You can't buy these cameras in the UK, but you can get them in the USA, and as a citizen of nowhere none of that's a problem.
A couple of years ago GoPro produced the Fusion and I couldn't imaging what I'd want such a thing for - a camera for producing VR, or videos I have to click around in to see things. That did nothing for me and I passed it by, wondering what the fuss was about. Eventually GoPro and others worked out how to use and sell the 360 technology: it's not about "VR", it's about not having to point the camera at what you're shooting, about being able to re-frame the video in post production. It's 100% the future and it's going to kill more traditional approaches I'm sure, including drone "follow me" footage.
For now, the quality's limited, but this is from my second day with the camera and after a quick slightly drunken edit of a single take from a run with yuck snow on it.
Snowboarding in Blue River 2018-2019 from phil 45464
I'd say it's a GoPro killer. Their pole isn't long enough for snowboarding - this is a Delkin Kaboom which is 140cm and works much better. There's no compensation in the camera, and it works much better in bright light (rather like the original GoPro did). The edit is kind of fiddly and mobile-only unless you're a fanboi, for now. No Protune or anything fancy, and only 5.8K for the whole spherical video. I'm sure the technology will move quickly from here, but for now this is pretty neat.
(snow-wise, this was a high Alpine run this morning with pretty poor conditions as you can see. Later we got into the trees where significant amounts of soft white stuff were trashed, but the light wasn't so good, so no video of that for now.)
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Nice! So the software edits out the pole automatically?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
KenX wrote:
Nice! So the software edits out the pole automatically?
Yes, that's a feature of all the 360 cameras.
philwig, have you had a look at the Insta 360 One X? That looks like it's as good as the Fusion but significantly cheaper and it's getting good reviews.
It sounds interesting but I don't really understand much from your description, so far I see a guy snowboarding and filming himself but it does look super stable. Maybe the this thread will answer any questions.
philwig wrote:
. No Protune or anything fancy, and only 5.8K for the whole spherical video.
dollars or pounds?
ah I'm reading the Amazon reviews, may tell me more
Yes, it can edit the pole out because it has two 200-degree lenses, one on each side, and the pole is placed between them. If you think about the parallax between those two lenses, you can see that the pole could be removed.
The "gimbal killer" thing is another effect of taking a spherical video - you have video there at all angles from the camera, so if you want to stabilize it, you just need to rotate that sphere with any movement and the problem's solved. With a traditional camera you have to "overcapture" to achieve stabilization: you need to capture enough to iron out the shakes. With this camera, you capture everything, so you're guaranteed to be able to do that.
Both "stabilization" and pole removal are automatic in the camera's supporting software (assuming you put the pole in the right place, on the axis between the two lenses). Selecting your crop from the video is manual with some aids.
I've not tried other cameras as this seemed to be the best end-2018 choice. Fusion and the one-x look like they should work. None of them do cropped 4k output.
Always happy to have my snowboarding described as "super stable", although that's not true at 1:10.
Hi Phil,
can you put together a review of how you film a sequence - some shot with another camera to give an idea of the rig? The Utube stuff isn't that great. I think the "problem" with your clip is it just looks too good and so you assume "oh he must have a drone with a gimbal".
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
That's really interesting - I'm guessing you've learnt how to casually hold the pole by the look of it.
Does the camera bend the horizon line? it looks like you're continually cresting a roll over.
Last edited by After all it is free on Wed 26-12-18 19:08; edited 1 time in total
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
rogg wrote:
That's really interesting - I'm guessing you've learnt how to casually hold the pole by the look of it.
Does the camera bend the horizon line? it looks like you're continually creasing a roll over.
That's what I thought initially I thought I was watching a 5 second loop like an Instagram clip. That's why I had trouble with the concept.
Thanks for the link altis
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Yeah, I see what you mean. The camera does distort the horizon - there are two 200 degree field-of-view cameras there so they're pretty wide. The pole you can buy from Rylo is about 80cm and not in my view long enough - you can see the perspective ("distortion") on the rider if you're that close. This longer pole (1.4m) works better.
As pointed out, I'm trying to hole the pole reasonably casually. You need a combination of length (about 1.4m) and weight (less than 300g) to make that work. Using a pole does affect your riding negatively a bit, it's something you need to get used to, like riding with a pack.
