These FAQ's will be mostly useful for CamRig system owners.
After having shot a few 1 hour movies with your KiteCam system, you might be wondering what to do with these huge 4GB files taking so much space on your hard-drive, barely watchable, and with often only a few minutes or seconds of interesting action here and there.
If you are not comfortable with video editing and not equipped for it, I would recommend getting QuickTime Pro ($30 for the upgrade).
This tool is great for basic digital video manipulation, conversion and editing with one single track. Powerful, yet intuitive and simple to use.
When you upgrade the basic free Quicktime to the Pro version, you get many extra features, including 2 additional cursors in the timeline to define range of your video clip.
Shortening your 1 hour movie down to its most interesting minutes or seconds becomes easy and quick.
- Select a continuous portion of unwanted video (hit [i] for the in point, [o] for the out point)
- Cut it out. (Ctrl + X)
As the length of your movie reduces, the positioning of the cursors on the timeline becomes easier and more precise.
Tip1: When you start with a large file (1 hour long), you can already get more precision in the timeline by maximizing your QuickTime window.
Tip2: You can mark the in and out points from the main cursor by hitting the Hotkeys [i] and [o]. Then, [Ctrl+X] to delete. (Check QuickTime Help page)
When you are done trimming down your movie to the duration you want, only keeping its best moments, save it (Save As.. a self contained movie).
Combining movies together : If you want to insert another movie file in your current one, position the cursor where you want the other movie to start, drag and drop it in your QuickTime Pro window.
Of course, if you have access to other editing programs, feel free to use whatever you are comfortable with.
Several stabilization programs are available.
They are mostly intended to get rid of hand-shake, and they are better for kitecam stabilization than systems with tracking points.
- SteadyHand , pretty affordable little software, very easy to use and does a decent stabilization for such a basic interface. (Windows only)
- DeShaker is a plugin for VirtualDub, both are Free, giving good results, but require some reading and practice before being able to use them correctly. (Windows only)
- iStabilize , pretty affordable little software, I have not tried it yet but I have seen decent result. (Mac only)
- SteadyMove and Furnace are plugin's for Adobe Premiere and/or After Effects (more professional, more expensive, more complicated, but I'm not sure they are better.. I tried Furnace and my computer kept slowing down)
- Some cheaper editing programs come with stabilizer tools, like PowerDirector or Ulead Video Studio (I have not tried them yet.) (Windows)
Tutorial
Learn how to rotate and stabilize your video here.
- Pentax Optio W10 / W20 vs W30
In 2005-2006, Pentax came up with the Optio W10 and the W20, both very similar, same body, same functionality. The main difference was 6.1 Mega Pixels for the W10, 7.1 MP for the W20.
In March 2007, they released the W30 : the body has slightly changed, it is still 7.1MP, but it can go twice deeper underwater (3m). They also added a few options, like interval video shooting, (useless for a kitecam) and a blocker for movie files to max their size at 4Gb, otherwise they would get corrupted (see 8GB SDHC card note).
- Comparing Pentax Optio W10, W20, W30 and W60
Here are some of the many features that can be compared between the 4 Pentax waterproof cameras.
The nice improvements of the W60 are higher resolutions in photos and videos, and a wider angle.
One first big downside is a shorter length for video movies (32 minutes).
| Models |
W10 |
W20 |
W30 |
W60 |
| Year |
2005 |
2006 |
2007 |
2008 |
| Photo Resolution |
6.1 mp |
7.1 mp |
7.1 mp |
10 mp |
| Video Resolution |
640 x 480, 30fps |
640 x 480, 30fps
1240 x 720, 15 fps (720p HD)
|
| Max video file size |
4 Gb = 1 hour |
2Gb = 32 minutes |
| Max card size |
4Gb SD card |
SD and SDHC cards, any size
(up to 16 Gb in 2008) |
| Video format |
.mov (H264 codec) |
.avi (mpg) |
| Wide angle |
38mm
Too narrow for helmet cam. |
28mm
Nice for helmet cam or line cam |
| Battery insert orientation |
Two rounded edges give some clue for proper orientation. |
Two rounded edges prevent mistake efficiently. |
Can be inserted upside down by accident too easily. Annoying. |
- Pentax W60, Pros and Cons
After having played with the new W60 for a while and talked about it with other owners, I have more comments to make (September 2008) :
W60, Pros :
- HD 720p. It's big : 3 x more pixels than 640x480 (but 15fps instead of 30 fps, so it's actually only 1.5 more pixels over the same amount of time).
