tour reports » a day out in Snowdonia

I took my R1250GS over to Snowdonia for a couple of days to try out my new touring luggage (Givi V56) in the hope I can get away on future tours without having to also invest in panniers. I also took along a new camera to try out, and I'm rather pleased with the results. The attached short (1 minute) video was shot with the new camera, with a couple of drone shots thrown in for good measure. A virtual pat on the back to the first person to work out how I did the changing angles on the "on-bike" shots:

Some great video.

I'd not be keen on just using a huge top box myself, when loaded right up it'd be too much weight high and back for me. In fact I have a life long aversion to the whole aesthetics of top boxes. Panniers are a pain in terms of convenience but they are neat, don't look like a huge blob perched in thin air and are better for mass centralisation methinks. I use a smallish BMW top box because it is handy for everyday stuff like my camera and paperwork.

Great video Paul,the drone shots were nice,the circular effect almost gave me a flashback to a bad trip I had in my younger days.
You've got lots of patience to do all that editing.

I have no idea how you did that camera stuff, but the vids of you at speed driving on the wrong side of the road were a bit scary.

Well, f**k me that is pretty impressive - Wales looked stunning , camera work amazing, bike not bad, leading actor bit dodgy

Zitat von Sanemancured im Beitrag #3

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Some great video.

I'd not be keen on just using a huge top box myself, when loaded right up it'd be too much weight high and back for me. In fact I have a life long aversion to the whole aesthetics of top boxes. Panniers are a pain in terms of convenience but they are neat, don't look like a huge blob perched in thin air and are better for mass centralisation methinks. I use a smallish BMW top box because it is handy for everyday stuff like my camera and paperwork.

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Zitat von Bravo im Beitrag #4

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Great video Paul,the drone shots were nice,the circular effect almost gave me a flashback to a bad trip I had in my younger days.

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Zitat von IPaul im Beitrag #1

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A virtual pat on the back to the first person to work out how I did the changing angles on the "on-bike" shots:

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Well done JasonQ, you hit the nail on the head.

I was using an Insta360 One X for the first time, fixed with a RAM mount to my wing mirror arm, which captures a 360 degree video, that I can then selectively edit to show my chosen virtual camera direction. It's an impressive piece of kit that has me seriously considering consigning my Garmin Virb (GoPro-alikes) to a Fleabay listing.

Cheers,

Paul

Zitat von IPaul im Beitrag #10

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you hit the nail on the head

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Well done Paul. I am a laggard in comparison when it comes to my drone/motorcycle videos. The slow-motion follow shots were epic.

Hi Jason,

The footage you capture on the camera can be manipulated with on your 'phone or on a PC or Mac. The phone app needs a fairly recent, powerful processor (iPhone 7 or later, or recent Android), and I use that on my iPhone. Apparently though, the Android version of the software is a little behind the IOS release and quite buggy. On my Mac, I use their application "Insta360 Studio 2019". Annoyingly, the feature sets of the phone and desktop apps are different, so, for instance, you can only do the hyper-lapse stuff on the 'phone, but the desktop supports higher quality file exports. They do seem to put out new software releases every couple of weeks, including firmware for the camera itself, so the software is improving all the time. There are a few videos on YouTube showing how this editing software works, if you search.

To control the "virtual camera" panning around the 360 image, there are several options. You can use key frames, which control where the camera is pointing at specific moments in time, and the software the moves the virtual camera smoothly between those key frames over time. You can also use object tracking to identify a subject in the frame and then the virtual camera moves around to keep that in the centre of the frame. On the phone app you can also move the phone around and the camera follows the movements of the phone to pan around the image as the footage is playing. Image stabilisation is phenomenal because the camera has a complete 360 degree set of data to process.

Both the phone and desktop apps only edit individual clips you have taken. You would need an additional movie editing app to combine and edit multiple clips into a film. I use Final Cut Pro X for that, but any video editing software would work, once you have flattened the 360 files into MP4 video files in either of the insta360 apps.

I have a couple of Garmin Virb cameras which are similar to GoPros. Whilst the image quality is good from them, the fact that you have to get them perfectly level and then only capture footage from one static perspective when mounted on my bike, is quite a limitation. The image stabilisation on those is nothing like as good as the Insta360 either. I took them to Wales with me but have not used any of the footage they captured because the 360 footage is far more stable, dynamic and compelling.

Those shots of me walking towards the bike at the start of the video were both taken with the Insta360 attached to it's "invisible selfie stick" held in my right hand. This selfie stick is edited out of the image by the camera since it extends directly between the two opposing lenses, so is in the blind spot of the camera. The ability to film myself without the need for help from anyone else is another big win for the Insta360 for me.

The downsides of the Insta360 is that the audio recording capability is pretty poor and it is not weatherproof or ruggedised. Having said that, it coped with being attached to my motorbike wing mirror at speed, but the wind noise made the audio unusable and I wouldn't risk it if there was a chance of rain. Battery life is only about 40 minutes in real usage, but I powered the camera using a USB socket on my bike, which would give me unlimited running time (memory card permitting...). It uses a micro SD card of up to 128gb, but it must be a fast V30 spec card. At the highest 5.7k resolution file size is about 800mB per minute. when you export a flat MP4 view from your 360 scene, that resolution is reduced to almost, but not quite, HD resolution. All the 360 footage in my video was shot at 4k 50 frames per second, to give me the option of slow-motion at 50% in my HD 25 fps film.

The drone shots were taken on a DJI Mavic Air. That thing is a miracle of miniaturisation, flies beautifully and takes excellent 4k footage. The drone, remote control, two Virbs, insta360 and RAM arms to mount them to my bike all fit, with room to spare, in my tank bag.

I hope this helps. Please feel free to drop me a private message if you want to know anything else about the camera or its use. In summary, it sounds like you would probably need to upgrade your old android phone, but would not need to spend money on additional software if you use the Insta360 freeware and have access to a video editing program. Budget for a big fast memory card and the invisible selfie stick. If you don't have a USB power source to run the camera to supplement the internal battery, a small power bank might be a useful addition.

Cheers,

Paul

Zitat von AZGeek im Beitrag #12

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Well done Paul. I am a laggard in comparison when it comes to my drone/motorcycle videos. The slow-motion follow shots were epic.

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Zitat von IPaul im Beitrag #13

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I hope this helps.

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