GoPro Suction Cup Mount Review

So today I received the suction cup I ordered last week. The packaging was good. In the box there were a GoPro suction cup with long arm attached, it also comes with a shorter arm, in addition to some extensions for angles. So I opened it and I was excited to go and test it. I took it for a test and it did more that what I was expecting. You feel the quality of the plastic by holding it, it is really heavy. 0.7 pounds might not sound much, but for small plastic item it is. The suction is so good that I was afraid to break it while trying to remove it from the glass. After all it is rated at 150+ mph on cars and 200+ mph for planes. So I mounted it inside the car just below the rear view mirror and started rolling. I went from Dubai to the end of Sharjah city, to the University of Sharjah and American University of Sharjah and then went back. It did pretty good. One down side is that you hear a lot of road noise, the tyres moving on the tarmac. I think this is because I was using the waterproof housing not te skeleton housing. Other than that, it was excellent.

I'll be posting the video soon, feel free to subscribe to my channel to get the latest videos.

I recommend this for everyone who owns a GoPro because it sticks to everything. Cars, motorbikes, boats, planes, I even tried to stick it on a wall, wood, steel and it was fixed to them. It will stick to pretty much every clean, smooth surface. It also comes of easily when you release the vacuum by releasing the lever.

If you like to order it from Amazon feel free to click on the left to buy it directly.

GoPro Underwater update

So finally I uploaded the video. You can check it above. It took a fair amount of time mostly on the music. The original clip was 7 minutes long. This video is approximately 3 minutes. I cut down the parts where there was nothing exciting. I also enhanced the colors of the video and the temperature. I added some transitions. Finally we come to the music. My third video I uploaded to youtube,  which was about Dubai sunset, made me think again about including music in the videos. When I uploaded it, a message from youtube was sent to me informing me that 2 companies have a claim dispute over the music in the video. So my video might come down. The process takes weeks depending on the company and how active it is on YouTube. Finally couple of weeks later, they released my video and now I am free to do whatever I want with it. Although my first video contained music too, but I think it depends on which music you choose. Just to make it clear, you cant use any music you want unless you have the necessary copyrights to do so (ex: Royalty Free music, ...). So I decided to try my luck with the underwater video. Because the video was long, I included more than one piece of music. I uploaded them and I was surprised that no copyright claims were there. That made me feel comfortable about putting music in my videos and worry no more. Maybe the claim from the Dubai Sunset was wrong or by mistake.

So why don't you check both videos and subscribe to my channel. I'll be adding more posts soon :)

January 10, 2013

Nothing major happened as usual. I shot a lot of aviation footage. I finished a video and uploaded it, you can check it out on my youtube channel. I spent most of the day either spotting planes or outside the house.

I was unlucky in some of the footage that I took, a sandstorm hit Dubai and the visibility was low. But thank god at midnight it rained and cleared all the weather from dust and sand.

Because I'm not doing anything major everyday, as I expected I would do, I'm removing the daily blog about what I've been doing that day and replace it by a weekly one. That way I'll have at least something to say not nothing.

January 9, 2012

Today was cloudy in Dubai, so I decided to take a timelapse video of the sky. I also got the idea of opening a new channel and start making videos of aviation, because I live next to the airport and planes landing and taking-off are fully visible( just after they leave or arrive to the airport) the airport is not visible, but even if it was, here it is illegal to photograph or take a video of the outside of the airport.

Today Ill try to process and edit some videos before I get busy, because the vacation is almost over. I have a lot of footage but I'm just lazy to do the process part.

January 8, 2013

As usual nothing that exciting. I though of some new ideas that need a lot of works and days. They also need a space that will be untouched for days. Thats why decided to postpone them a bit and search for a good place. I am also a bit busy now thats why I'm not posting a lot in the blog, and that's why this post was late.

Timelapse tips - what you need

We've all probably seen a time-lapse video, at first we were excited and amazed how it works. For those who don't know what timelapse video is, it is a video or a group of photos that when played, it is played at faster speed.  That is that you see things moving faster than what our eyes normally see. If you seen my youtube channel, you will find few timelapse videos. I'll talk more about it, in details, in the future.

To properly make a timelapse videos you will need few items.

