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Some GoPro footage from Italy


Francois_Dumas

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Francois_Dumas

 

 

Today we finally got the Beemer out again fir an early tour around our small hill range. Only some 50 miles. I mounted my GoPro on the 'beak' but hadn't used it much. It has a weird wobble sometimes, although it is very sturdy. I guess either the plastic moves in curves, or the GoPro tries to autostabilize? 

 

Anyway, the attached video shows the little road up to Bettina, a medieval hill town and down on the other side. 

 

Bettina is in Umbria, central Italy, and only half an hour riding from our home. 

 

Nothing special, just to give you a feel of the narrow Italian backroads that we love so much. 

 

Screenshot_20200726-114039_Maps.jpg

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That was awesome.   Thanks for letting me tag along.  It was fun.

 

The weird wobble was attributed to the bumpy tarmac.  Not too bad, but was evident in the video.   Still a good ride to view.  Keep posting, we will keep watching.

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Francois ... good to see you out and about !!!  Nice video. 

 

What was the building (around 3:20 in) where all the cars were parked along side it?

 

 

 

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Francois_Dumas
5 hours ago, chrisolson said:

 

 

What was the building (around 3:20 in) where all the cars were parked along side it?

 

 

 

It is not 'a' building, but the city wall, basically. Here the houses form part of the inner wall of the old town. The cars are in a parking, because inside the city you have not much space to park. 

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Your Video:

 

First of all, @Francois_Dumas, that's a nice video, and your home region certainly looks like a nice area to ride in. Scenic, some challenging turns, beautiful views and buildings.

 

GoPro Videos:

 

Second, and the real purpose of my reply, let me briefly discuss my experience with GoPro cameras.

 

I used a GoPro Hero 4 Silver for a few years, mounted in different ways on different bikes. It was good, but about a year ago I bought a new GoPro Hero 7 Black (and GoPro is now up to Hero 8 models, but I don't have one of those).

 

I upgraded because the Hero 7 added two features that I wanted: built-in telemetry (speed, altitude, position) and a software-based stabilization implementation, which they call HyperSmooth. The Hero 4 didn't really do this -- stability was just a function of Field of View -- but the Hero 7 Black (and presumably the Hero 8) does this brilliantly.

 

In August 2019, my buddy and I did an Edelweiss week of riding in the Alps, five of us customers and a guide. I was riding a Yamaha Niken GT, and had my Hero 7 attached to a suction-cup mount that was stuck on the front of the windshield. I don't have a picture of this setup, but it was virtually identical to the way I do this at home, and I do have a picture of the setup on a 650 Burgman:

 

2016-08-22_08-49-56.thumb.JPG.6bf0f70f96d11ec8d33b9f5a37a978ad.JPG

 

That's the Hero 4 in a case, but for attaching the Hero 7 I used the same mount, in the same way: a PanaVise "Model: 13101 ActionGRIP Shorty Suction Cup Camera Mount." There are a lot of mounts like that, but I've certainly had no problems with the PanaVise, and have been using it for several years now. The important thing is to thoroughly clean both the windshield and the suction cup with alcohol and micro-fiber cloth before mounting. That worked so well that I didn't have to remove or adjust the mount all week, and that included two tip-overs!

 

When you say, "I guess either the plastic moves in curves, or the GoPro tries to autostabilize?," I think you're spot on. I think the "beak" just flexes too much, and my suggestion is to use a mount like I did, or a clamp to some other place that's more rigid than the beak. For instance, I've had interesting results using a crashbar for a low-mounted camera, too; if you're curious, I have some pictures in a 2013 review at webBikeWorld here: https://www.webbikeworld.com/liquid-image-ego-review/. I'm not a professional camera person, but I've been doing this for a while, with, I think, satisfactory results.

 

Here's a 20-minute clip of one part of that week, with some spirited riding, and the Hero 7 on the front of the windshield:

 

 

You can see how stable the video is, even though the suction cup and the windshield may be moving, and of course the engine emits its own set of vibrations. You can get a feel for this movement when the stabilization pretty much fails, in the low-light situations inside a couple of the tunnels; apparently, good lighting is necessary for the stabilization software to work its magic. (You may also notice that the telemetry goes haywire -- the speed goes up to hundreds of KPH -- when the GPS loses its signal.)

 

By the way, that was recorded with the Hero 7 set to 1920 X 1080, in "Linear" mode (a sort of medium FOV), 60 FPS (of course changed to something like 30 FPS on the site), and HyperSmooth enabled.

 

I hope you find this simple mounting suggestion (and perhaps the latest GoPro models -- I have no affiliation, except as a customer) to be something that you might want to experiment with.

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Bill_Walker
On 7/26/2020 at 2:57 PM, Francois_Dumas said:

It has a weird wobble sometimes, although it is very sturdy. I guess either the plastic moves in curves, or the GoPro tries to autostabilize? 


It looks to me like an aerodynamic flutter in the beak at particular speeds.

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