear in mind I don't own one yet so am niaive to all things electric/bike).

 

[morphix]

Part two is easier on the eye - btw. At least the beginning is.

I'm interested why your motor suddenly seems to sound like its surging when you are going downhill on the bike path in town (near the beginning)? (Please bear in mind I don't own one yet so am niaive to all things electric/bike).

Thanks! The sound was slightly out of sync with the picture at the start of the second video due to my cutting the video up..it happens frequently unfortunately, just a quirk of the software I use to cut videos for YouTube which I haven't figured out.. the surging noise you hear is common on ebike motors when you go from a standing start in high power mode, once they get up to a cruising speed they run quiet. You can avoid it or minimise it by using a lower power level and/or pedalling more to start off.

I added in some text captions now on the videos as I originally did voice commentary which would of been nice but none of it even picked up, even with me leaning forwards closer to the camera.. I think a good idea might be to use a separate MP3 recorder and mic for audio..

 

[dmcgoldrick]

Thanks! The sound was slightly out of sync with the picture at the start of the second video due to my cutting the video up..it happens frequently unfortunately, just a quirk of the software I use to cut videos for YouTube which I haven't figured out.. the surging noise you hear is common on ebike motors when you go from a standing start in high power mode, once they get up to a cruising speed they run quiet. You can avoid it or minimise it by using a lower power level and/or pedalling more to start off.

I added in some text captions now on the videos as I originally did voice commentary which would of been nice but none of it even picked up, even with me leaning forwards closer to the camera.. I think a good idea might be to use a separate MP3 recorder and mic for audio..

keep us posted as you investigate camcorders....i have tried the 7 day cheapo 'torch' style and am about to order the 'spy key camera' with hd .

the camera shake elimination is the objective.....
regards

 

[morphix]

keep us posted as you investigate camcorders....i have tried the 7 day cheapo 'torch' style and am about to order the 'spy key camera' with hd .

the camera shake elimination is the objective.....
regards

Will do! Be interested to know how you get on with your spy key camera.. perhaps sooner or later we'll come up with the ideal camera or solution for smooth filming ;-)

 

[kitchenman]

I'm using a PSP (playstation games console) with a USB extension cable to a little camera which I have mounted on the saddle post. I use it for rear view and overall its a success. I did have to overcome vibration issues but I have done that by mounting the unit on a tri-bar with padding. I do record from time to time and have a collection of 2 gig .avi files. The quality id pretty good but I tend to convert to .fla if I'm going to upload to utube. I did turn the camera on myself for this cycle karaoke which I like! ..
YouTube - ITSINME
or there is the time when I rescued a car during my snow commute!
YouTube - Cytronex bike man rescues car in snow

My next camera plan is to also mount my phone so I can take some footage of whats ahead ...

 

[kitchenman]

here is my config:

 

[vhfman]

Where did I put my magnifying glasses? That is a very small image of your config.

 

[flecc]

Where did I put my magnifying glasses? That is a very small image of your config.

Resizing it by 8 times, sharpening by 400% with gather radius of 4.6 pixels gives an optimum that still doesn't inform enough I'm afraid.

 

[kitchenman]

Resizing it by 8 times, sharpening by 400% with gather radius of 4.6 pixels gives an optimum that still doesn't inform enough I'm afraid.

View attachment 1943

sorry chaps! ... trying again ..

 

[kitchenman]

Umm.. that was a bit big! ... getting the hang of this now ..

 

[morphix]

Choosing the perfect bike camera...

Ok I've been doing some research into cameras over the past 3 days and I'm gonna start a new thread I think to try and get some more ideas and opinions on my findings so far..

 

[allen-uk]

Calling it up on the YouTube link wasn't too successful for me - I'm getting 5 seconds of film, then the 'load' symbol for 15 seconds, then another bit of film, then the load, and so on.

Is it just the time of night, do you think (9pm)? My iMac doesn't usually have problems of this sort! (I'll try it first thing tomorrow and report back).


Allen.

 

[stevebills]

Umm.. that was a bit big! ... getting the hang of this now ..
View attachment 1945

get Irfanview its the best optimizer and it's free

 

[allen-uk]

Yes, the YouTube stuff was fine this morning, so I take it once the yanks etc. have gone to bed, the internet speeds up.

'Throttle mode' - do you mean you were going along using the throttle on its own, i.e. no pedalling? Or does the term mean something different on your type of bike?

Allen.

 

[morphix]

Yes, the YouTube stuff was fine this morning, so I take it once the yanks etc. have gone to bed, the internet speeds up.

'Throttle mode' - do you mean you were going along using the throttle on its own, i.e. no pedalling? Or does the term mean something different on your type of bike?

Allen.

Hi Allen, yes by "throttle mode" I meant exactly as you referred, moving by using just the throttle on it's own, although I do usually pedal a bit still.. on my bike, I have an LCD console and I have to choose between throttle mode (auto) or pedal assist (assist), selecting one disables the other.

 

[kitchenman]

get Irfanview its the best optimizer and it's free

Thanks. Looks good ..
This is the little camera mounted on the rear rack ..