I have more footage of better snow today, but it's all a question of time to edit and time to drink beer. The basic idea is extremely simple:
Stick camera on pole. The camera has to be oriented so the overlap between the two lenses is where the pole is. That's the obvious way to mount it anyway. The camera "everyday" case has a GoPro compatible foot.
Then hold the pole and ride. I orient one camera facing forwards... it should work however you do that, but this seems most logical to me.
The camera captures 360 degree video as you ride. The card they ship with is 16G, way too small for ProTune GoPro footage, but for this that gives about 40 minutes, which is easily enough for a day (because you only shoot the good stuff, not being a numpty).
Two batteries are just about enough for 40 minutes in about minus 10. You can probably squeeze more out of a battery by warming it a bit.
The key thing is that once you have 360 degree video, although the position of the camera is obviously fixed, where it's pointing is... anywhere within that 360 degree sphere. That gives you perfect stabilisation (because you can just rotate the sphere in any axis to remove unwanted movement - that's done automatically). More important is probably the ability to frame your shot in post processing... I don't make much use of it in that clip I posted, but you could easily pan forward, or backward, to show other perspectives, all from that same 360 video. It may be easier to do it than it is to explain it, but it really is the biggest thing since the GoPro.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
The editing process...
connect camera to mobile phone.
Select video. It's a 360-degree video, so as you play it you can drag your finger to "look at" different things. So you can look left, right, up, back, whatever.
For the segment you're looking at, drag until you get the composition you want. Eg, "put the rider in the middle".
Press the "plus" symbol in the application, which sets a "key frame" point on the timeline.
Repeat as you play the video, setting key frames with the framing you want, however often is necessary.
Review the clip, to ensure that you see what you want (which is a rectangular 16:9 crop out of some part the 360 frame, which changes with the keyframes you set).
When you have it, render it out to a standard video.
I sucked that video into Davinci Resolve, added a soundtrack and then rendered it out to Vimeo. A finished video would require much more work - this is just one clip, but you can imagine assembling a number of clips and then editing them together conventionally. Eventually Davinci and other NLE programs will support 360 video with plugins or natively, but for now you're dependent on the camera manufacturer's application. I doubt it'll take long for that to change.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Can you take some footage from your helmet ? that should get rid of the traditional looking at skis crap people post all the time.
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
That looks pretty good with some more trees etc for 'perspective'. You can really see the stabilising effect, no jitters or major stutters, but you can see the 'dome', the sun flare is pretty bad and maybe the dome could do with a clean.
Phil, do you crop the view to a size, or are you limited by resolution? Cropped smaller would you loose a bit of the 'fishbowl' look?
Fun and worthy nonetheless. I'm going to use a go pro when I'm away this time for the first time ever. A christmas present from the brother a couple of years ago, so I'll try and get a few runs, but I'm not spending my hole trip hanging off a selfie pole......
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Helmet stuff makes me feel sick - I guess you can mount a camera there, and lots of skier people have brackets on their helmets. Not really for me. If you want the "looking forward" shot you can easily crop that out of a any 360 video.
You can crop out of it, but what there is is what you get. So the 360 degrees is 5.8k, which tells you how many pixels you have. And there's no pro-tune, so the bit rate is not huge. The pole I'm using there is 1.4m, which reduces the "fishbowl effect" on the rider, but you're probably not going to avoid it on the scenery.... but I'm kind of waiting for a day with good light when we're riding trees... which I think will not really have that issue. So far I've plenty of tree riding, but the light hasn't been brilliant for video.
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Looks interesting, had anyone compared it to the Insta 360 ONE X? this is their new model, supposed to have the better stabilization etc.
Want to buy one as a birthday present. To myself
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
@drporat, this seems a good round-up of current 360 cameras.
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Bt was selling the samsung gear 360 for £70
Not brilliant camera but maybe if someone wants to mess around with 360 at entry prices.
Not waterproof rated though
Editing Rylo stuff is tricky as although you can edit on Android or iPhone, their editing program only runs on Apple to date (they claim they'll fix that).
My phone is more powerful than fanboi phones, but it's no match for my Windows machines in terms of performance, tooling, or storage.
That means that for now at least editing is a multi-step process, at least if you want to use the framing capabilities of 360.
The process is roughly:
Back up each day's "take" by taking the micro SD card out of the camera and copying the contents to PC
Later...
Restore each take to the phone for editing there by connecting phone (not camera!) to PC and copying to transfer location.
