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Still learning stuff

The experimenting, the failing and the trying again cycle continues with HD video.

After a detailed conversation with Daniel the other day, and some sidebar information from Allister, I’ve switched the camera to 720p and put the light-sensitivity settings to ‘auto’.

The day for the latest experiment (today!) was incredibly bright which was helpful; being such a well-lit day put the auto light-sensitivity to a full-on test.

The camera was mounted on a short tripod set on the passenger seat and secured by a seatbelt.

I had the tripod head raised 7 inches higher than last time and angled downwards slightly. These two changes removed the dashboard from the field of vision.

Unfortunately it is now noticeable that I need to change the left-to-right angle, the left-side could do with dropping down slightly. Or the right-side could be raised, obv.

Despite painstakingly cleaning the inside and outside of the windscreen, the qualitative demands of 720p HD still show visual flaws in certain shades of light.

Bum.

However, using 720p delivers a much higher quality video product than the non-HD setting that I used for the previous tests.

An unexpected side-effect of the video format upgrade is that the awful state of some of the roads is visually apparent, rather than ride apparent which is what, as car passengers, we normally experience!

Anyway, if you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the link: 720p video experiment.

6 thoughts on “Still learning stuff”

  1. Lovely visuals.. a beautiful journey (on a sunshiny day – most important!)

    I wonder if the camber of the road has a bearing on the left-right tilt.. it was barely noticeable when you were driving along.

    Ooh.. love the shot at 6m10s when the vintage car came over the bridge – a real highlight!

    If I have any other comment it’s that there’s the occasional reflection of the dashboard on the right.. perhaps this could be avoided by putting the camera lens closer to the window with some cowling? Or would that just be an annoyance? 😀

    Thanks for sharing – and for an enjoyable indoor car ride!

  2. It certainly looks sharper than your last attempt, methinks. Pretty good.

    Despite your claims for cleaning the windscreen, I thought I could see a couple of smudges. Then I realised it was on my monitor, where I sneezed earlier.

    What’s this all about, anyway? You setting up a rival to Google’s Street Car?

  3. That was a very relaxing trip. I’ll have to try something similar here in Italia. Relaxing probably isn’t the word, though.

    I saw several people obeying traffic laws – something I haven’t seen in five months.

    I was intrigued by the antique motorcar that crossed the bridge just before you. Time for stop motion.

  5. Cheers for your thoughts James. It could be camber responsible for the tilt. I shall carry out more (and shorter, I will confess I forgot the camera was running on that one!) experiments over the next week or so as the light changes to Winter. Considering the various ways of blocking the reflection. That was phase 2. More mobile will be phase 3. Phase 4 will be shooting indoors.

    Masher, sneezed on the screen? Eeew. No, nothing like google’s mobile exploits. But there is a totally cunning plan that these experiments are leading up to. Would you be interested in joining in?

    Annie, I’m not a geek! I’ve barely started to learn the video-making language. It’s all code you know. I hardly understand what I’m talking about. ‘Bleached’, ‘seeking’, ‘motion-sensitivity’… It’s all geek to me to. Mostly. 🙂

    Bulldog, a trip through the Italian road infrastructure would be nice. I wish we’d had this setup when we were over in Tuscany last year, that would have been brilliant. Re the car: I did think it was an Austin 10, but freeze-frame proves otherwise. I have written to a classic car club with a snapshot of it and hope to have an answer to the question ‘what is it’ soon-ish.

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