In this video I review a few handy tools I’ve been using to capture some cool angles while riding the motorcycle. The Manfrotto super clamp and heavy duty flex arm. Manfrotto didn’t have motorcycles in mind when they designed this gear, but it can work pretty good. The clamp is solid and has rubber boots so it won’t scratch up your bike when you tighten it down. The flex arm is nice because it can become any shape your heart desires. One problem with the flex arm however is it can get a little wobble going on while riding. Because of the vibration of the engine, bumpy road, or even the air pushing against it. It’s only a very small wobble, but the reason this is a problem is because most cameras these days have CMOS sensors in them. These sensors scan each frame from top to bottom. It happens very quickly of course, but those small vibrations are what cause your shots to look like jelly. It’s an effect called “rolling shutter” and it’s a bad thing. I’ve got some great shots with this device. I’ve also had some great shots ruined because of the dreaded rolling shutter. So I like it, and I don’t like it. Take that for whatever you think it’s worth.
Super Clamp
http://amzn.to/vuewAg
Heavy-Duty Flex Arm
http://amzn.to/uDHFpV
You might want to look into the magic arm. I think it’s shorter and should be a bit more stable than the Flex Arm which will help fight rolling shutter.
http://amzn.to/sCAcD1
I’ve only had my Drift helmet camera a few days, and it’s been raining almost non stop since it arrived. I hear it’s okay to take it in the rain, but it’s so new and shiny I just want to keep it that way a little longer.
This video is about capturing audio inside a helmet which can be tricky for several reasons. Wind blowing in the helmet, and the small space inside the helmet can make it very difficult on your microphone. When I first started vlogging I was using a separate audio capture device. The Olympus VN-8100PC Digital Voice recorder. I hooked it up to this microphone and found it to be way to sensitive inside the helmet. This was designed to record audio in an open room. I tired many different methods to calm it down, even went to far as to stick it inside of a tampon but was never really pleased with the results.
Recently I got my hands on a Drift Innovations Stealth 170 helmet camera with the external microphone and it sounds much better. And extra bonus the Drift’s mic records in stereo so no comments saying, “I can only hear out the left channel!”
I’m still getting used to filming with the Drift and can’t wait for all the comments saying, “Your camera is crooked!” Yeah I’ve noticed guys I edit the damn video, and will fix it before the next one.
I’m the sort of person who gets really frustrated if everything isn’t perfect when I sit down to edit. When I was working with the digital voice recorder and it sounded so terrible I would just cringe while editing. I hated to hear how bad it sounded. The Drift’s mic was designed to record inside a helmet and deal with wind noise. You will notice in the video that the wind noise pretty much disappears when I switch the audio over to the Drift at the end. Nothing ruins a motorcycle video faster than screeching wind noise from a microphone.