Delete old contents of Rylo directory, then copy from phone transfer location to Rylo directory with Astro or similar (fiddly).
Restart Rylo App to see the day's videos.
Edit videos, picking point of view and setting way points for that etc.
The "follow this" feature doesn't work well enough to avoid this.
Adjust zoom. Play back to ensure crop is acceptable.
Render videos, which go into the "Movies/Rylo" directory on the phone.
Copy from phone Mobies/Rylo directory to transfer location on phone.
Copy from transfer location back to PC.
Import media into Davinci Resolve or similar and edit it.
Possibly go back and do it again, for secondary copies of one clip or to adjust the framing etc.
I tried using the GoPro and other 360 applications, but could not make them work with this footage.
That doesn't mean it can't be done. Probably rendering Rylo content as a standard 360 video,
then passing it to a third party app would work.
I'd guess that will be the future route, with plugins for Premiere Pro and DaVinci probably supporting that.
Other Notes:
The quality's way less than my 4K GoPro with ProTune (see older videos at Vimeo).
Give it a year or two and I'll have a version capable of delivering 4K when cropped enough not to look fishy, but it's not here yet.
Editing on a mobile phone isn't great - the aspect ratio isn't correct and there's a reason people edit on decent PCs with large screens.
That, plus lack of familiarity with the concept probably meant I made less use of it than I could have.
Every frame is stabilized (although that's not always precisely what you want), but the panning ability I didn't exactly milk.
The sequence starting 0:43 has a rotation in it, which I like and which would be impossible with old technology.
Most of the heli shots are panned a bit.
The tree sequence at the end 1:24 pans up & spins around for fun.
I did actually land the thing at 1:17, honest, but I dipped the camera in the snow so everything went black until it came up again.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
@philwig, nice edit, and the 360 technology is beginning to show its promise for action-cam type activities. The disappearing selfie-stick works a treat for snowboarders!
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
rob@rar wrote:
... The disappearing selfie-stick works a treat for snowboarders!
It does, although you can see the shadow, which I could clone out (you can't usually clone out a traditional GoPro pole because the pole is always covering something hard to clone, like the board).
In one or two places it looks like I'm carrying an ice cream cone, I'm not sure precisely what causes that.
The Rylo pole is red, but all these are with a black pole which it's equally happy to clone out (the black pole is lighter and longer).
There is a slight effect of carrying the pole on the riding.
I have a skier sequence too, but... although the camera man is a great skier we only had one day with poor light for that one, and he didn't have a chance to shoot & review in order to work out what looks best.
We tried a short pole held in one hand along with the ski pole. That's great for close ups, so you get about 2 seconds of footage from it in total.
We also tried my long (1.4m pole) held in one hand, poles in the other, which is where the usable footage came from.
If the skier likes the edit then I'll post that up, but I think skiers have a harder time with this type of camera.
I've no idea what happens if you try a helmet mount. I don't much like that perspective, and you don't really need it as you can pan forwards from a pole mount, if you have the pole already.
If I get bored and no one else knows, I'll try a helmet mount on my bike and see if it makes my head disappear.
I wonder if a pole in the backpack of a skier may work.
I did some "follow cam" stuff with skiers, which did work, and better than with a traditional GoPro in that usage as you don't need to aim the camera at all.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
@philwig, looks great!
I've been looking into getting one of these. Have you heard anything about the timeline for shipping them outside of the US?
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
clarky999 wrote:
@philwig... Have you heard anything about the timeline for shipping them outside of the US?
I haven't - I just got one shipped to a mate over there and then went snowboarding with him.
And of course left the camera where I found it, so as to avoid any issues with customs people.
I think I bought it from them direct, shipped into the US.
You can perhaps order them from B&H who may ship to the UK (they may just not be selling them here, which isn't the same as actively trying to stop people buying them here).
Otherwise there are "repackaging" services in the US who can get around this sort of limitation, albeit at a cost.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
@philwig, thanks, will look into a work around
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
philwig wrote:
clarky999 wrote:
@philwig... Have you heard anything about the timeline for shipping them outside of the US?
I haven't - I just got one shipped to a mate over there and then went snowboarding with him.
And of course left the camera where I found it, so as to avoid any issues with customs people.
I think I bought it from them direct, shipped into the US.
You can perhaps order them from B&H who may ship to the UK (they may just not be selling them here, which isn't the same as actively trying to stop people buying them here).
