Need help figuring out the camera setup in this video

[Trek of Joy]

I have someone looking for a video like the driving one linked below. My first instinct is Osmo Pocket. Any thoughts as to what the guy is doing gear-wise? Its floaty like a gimbal, but it also looks like its on the front of a vehicle on the open road. A gopro would be too jittery for something like this. This and his other videos have the phone/gopro sensor look, just trying to figure out a setup that could mimic this and gather audio. Anyone have any insight or maybe you've seen or done something similar and can share a camera setup? I've asked in the comments and on his IG to no avail. So have others.

Thanks in advance

Chris

 

[Hangs4Fun]

19 hours ago, Trek of Joy said:

I have someone looking for a video like the driving one linked below. My first instinct is Osmo Pocket. Any thoughts as to what the guy is doing gear-wise? Its floaty like a gimbal, but it also looks like its on the front of a vehicle on the open road. A gopro would be too jittery for something like this. This and his other videos have the phone/gopro sensor look, just trying to figure out a setup that could mimic this and gather audio. Anyone have any insight or maybe you've seen or done something similar and can share a camera setup? I've asked in the comments and on his IG to no avail. So have others.

Thanks in advance

Chris

 

In my experiences with driving footage both video and time lapse based using gimbals or using digital and/or gyro based stabilization. Is that gimbals are fine until you get some curves and if curvy enough can really mess them up.  Ive even used motorized panning while capturing audio.  

My guess is this is using a horizon based in body stabilization like a gopro or Cosmo action with a good suction cup attachment system.  Of the suction cup arms I tried i found the Joby one to never let go and was seven strong enough to hold either a Genie or Edelkrone headone with a Sony RX0, Osmo action, or gopro.   When attaching to the front of the car (on paint instead of glass), be sure to pick the glassiest smoothest surface and clean it well first.

To achieve a higher quality version of this would require at least a two person team and rigging to support stronger gimbals and bigger cameras.  

[leslie]

that does seem to make American roads appear super smooth. Anything that could make an aussie road appear as smooth as that, would sell like hotcakes but i digress.  He does drive pretty consistent, no big swerves or hard cornering, so im thinking he's working within the constraints of his particular system.  even when he turns around, assuming its a he 🤔 he is  doing his best not to upset the apple cart so to speak.  

I'm in two minds whether its internal or external I suspect its mounted outside on the front or bonnet. If its internal, i thought that a shot of the sun might have given something away with how it flared or or sun through the windscreen, but nothing there. 

Not sure what the laws are like in America but if i mounted a gopro to a suction cup and strapped it to the bonnet, i could probably make it out onto the highway but the first highway patrol would pull me up and i'd be either fined or politely asked to remove it, before i was allowed to proceed.  

I suspect there may be some kind of stealth setup,  a gimbal mounted in behind a bull ball with the camera just poking its head up. If it is a gopro then he's shot linear  or narrow as theres little fish eye or warping at least to me anyway.

[Trek of Joy]

@Hangs4Fun I'll get a suction mount for my gopro to test, but it still looks more gimbal like to me than stabilization. I do have the Hero7 with the first version of hypersmooth so that might help. Walmart has the gopro suction mount, guess I'll pop into one and get one to try. I'm fine with the quality and I'm sure the person in the video isn't using a larger setup, as long as the sun isn't in the frame, gopro/phone size sensors do fine. My gopro cant stay on more than 30-40 minutes before overheating and shutting down, but I'll still try. Thanks for the suggestions!

@leslie there are no issues in the US hanging a small camera on a vehicle on the road, I'll be fine. I see lots of custom cars with multiple gopros on them while driving. I regularly see a corvette with 5 or 6 mounts on it even when there are no cameras mounted, looks funny, but I guess the driver doesn't bother removing them haha. Someone near me must be doing some sort of car show. I'll check linear and narrow, I watched a few others and when the driver passes trees and such there's no distortion from the ultrawide view. Thanks for the insights!

I'll report back after some testing with a gopro.

Cheers.

Chris

[Mark Romero 2]

7 hours ago, Trek of Joy said:

I'll get a suction mount for my gopro to test, but it still looks more gimbal like to me than stabilization.

