Filming the underside of your boat

[Brian]

....with a pole camera.

I made my own "selfie" pole as I was not convinced by the length of shop-bought ones.
Mine is 1.2m unextended and 2.1 fully extended.
It was dead easy to make (it had to be!) with an old window cleaning pole.
I squashed the head of it and drilled a small hole into which I fitted the Go-Pro twisty-turning thing that makes the camera fit the right way round.
All of my movie cameras fit this mounting so I can swap them around.
Here are some photos of the fitting and pole:

And, for those, anxious to see the results;
http://youtu.be/OIuu3SK9rew

[all_at_sea]

Looks like a great idea mate, those shop brought ones look really flimsy.

Bet you could get some cracking action shots of the boat with that pole!

[BogMonster]

Think you need a lawnmower, not a selfie stick

[1eyedjim]

i thought it was to film whilst underway lol

[SteveHall]

i thought it was going to be under way at 40 knots - now that would be interesting and some serious pole work

[Xk59D]

Done the same with my own gopro. Water resistance on it will break anything that isn't strong.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2BawyFVb-HU

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YVGZ0KZoe0Y

[jonp]

Ive flooded 3 gopro's now, they are almost impossible to hold underwater when the boat is on the plane, even at low speeds of around 8 knots its hard to get smooth footage.

Jon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gppCP2s2EY

[The Black Pig]

Jonp, a very proffesional looking vid I will show that to my fishing 12yr old girl

[jonp]

Originally Posted by The Black Pig

Jonp, a very proffesional looking vid I will show that to my fishing 12yr old girl

My kids love the water, my daughter got her boat licence and Padi scuba ticket at 12.

If you ever get over to this side of the pond we love sharing the experiences and adventures we get up to.

By the way the bottom half of broken fishing rods make very good pole cams and can often be picked up free from tackle stores. Being hollow fibreglass they have the advantage of floating if you seal both ends.

Cheers Jon

[kerny]

Originally Posted by The Black Pig

Jonp, a very proffesional looking vid

Seconded :thumbup:

[Brian]

Wish I could take videos like that, jonp.
Any tips?

[jonp]

The more you do the more you learn from your mistakes. Trying to keep those little cameras steady is the hard bit, one of the best bits of kit I use is the gopro jaws http://shop.gopro.com/APAC/mounts/ja...ACMPM-001.html. This will grab onto almost anything meaning you can grab lots of different angles.

If hand or pole holding try to get 4-5 seconds of as steady footage as you can, this may take much longer to get but when you think you have that then move to a different angle. If you look at almost any tv show or add and start counting how long each clip is before the angle is changed you will note that 4 secs is often the max.

If you have dolphins etc riding the waves let them play around the boat at a reasonable speed, have the camera ready to plunge in when you drop the speed down. The dolphins will stay close for a short time before you need to get them interested again (more speed).

I personally think by changing angles and keeping the video short it makes them more interesting than just watching a constant run of footage.

I only use the basic imovie on a mac to edit, similar editing software is normally free on most pc's. imovie has several short trailers you can drop a few seconds of video into such as the one Ive already posted.

Maybe we should start a thread on filming tips and ideas

Jon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9ulDLcUhYw