• Camera. Of course this does not need mentioning as it is an essential part of every photo or video.
• Intervalometer. This is a device that automatically takes a photo every preset interval of time. You don't want to stand there for hours taking a photo every 5 seconds, because first of all the video, when played, might look sort of weird, the video will not be consistent. Some part of the video might be a bit slow while the other a bit fast, no one is perfect and you can't guarantee you take a photo at exactly the interval you want. Another reason is that you dont want to stay hours just taking a photo of the same seen, you will get tired and bored. Other options: if you dont have intervalometer you can use the software that came with the camera (must be connected to a computer). Most of them include a software which allows you to control the camera and there is an option of taking a photo every predetermined interval of time. For Canon it is EOS utilities, for Nikon it is Nikon SDK. If you have different make check your owners manual or the supplied softwares. Also most modern cameras, even DSLR's, come with built-in intervalometer. This is good because you dont need extra accessories hanging from your camera, or you dont need the camera to be connected to a computer.
• Tripod. You need a tripod to make timelapse videos. If you dont have one with you, then you need to find a good and safe way to make sure the camera doesn't move when taking the photo. You don't want your video to look shaky. Make sure that each picture taken is the same as the previous one not pointing to a different position. There is an exception for that. If you have automated tripod head then you can use it to create a panning timelapse video. This create a cool effect, but you need to make sure that the tripod is moving really slowly and consistently (so dont use your hand to rotate it around). There are also many DIY's that explain how to convert simple rotating object to act like an automated tripod mount, but these usually work with small, light cameras. (an example of a DIY is an egg timer, just set the time for like an hour and fix the camera to it, depending on the model the camera will rotate a certain angle).

Optional

• AC power adapter. This highly recommended if you want to shoot for long hours. You will get frustrated from removing the battery, throw them in the charger and then switch turns with the other battery and repeating again and again and again. AC power adapter will allow you to plug the camera to the wall socket and never worry about keep on charging the batteries or batteries dying and losing all your progress.
• Neutral Density filters. These types of lenses dont effect your quality or color of your photo, it just darkens the photo so you can get slower shutter speeds during the day. Slower shutter speed means more motion blur which will make the moving objects in the video look smoother. Another method is to use some softwares that allow you to add motion blur. This requires you to speed up the video by certain amount, example 2x, or triple. 
• High capacity memory cards. You dont want to see that your memory ran out of space when you though that all this time the camera was taking photos.
• Calculation. Do your calculations about what time interval you want, how long you are going to shoot, what is the fps of the video... All these help you by not wasting a lot of battery juice, space on memory, also when doing the video, less photos mean that the video will be small in size and it is faster to render.

January 7, 2013

So nothing major happened today, just laziness. So this blog will be short.

I did get some ideas for lessons I'll do soon, probably one tomorrow. I posted a few tips on night photography that I will be expanding soon and probably move to a separate page if it was expanded good enough. I also tried adding some widgets to social websites like facebook and twitter but failed. It is not simple as i expected but ill do it soon.

I think thats it. Just sitting there thinking about ideas to help you.
If you have any questions or ideas feel free to email me or comment to this post.

Night Photography

As cameras and lenses are becoming advanced year by year, or I should rather say month by month, night photography is becoming easier and easier. Years ago it was a hard job to get a good night photo, you need to keep the camera taking the photos for minutes or even hours and think how frustrating that could be if the image was blurry or not properly exposed. Now new cameras have huge capabilities in dealing with low light situations. Huge aperture, high ISO capabilities and low noise...
In some cases even low profile cameras can get a night shot that is good, and probably most of them shoot a descent photo.

It is really hard to talk about night photography because it is extremely wide subject and people get creative with it, but we can talk about what you need and tips on photographing at night.

• Use DSLR. It is best to shoot night photography with a DSLR, it gives you more possibilities than a point-and-shoot camera or other similar cameras.
• Use a high-quality lens. It is important to use a good lens that has a wide aperture to capture the most light out of the scene. It is also good if it has an image stabiliser so that you can use slower shutter speed. People prefer, usually, a wide-angle lens when doing a night photography. This is a personal preference, it also depends on what you are shooting
• Use Tripod.  If possible, always use a tripod when taking a photo at night, this will prevent blurry pictures caused from camera shake, it also allows you to use extremely slow shutter speeds.
• Flash light. Invest in some high quality flashes and use them to light a close dark scene. Avoid using the pop-up flash on your camera because in most cases it will ruin the photo. When using the flash try different angles and see which one looks best. If the object is so close to you, use a diffuser to get soft light and smooth shadow.
• Use lens hood. You might ask why use lens hood in the dark, or where there is no sun. Simple, this is to avoid light from outside the frame (picture you are taking) from entering to the camera sensor. If you are taking long exposure photos and there is a light source near you, this might ruin the photo or you might see lens flare in the picture.
• Use remote. Whether it is connected directly to the camera or a wireless remote, it is good to use one to avoid handshake, even when its mounted on a tripod. When you press the shutter button the camera will shake, and if no remote is used you will see a blurry photo. If you dont have a remote you can use a self-timer (if equipped) in the camera. When you press the button a timer will go off and the photo will be taken after a certain interval of time (usually 2 seconds).