Can you put a gopro on a separate gimbal and mount the whole thing on the car? 

I just don't understand how a camera mounted on the hood of a car won't be affected by vibration from the engine, and more importantly, by wind buffeting.

[leslie]

2 hours ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

Can you put a gopro on a separate gimbal and mount the whole thing on the car? 

I just don't understand how a camera mounted on the hood of a car won't be affected by vibration from the engine, and more importantly, by wind buffeting.

after my reply i thought about the wind buffeting also. i live in a high wind corridor pretty much right on the edge of the great dividing range. I have to go into town later i'll take the gopro and perform some rather unscientific tests. I think there's some grounds here for some collaboration and group therapy 🙂

[kye]

I'd suggest using multiple layers of stabilisation.

As has been said before, gimbals are great but lose the horizon over time and cornering, and the super-duper-stabilistation modes on the GoPro and Osmo Action etc will also lose the horizon if kept out of level for some time (which is inevitable considering that roads are sloped to drain water away and corner nicely).

Due to these factors, I'd suggest a very solid mount (to eliminate wind buffering) combined with a very short shutter speed (to eliminate exposure blurs and RS wobbles from bumps) combined with in-camera floaty-smooth modes combined with stabilisation in post.

[Hangs4Fun]

Maybe its the mountain roads I tend to find myself on, but I haven t used a Gumball yet that could keep my camera level around those corners.  After the first part of an S turn, all turns after that it gets out of wack and struggles to get back to level.

Now, Im talking smaller gimbals.  Like RX100 and small gimbals capacities.  I haven t tried my Ronin S with a full frame yet, so maybe that would resolve the problem im seeing with gimbals.  But the G5, G6, Crane M, Cosmo Mobile, etc.  They all secummed to corners.

It wasn't until I tried the Cosmo Action that I got footage like you see in that video you shared (I would assume a GoPro 8 would do the same).  In testing I turned it on several times in my commute home from Atlanta and it was smooth as silk (I use ND filters btw).  Only thing i was trying to perfect with that was how it dealt with exposure.  As driving into the after work and passing under bridges it would create a couple of frames that were to bright.  But from a smooth standpoint was very pleased with either.  This isn't due to DJI, I think the equivalent model of it would work too.  But my Sony RX0 Mark II would not do well, because its gyro data got skewed when subjected to corners.  Thats when I drew the conclusion that in camera horizon based stabilization would be the best for vehicles (not vlogs or other cases, but driving situations where there might be some lateral G forces back and forth, which seem to affect gimbals and gyros (at least the smaller ones)

Good luck

[Trek of Joy]

So I took a drive with the Hero 7 suction cup mounted to the front edge of the hood of my Toyota Tacoma with some pretty aggressive tires and offroad suspension - so not exactly a smooth ride and it actually looks good. No vibrations and it does float around a bit like the video above, so its probably a GoPro or Osmo action with its built in stabilization. The one caveat - linear mode on this camera maxes out at 2.7k, its wide or superview in 4k. So I'd have to up-rez or defish to get 4k. Video is boring, but here's a screencap. This road has a bunch of roundabouts and I was hitting them pretty hard to get a lot of lean in the truck haha. The FOV above looks a bit wider too, seems like 4k and defishing is in order.

Chris

 

[leslie]

nice work. i took mine out too. I learnt old gopro mounts are none too sticky even with new double sided tape, which means i do have some footage of the go pro taking a tumble, amongst other things... The main concern was the letus anamorphic lens is ok 

[Trek of Joy]

17 hours ago, leslie said:

nice work. i took mine out too. I learnt old gopro mounts are none too sticky even with new double sided tape, which means i do have some footage of the go pro taking a tumble, amongst other things... The main concern was the letus anamorphic lens is ok 

I used the suction cup mount, cleaned the hood of my truck and the cup really well. Got it up to about 60mph and all was good. I was super paranoid though. Audio and such were ok too. I think it'll worked pretty well. Though I'm gonna secure it to the truck grille with some paracord just to be safe. The cup popped off a trolley car window once so I'm super paranoid. But I also had it on the inside of my truck window for about three weeks shooting driving timelapses as I did some traveling. Go figure.

Chris