Otherwise there are "repackaging" services in the US who can get around this sort of limitation, albeit at a cost.
FWIW Rylo recomended to "use a parcel forwading service like Shipito".
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
Looks very interesting...
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
@philwig, can you get a 360 degree video that you can pan around? This is a demo of the gopro I just watched, note how you can drag around the video in 360, which would be pretty awesome from a skiing/boarding run!
@philwig, mmmmm interesting, so you would say better a lot better than the Fusion ?
But reading the editing on PC process seems a bit of a mare, but suppose like everything comes as second nature after a while?
That said tomorrow I'm going to be spending a few hours in downtown Denver
Though luckily I see they don't sell in shops....................
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
kitenski wrote:
... can you get a 360 degree video that you can pan around? This is a demo of the gopro I just watched, note how you can drag around the video in 360, which would be pretty awesome from a skiing/boarding run!
Yes, it will export a 360 video, with pole removed etc. It's not for me, but all these types of camera will do precisely that.
Weathercam wrote:
...so you would say better a lot better than the Fusion ?
But reading the editing on PC process seems a bit of a mare, but suppose like everything comes as second nature after a while?
That said tomorrow I'm going to be spending a few hours in downtown Denver ... luckily I see they don't sell in shops....................
All it takes is a quick delivery to a suitable location.
Fusion or Rylo?
It comes down to personal choice of course - they'll all work. I doubt any are a lot better than any others. My 4K GoPro will blow
all these out of the water, especially in poor light. But there will be a pole and it's harder to get the actual shot you want. My rationale was:
(1) The Fusion has lower specs and is an older device. Originally GoPro sold it badly - they sold the "immersive" thing discussed above, which I think is not where the magic is.
Stick one of these under your drone and you don't have to either stabilize or more importantly aim the camera whilst trying to steer the thing.
Or if you trust "follow me", then you can take care of the framing in post production.
(2) I compared the Fusion reviews.
(3) The form factor of that camera isn't great, where as the Rylo has great industrial design.
(4) GoPro failed to treat the fusion like their cameras (with annual updates), it felt a lot more like the Karma to me.
(5) Cost isn't an issue, but the Rylo price seemed correct. The fusion is a lot of money for an old camera.
The main down side is the workflow which has an obvious extra step, but it's worse than that...
Even with a set of decent SD cards, you're going to run out of card storage space, so you have to back up the cards somewhere.
Although my phone has a lot of storage, a PC is an easier place to stick it all. However in order to do that first stage edit, you need
to move the footage back to the phone. And then back to the PC to the grown-up none-linear-editor. And then if you get the extract
wrong, you need to repeat the process. I'm organised, and this is still a pain to do.
It will be smoother when Rylo have a PC application, although that's still two programs instead of one. A better solution would be a
plugin for the NLE which handles the footage directly. That would make "scrubbing" the stuff much more natural, and editing would
be straight forward. It will come soon enough I'm sure. It's possible other cameras have such things, although I did look earlier and
failed to find anything.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Looks like the end of the road for the Rylo camera:
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
I bought a gopro max last week, got a good black friday deal. Was a bit upset about the lack of windows software, but had a play with the exporter and premiere last week, and got some decent results. Haven't used it for anything exciting yet, but it all seems good.
Looking like some decent surf at the weekend, so I'm going to try to figure out a safe way to mount it on a pole on a surfboard and see what happens
@hang11, I think the new phone/ipad app is meant to be very good for Max editing! I also picked one up, hoping to use it skiing next week
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Interesting - I was wondering what they were going to do next.... the answer is "nothing", then
The Qoocam 8K looks like an interesting next step at $589, but the form factor isn't great for snowboarding and it looks a bit heavy.
More resolution is what I'd upgrade for, hence the GoPro isn't interesting to me.
@hang11, I think the new phone/ipad app is meant to be very good for Max editing! I also picked one up, hoping to use it skiing next week
The phone app is great but I’m getting on a bit and it’s hard to see the screen!
I’ve got an iMac but it’s not latest spec and a bit slow.
Actually found the max exporter app and premiere pretty easy to use with a couple of YouTube tutorials to help on a surface pro
I’ve got a 2m pole and mount that I’m going to stick on the front of a surfboard this weekend. Will only use it on a small day, and could go horribly wrong. But will hopefully get to try it out this weekend.
FAQ
Poster: A snowHead
All it takes is a quick delivery to a suitable location.