Ill be adding more tips soon. I'll probably even move it to another page and keep expanding it. If you have any suggestions, additions, comments, or questions feel free to comment or email me.

January 6, 2013

Welcome to the first blog about my daily activities and projects. Today, nothing exciting happened, I was looking for ideas to make videos with no luck. I decided to do a video on my other youtube channel MicrosoftFlightHD about Dubai with FlyTampa Dubai Rebooted scenery. Everything was working fine but then the simulator crashed, and I was tired after playing and recording for hours. So I decided to postpone it to a future date. For my main channel I had few videos that I'm working on uploading them. I uploaded a new timelapse video of Al Mamzar beach. Few coming soon.

Back to the blog. I am thinking of making a tutorial on how to make timelapse videos and what equipment you need. I might do this today. If you have any ideas or questions you want me to do and explain please comment below or email me.

Thats pretty much it for now. More daily blogs on my progress are coming soon.

Daily post of what I did

So I decided to keep you updated guys to what I'm doing daily. This will let you know my future projects I'm working on and a glance of my personal life. Sorry for the short post, it is more like an announcement rather than a post.

Thanks for reading, please feel free to comment or email me. More stuff coming up.

New Gear in the next few weeks

So for the last couple weeks I have been searching for a suction cup mount for the GoPro also an AC power adapter for my Canon 7D. It seems that there are non in UAE. I searched several malls with no luck. I though the best thing is to go online and order it, I have an account in Aramex Shop&Ship so that made it easy to get what I want from Amazon. I ended up ordering a GoPro Suction Cup Mount, GoPro tripod mount, and finally an AC Power Adapter for 7D. 

So my plans are to use the suction cup mount to mount the GoPro HERO 3 on my car and take footage while driving. Especially to shoot what's happening on the roads because you might never know when something really cool or really, really wrong happens. I was amazed when I read about the capabilities of this mount. It can withstand speeds of more than 150 mph (thats 240+ km/h for those using metric system), although in Dubai, where I live, it is almost impossible to reach that speed with all the speed cameras separated by few hundred meters from each other. Still worth giving it a shot on highways. Moving on to the next item, the Tripod mount. It was really something I should've invested in since the begging, when I first bought the GoPro. Sometimes when using the GoPro Hero 3 to shoot time-lapse  I can't find a place high enough or good enough to stick the quick release to it. I found myself wrapping the camera in wires and attaching it to a tripod. The tripod mount should make this situation easier and more stable. Finally the AC power adapter. If you tried doing time-lapse videos with a DSLR during the night or using extreme settings you'll find the batteries running out of juice pretty quickly. This what happened to me when I was taking the photos of the video "Dubai in 24 hours - Timelapse".

Thank god I had a battery grip. As I found my self changing from one battery to the other trying to charge them and prevent the camera from dying. Actually a day before this video was taken, the camera died early morning, and the batteries needed around 3~4 hours to charge, this made me stop it and start over again. Now that I ordered the AC Power adapter, I shall worry no more. Just plug it in when I'm near an AC power source and then position the camera somewhere and forget it for a while and come back later to check on it. This will save a lot of time, probably I'll use this time writing blogs on the newest updates.

I added a new form, you can now follow my blog either by RSS feeds or by putting your email on the bottom right.

If you are interested in buying the accessories, here they are as listed on Amazon, I added the original AC Adapter from Canon if you are interested.

CineForm Studio tutorial in less than 5 minutes

As promised, i'll do a fast tutorial on how to start using the CineForm Studio. Open the download page.

This page will pop up, just sroll down till the end.

When you reach the end you will find a small form, fill in the information required and select your operating system. The click "Submit" button.

 You will be redirected to another page, click the "Download Cineform" button.

After you complete the download, and installed it you will find it on your desktop or dock.  

When you open it it will look something like this.

 Lets start by importing some new pictures (or a video). Click on "IMPORT NEW FILES" and select the folder where the pictures are located. I recommend you move the pictures you want to make a video out of them to a new folder, this way they are organised and you dont have other unrelated pictures popping up in the video.