- Wide angle (although useless for kitcam, but good for helmet cam, line cam, board cam and such)
- 10 Megapixel photos (but is it really 10 megapixels or just a smaller resolution that has been blown up? Not sure...)
- The LCD monitor is big and the brightest I've ever seen on such a small camera, convenient in sunny condition.
W60, Cons :
- Only 32 minutes max for video movies (instead of 1 hour for W10/20/30).
- Video quality not as good as previous versions : the W10/20/30 used to generate QuickTime movie files (.mov, codec H264) with decent image quality. For the W60, it seems that Pentax has changed to .AVI movie files (Codec : Motion Jpeg) in order to accomodate the HD720p resolution. The result is ugly vertical purple lines bleeding from bright spots when your image is too contrasted and over-exposed. Same thing in 640x480.
Fortunately this does not happen with photos, which makes think that the codec is responsible for these bad artefacts.
Also these bright spots don't happen too often in a kite-cam situation, since the camera is mostly looking down instead of directly toward the sun.
- HD720p is only 15fps (instead of 30fps) : this makes fast pace action shots look quite jerky, not ideal for kite cam videos which tend to move a lot and fast.
- HD format is 16/9, much wider that 4/3 for 640x480 format, which was closer to the ideal square format that you would want if you'd have to apply a lot of rotation in post-prod for stabilization. This happens mostly for kite-cam videos of intense wave riding, where the kitesurfer swings its kite left and right all the time.
Also when used as a helmet cam or line cam, this wide 16/9 format makes you lose some of the benefits of the wide angle on top and bottom of the image.
- Sound is terrible on the W60 (at least mine), but this is not important for kite-cam.
- Price : well, now the older Pentax models (W10/20/30) are cheaper than this new W60, but more difficult to find too.
As you can see, I find more Cons than Pros for this W60 unfortunately (but some of them don't matter much for a kitecam usage).
That does not make this camera a bad one, but it's disappointing to have lost some of the overall quality of the previous models, for the only benefit of HD720p that can only play at 15fps.
So at this time (September 2008), I think the Pentax W10/20/30 are still good values.
- CamRig for Olympus cameras?
The Olympus SW series is the other waterproof compact camera available on the market.
Unfortunately, at this point there is no CamRig pouch that fits the Olympus models.
The main reasons for this choice are :
1)
the interval shooting feature is missing on the Olympus, which makes it impossible to take aerial photos. You can only take video, which is very limitating.
2) the location of the lens on the Olympus camera makes the rig difficult to design.
- Is the photo of the Shark for real?
The rider is real. The shark is real.
Both of them together in the same picture is what happened during a long and boring winter with not enough wind.
- How do you attach the camera to the line (bar)?
This image has been shot with a CamRig housing attached to the line just above the chicken loop.
The CamRig housing is mounted onto a structure (LineCam) built with 2 hangers, 1 badminton racket, a plastic dust shovel and Velcro straps.
It has been designed to be attached to a Cabrinha bar with poolies, where the outside lines join the central lines about 1 meter away from the bar, forming a triangle.
7 points of attachment secure the LineCam to the Cabrinha lines with Velcro straps.
The horizontal rotation of the camera is controled directly by the bar.
A Wide Angle camera lens has been mounted on the CamRig to compensate the short distance to the rider.
The plastic dust shovel has been carefully choosen with a stick wide enough to match the badminton racket handle diameter.
Its bottom has been cut to fit the dimensions of the CamRig housing and holes have been added to insert Velcro straps.
