A new camera mount arrived yesterday so I had to go try it out. This is an unedited video of a trip through one of the local canyons.

Nice product Mike.
Its been way too long since I haunted Elko County so I can't place the area. There is still water!
I have questions about your gear but I will ask you in person. See you tomorrow night.
Chance

Chance, yes we are looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow, too. See you there!

Mike

Great video, even without editing. It is the aviation equivalent of a motorcycle carving along a mountain road with lots of switchbacks. Looked like a lot of fun to fly.

Great video what were your camera settings to elimate prop blur ? What kind of camera ?

I kept tilting my head to one side or the other. Haha! Good video.

Flyhound and Crzy, thanks and yes, it is a blast to fly that section. One of SE6601KF's (when he lived here) and my winter past times was to play follow the leader through some some of the hills and canyons; we always had a blast doing that!

182Stol, the camera is a Canon S100 IS. More info on it can be found here http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/recommended-cameras.htm#pocket

Nothing special was done beyond following the recommended camera settings in the above link. It has an internal ND filter option, but I haven't used that yet so can't comment on it. I'd really like to have a GoPro and the rumor mill suggests a Hero 4 will be released soon so I'm waiting to see how those perform before going to an action camera. For now, this little canon seems to work fine albeit without a extra-wide angle view.

I'm surprised as anyone that the prop isn't visible as this is a CMOS camera.

My first Husky GoPro attempt, strut mounted Hero 3.

Starts going south over Alpine County airport than a left descending turn into the canyon. Mid afternoon, so not smooth enough to allow slow enough to get really low to follow all the twisties, but you'll get the idea - - an E-ticket with a number of landable spots and the occasional bald eagle. There's no audio track but the slipstream, so turn the sound down and make airplane noises . . .



bumper

Bumper,

Very nice! That looks like beautiful country, too. The image quality from the GoPro looks fantastic. Do you land any of the gravel bars or spots along the river banks? Some look very tempting based on your video.

In some video taken with the Canon S100 yesterday, some prop artifacts exist. The only differences were a higher RPM and less light due to evening and clouds in the canyon video. So if anyone is considering that camera, be aware it does a good job of reducing prop artifacts, but may not do it in all cases. It has some sort of ND filter setting so ill try that and report back.

Great sky, Blackrock!

Both real good vids, but there is nothing like being in the pilot seat!

lc


Edit/addition-to rephrased: Flying "porn" is fun to watch-living it is SOoo much better...

blackrock wrote: It has some sort of ND filter setting so ill try that and report back.

I find this funny. The reason we use neutral density filters for GoPros and the like is to force the camera to use a slower scan rate ("shutter speed") which doesn't capture the prop quickly enough to allow it to appear in the exposure. If the GoPro had manual exposure settings, we could just dial in the slower "shutter speed" until the prop blurs out of visibility.

There's also the concept of sensitivity with the sensor. Originating with film sensitivity properties, cameras still use the ISO spec to adjust your "film" aka the sensor to react to light with a certain speed. The aperture and shutter speed and then set according. Neutral density filters are mainly used when a wider aperture or slower shutter speed is desired, but too much light is available for correct exposure. The ND filter reduces the light that gets to the lens.

Perhaps your camera is altering one of these parameters of the exposure, and calling it a ND filter? Maybe it just has manual controls mode? There are only a few ways to get the same result with photography and videography.

Nice video Mike. Looks like a fun way to spend the evening. It was great meeting you at the fly-in last week... I love your plane and the other 2 Bearhawks. We got stormed in Saturday eve and spent the night at the Marriott, wish'd we could have visited more-

I did get to fly left seat in the Kodiak on the way home and I still haven't touched the ground!!!

Likewise STL, it was good to meet you. If I'd known you were still around, we could have gone for a flight. Sounds pretty sweet flying the Kodiak! What an amazing plane.

Zzz wrote:Perhaps your camera is altering one of these parameters of the exposure, and calling it a ND filter? Maybe it just has manual controls mode? There are only a few ways to get the same result with photography and videography.