When you are done you can see that there are few descriptions that show up. You have the name of the video (by default it is the first photo in the folder). You then see that this video is 2D. It also shows the duration of the video, the frames per second, and the resolution (the same resolution as the pictures).

Select the clip you want to continue using then click on the bottom of the software the button that says "Advanced Settings". Here you choose the settings of your video. It is better to lower your video quality if you used high photo resolution. Try something frequently used, like 1080p or 720p. In this example I choose 720p. Then choose your FPS. If you want a smooth clip, 24 or 30 FPS are more than enough, and they are the most common FPS. I don't use the "SPEEDUP" function, but if you want give it a shot, click on the check box and choose how many times you want to speed it up. For quality I recommend to use high quality for best results especially if you want to further process the video using other editing softwares, like Final Cut Pro or Sony Vegas.

When you are done click on "ADD CLIP TO CONVERSION LIST", and then hit "CONVERT". You will notice that your video started to convert, and the timeline will start filling up. 

After you complete the conversion, continue on to step 2: Editing. Not much will change, except for the right side where a new editing tools will appear allowing you to manipulate and change different settings of the video. You can increase exposure, change temperature, change the framing, choose 3D settings, etc. 

When you are done, go to file and then export to ".mov".

Although many of you know how to use it, but I decided to put a tutorial because there are few tutorials and some might need help with it. Hope you found it easy and beneficial.

Dont forget to comment or if you want email me. Suggestions are welcomed.

GoPro Underwater

Today morning I decided to test the underwater capability of the GoPro Hero 3 black-edition. I went a bit after sunrise to Al Mamzar beach in Dubai. The weather was cool and the water was calm. I submerged the GoPro under water randomly trying to get different angles so if one didn't work the other would definitely do the job. This is because I dont want to face the same problem when I tried shooting the video above the water, there was a pole anchored infront of me. This was my fault not noticing it.  I know there is an app for your iOS or Android devices, but it require WiFi connection which sucks the juice out of the battery really quickly, and GoPro cameras are well known with their low battery life.

Back to our topic, I put the camera under the salty water and captured a few takes each time rotating the camera to a different direction. I liked how it came out to be. The water was calm so it was pretty clear for few meters, although not crystal clear as you see in advertisements, this is probably because it is a lake so water pollution might be effecting the quality. Many creatures were swimming or walking on the bottom of the lake, most noticeable are Mollusks wandering around with their shells, and in a clip I managed to capture a Star Fish which seemed to be static from above the water, but when I saw the playback it was actually moving.

The GoPro housing successfully managed to protect the camera inside from the water. Not a single drop managed to get inside. This opened a huge door towards future opportunities to film under water and discover new world. I know there are many videos on the web that shows footage underwater from a GoPro, but you are not satisfied unless you tried it yourself.

I'll add a new video soon, make sure to check my channel by clicking the "My YouTube Channel" tab above. Feel free to comment and email me.

CineForm Studio

My topic today is about CineForm Studio from GoPro. I found out that this simple software is amazing for making time-lapse videos. Few clicks here and there and you have made yourself a video. What's great about it is that it is free and its not limited to GoPro cameras, I tried it on my 7D and it works great. Unlike other video editing software, I found this one to be great with quality. It doesn't try to lower or destroy the resolution and image quality. It also gives you many options for your video, you can choose the resolution of your video, for example 480p, 1080p or even 4K. Yes, what you saw is right, this simple software is capable of making 4K videos. It also allow you to choose the frames per second "FPS" for your movie. For the editing part it performs really well for a free software. You have many options to control and manipulate. You can even do a 3d video and choose whether the video will work on passive or active 3d display. What is good about it is that you can export the video either .mp4, or codec 422. This is good if you want to further process the videos on other more professional softwares like Final Cut Pro or Sony Vegas. 

I really recommend that you try it, its free and works great. It works with photos and movies.

If you want to try it:

System Requirments

Download

I'll post a quick tutorial soon, although I know that many won't be needing it.

You Tube

Thanks for checking my blogs. Ill be adding more posts soon.
For now I wanted to tell you that I'm doing videos and posting them on You Tube. Feel free to check them out and post comments: AYKProductions, https://www.youtube.com/user/AYKProductions.

If you have any suggestions please comment on this post.

The start

Thank you for checking my blog. I'll be posting photography-related tutorials and might include a bit more outside the photographic world. Don't forget to keep checking as I'll be adding more stuff all the time. Hope you enjoy and if you have any suggestions please leave them below :) .