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Evolution - aerobatics video

groucho

groucho

Well Known Member
I picked up a new camera a couple weeks ago & shot some test footage the other day. The camera's a Canon 5D Mark II. It's a digital SLR (primarily a still camera), but also shoots 1080p (high-def) video. So, I put my 15mm fisheye on it & mounted it in the RV. My existing mount isn't made to hold that kind of weight, so I held the mount to help it a bit while I was flying. Better mount soon!

Also, there was some odd visible moisture here in the desert that kept me from doing too much in the over-the-top department. Lots of rolls...

You can see it in standard definition on my page here:
http://www.thedukes.org/rv/video.html

Or, you can view it in high definition (720p) here:
http://www.vimeo.com/2731347

Or, you can download the high def 720p file here.

Enjoy!

evolution.jpg
 
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Dude, you're killing me with this stuff. Where do I go to learn how in my -7A?

I havent figured out whether I want to be you or Scott Schmidt in my next life

erich
 
Bryan,
Nice camera, and of course, great flying. Can never get enough of it.
Thanks,
Bill McLean
RV-4 (inverted for the longer upside down shots)
 
HD only from now on

Boy that HD video, full screen, is about 1,000 times better than the youtube stuff. Hereby resolved that all future VAF videos will be HD only:eek:
 
What Larry said !

That HD is awesome!

Oh, and Groucho - that strange moisture you see? That's called "cloud"....you really need to get out of the desert more often....:p

I sure liked being out there last week though - we had sunshine and no bumps for 5 days!

paul
 
Bryan -

I'm interested to know what you think of the 5D Mark II. Did you pre-order it?!? How did you get it so fast?

That's my next body but the dealer I work with is telling me March!

- Peter
 
I'm interested in the mount you are using for these shots. When I mount a small camera to the rollbar in my -4 I get strange camera oscillation at certain RPMs.

Anyone have a suggestion for a rollbar mount?
 
Ironflight said:
...that strange moisture you see? That's called "cloud
Click to expand...
So very strange. Clouds here are rare, but clouds below 10k only happen a couple times a year. I made my standard "I'll be working from the surface to 10k" call before I started...that didn't happen.

n5lp said:
Hereby resolved that all future VAF videos will be HD only:eek:
Click to expand...
My tailcam is still standard def, so I'm afraid you'll be stuck looking at that for a while. I'd love to upgrade it to HD, but the price on those is still stupid.

erich weaver said:
Dude, you're killing me with this stuff. Where do I go to learn how in my -7A?
Click to expand...
There's actually no legal requirement to learn aerobatics from a CFI, but it's a very good idea. There are several places that offer "unusual attitude" training - they usually have basic acro courses too. AND that's a great excuse to pay for some Extra 300 time. :D I'm not a CFI, but if you're close by & have a couple parachutes I'll fly with ya. Be extremely careful & extremely smart about learning aerobatics. You can find yourself dead quickly.

Sid Lambert said:
I'm interested in the mount you are using for these shots.
Click to expand...
I use RAM-Mounts for all my in-cockpit cameras (the 1" ball size). They have tons of parts & you can assemble just about any type of mount you can dream up. They are not vibration-free though. The super-wide angle cameras I use help minimize the appearance of camera shake. If you look on my older videos, you can still see camera shake. Those were all shot with bullet cameras.

This camera is BIG, so it shakes more. I plan on constructing a more beefy mount for it soon. Sharpie has a mount that he made that he got great results with. I'm sure a quick search at http://www.rvproject.com would get you a picture of that.

Here are a few examples of different RAM-Mount setups I've flown with. This one I used to shoot video of my EFIS (it vibrated too much for high quality video though):
http://www.thedukes.org/rv/pix/cameras/901jh_20071213_008.jpg
http://www.thedukes.org/rv/pix/cameras/901jh_20071213_009.jpg

Here's my standard cockpit camera & mount:
http://www.thedukes.org/rv/pix/cameras/901jh_20070525_009.jpg

N200PF said:
I'm interested to know what you think of the 5D Mark II. Did you pre-order it?!? How did you get it so fast?
Click to expand...
It's absolutely amazing. I am so lucky to be able to afford a camera of that caliber. It's so much better of a camera than I deserve it's not even funny.

All the video I uploaded was 720p. The camera shoots 1080p, so the 720p is resampled. The quality of the 1080p is outstanding, but no one wants to host files that big. Scaling someting by 0.66 doesn't lend itself to perfection, but that's all I can share for now. A half-HD video might actually look better than the 720p...I'll look into that.

Sooo much fun!
 
Camera Mounts...

Hello Sid!
There are actually a wide variety of mounts available. One that might work is a combo 'mafer' clamp and ball head, as seen here: http://www.filmtools.com/suma484moand.html. It's available for around $100. You should be able to use the ball head on a regular tripod too...

If you'd like to see the 5D MarkII used as a hi-def video camera, check out this short movie (about 3 minutes) by Vincent Laforet, a commercial photographer in New York: http://www.vincentlaforet.com/

It's stunning to say the least...Enjoy!

John Slemp
 
nucleus said:
Groucho, the download link is down. We probably overloaded the server!
Click to expand...
Excellent! Or, umm, bad. I was just able to download it by going here: http://www.vimeo.com/2731347 then scrolling to the bottom & clicking on the "Download Quicktime version" on the bottom right of the page.

Peter- I forgot to mention that I got my camera from Canoga Camera in the LA area. They had the kits in stock (with the 24-105). They generally have a good stock of stuff & have as good of prices as the big New York camera houses. At the time, they were the only place I could find it in the US.

FWIW (now venturing away from RV talk...), I took some moon pix tonight with it through a few different telescopes. Here are some of the shots:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/grouchoduke/3176244326/sizes/l/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/grouchoduke/3176244154/sizes/l/
 
This what happens

groucho said:
Excellent! Or, umm, bad. I was just able to download it by going here: http://www.vimeo.com/2731347 then scrolling to the bottom & clicking on the "Download Quicktime version" on the bottom right of the page.

Peter- I forgot to mention that I got my camera from Canoga Camera in the LA area. They had the kits in stock (with the 24-105). They generally have a good stock of stuff & have as good of prices as the big New York camera houses. At the time, they were the only place I could find it in the US.

FWIW (now venturing away from RV talk...), I took some moon pix tonight with it through a few different telescopes. Here are some of the shots:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/grouchoduke/3176244326/sizes/l/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/grouchoduke/3176244154/sizes/l/
Click to expand...


When your a star...:)..But I'm not bitter!

Frank
 
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