The ND algorithm in most digital cams simply attenuates the luminance value of the pixels. They can do this on the fly to simulate ND filters of various sorts...uniform, radial, horizontal gradients, etc. The idea is to modify the histogram to something less saturated without getting rid of information from the pixel wells that are starved for photons. More expensive focal plane arrays actually modify the pixel read out circuit settings (gain stages, levels) to accomplish the same thing while preserving the full dynamic range of each pixel.

The bottom line is that a digital ND can be used to make a more pleasing, less blotchy picture.

lesuther wrote:
The ND algorithm in most digital cams simply attenuates the luminance value of the pixels. They can do this on the fly to simulate ND filters of various sorts...uniform, radial, horizontal gradients, etc. The idea is to modify the histogram to something less saturated without getting rid of information from the pixel wells that are starved for photons. More expensive focal plane arrays actually modify the pixel read out circuit settings (gain stages, levels) to accomplish the same thing while preserving the full dynamic range of each pixel.

The bottom line is that a digital ND can be used to make a more pleasing, less blotchy picture.

I'll post video clips with ND filter modes on and off as soon as Vemo finishes processing them. It does eliminate prop artifacts so that is good news. I'm not sure how they made it work, but it does...

lesuther wrote:

Zzz wrote:Perhaps your camera is altering one of these parameters of the exposure, and calling it a ND filter? Maybe it just has manual controls mode? There are only a few ways to get the same result with photography and videography.

The ND algorithm in most digital cams simply attenuates the luminance value of the pixels. They can do this on the fly to simulate ND filters of various sorts...uniform, radial, horizontal gradients, etc. The idea is to modify the histogram to something less saturated without getting rid of information from the pixel wells that are starved for photons. More expensive focal plane arrays actually modify the pixel read out circuit settings (gain stages, levels) to accomplish the same thing while preserving the full dynamic range of each pixel.

The bottom line is that a digital ND can be used to make a more pleasing, less blotchy picture.

Interesting, almost like logarithmic smoothing? Make sense though, and is a much more conventional use of the tool than propellers.

So to try out the ND filtering mode on Canon's S100 camera, I shot 2 short clips. The first is with the ND mode off and the second with it on. As you can see, there is a significant reduction in propeller artifacts when the ND filter mode is on. Now, I just need to remove the V-brace glare!


ND Mode Off


ND Mode On

I used some black polyurethane tape (McMaster-Carr on-line) on the forward portion of the V-brace tubes on my Husky. Works nicely and seems to be impervious to the typical tape issues in the heat and UV, As an aside, I use the same tape on the leading edge of my horizontal stab to help prevent stone nicks.

On that earlier video I posted of the E. Fork of the Carson River. Yes, the water is low and there are several landable spots. When the water is high in the spring thaw, there are only two I'll land on, one is where I made the right turn and did a low pass over a dirt road. There's 400' landable there, which is comfortable and doesn't require heavy braking (about 5,000' MSL). The second is really two gravel bars, or usually is. First is short and I ski between the two and roll out on the second. Narrow, and trees on one side, so not excessive wing clearance.

bumper

I don't know crap about cameras and settings and stuff, but I know good videos when I see them, and both of those are definitely good!

Winding back and forth in the canyons reminds me of a trip back from Casper many years ago. Several of us instructors had flown up there in the company T210 for some reason. I was the pilot flying on the return flight, and someone suggested I zig-zag down the North Platte river southwest of Casper. Of course we were flying way too fast to do it down low, but I tried to keep up with it well above the terrain, with rapid changes back and forth from 60 degree bank left to 60 degree bank right. All of a sudden, one of the guys in the back seat screamed as if in pain, "I can't see, I can't see!" Thinking the G forces were getting to him, I leveled off and asked what was wrong. "Oh nothing, it's just the sun glinting off the back of your head."

Thanks for the videos, guys!

Cary