Recording a long distance drive

Jaystation

Jaystation

Jaystation

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Hey,

I wasn't sure whether to post this here or the Camera forum, but I picked here as I figured someone will have done it before.

Due to a few work things going on, the misses and I are going to drive the new Aston Martin Vanquish Volante, up the West Coast of the US next month. We're taking 10 days to drive from LA up to Seattle, stopping to see friends for a couple of days, and then back down to LA again. We'll most likely be stopping at SF and Portland on the way.

My question is this - I want to set up a camera operation to record the ride there and back. I've never done this before so I'm not sure what to expect really. I just figured it would be a fun way to enjoy the ride, without getting the iPhones out the whole time to record the scenery. I'm not much of a camera aficionado, but from what I know GoPros are the standard for this kind of thing. I have access to unlimited amount of GoPros if this is the best route.

Who has done anything like this before? If so - any advice? How many cameras should I set up? Where on the car should I place them?

I want a set up that is quick and easy, and requires little to no maintenance, as its for nothing more than personal use once done.

Thanks :D
 
You will never bother watching this.

I went to the trouble of setting up the same thing with a go pro so record driving a Cadillac ATS through the Canadian Rocky mountains last year. Got good footage but other than checking it actually worked i found I never watched it again.

Just focus on enjoying the drive and leave the video fad alone is my advice.
 
A guy on here posted a video of his drive across Europe with mates a few months back where he used a great method. GoPro on one of the pole mounts. Stick it out the window and get some shots of the car, point it at your face, point it at the scenery, etc.

Much better than 10 days of static mounted footage. I've taken to using a helmet camera at track days over a fixed one for the same reason, movement is much better.

Was it Booner who posted the video? Maybe you can find it.

Edit: lol! The next thread I open and he's posted the video in it! Ha!

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=25635665&postcount=14
 
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Skeeter's right - it is all in the edit. If you can make something great out of all the raw footage then it will be worth doing. Three of us came back from our last motorbike trip to Belgium and Germany with around 6 hours of film. Once condensed down into around 8 minutes it is something worth keeping.

If you've lots of cameras then getting lots of different angles and mounting points will make the video far more interesting.
 
My mate did a timelapse driving from Manchester to Berlin, he used his gopro on one of the longer settings (a photo eveyr 30 seconds) you just need to keep it powered from the car power socket and it will take a long time to fill a 32gb SD card

However it is only worth doing if its edited into something well otherwise it will just sit there on your hard drive never being watched. We did this coming back from the 'ring last year and this is the only way you'll use that kind of footage

http://youtu.be/ULb7fSgj-l4?t=11m42s
 
Thanks for all the tips guys!

I definitely agree with everything being in the edit, and with my distinct lack of editing skills - this might prove problematic. Luckily I have a couple of friends who are incredible editors and so maybe I will see if they can put something together from the footage in their spare time - or possibly, maybe this will give me something to work from to start to learn the basics!

I do like the idea of various mounting points for interesting views. I guess I just need to find a way to continually be able to charge a bunch of GoPros whilst the others are being used, and change them around at stops to fill up the car. I'm sure there must be a small unit I can take in the car to do this and charge multiples at once. I want to enjoy the trip as much as possible, so I don't want to do too much work, especially anything that will interfere with the drive - so I guess I will just take an abundance of SD cards, so I don't have to pull data from anything whilst on the trip.

I definitely agree slightly with (TW) Fox regarding the video fad - usually it wouldn't be my thing, but my misses enjoys looking back at things, so I thought I would try and put it together more for her than myself.

As for the GoPros - unlimited was a bit of an exaggeration! I have a couple of friends that run a production studio here, so they have around 300 GoPros ready on rotation for various projects, so I have access to more than I could ever need to completely cover the car if required!

I just need to figure out the best mounting locations on the car, and how to charge all the GoPros up when needed. I do like the idea of having a GoPro on a stick - but as I will be doing most of the driving, that means the misses will be in charge of the stick - and that will never end well!
 
As said, hours of footage without being edited will be boring but if you chop it down then it would be worth doing :)
 
GoPros have the advantage of not having a captive battery, so you could simply take multiple batteries per camera.

Otherwise, I would think your best option for multiple charging at once is just to get one of those lighter socket extensions, so you can plug in a few USBs at once.
 
[TW]Fox;26597779 said:
You will never bother watching this.

I went to the trouble of setting up the same thing with a go pro so record driving a Cadillac ATS through the Canadian Rocky mountains last year. Got good footage but other than checking it actually worked i found I never watched it again.

Just focus on enjoying the drive and leave the video fad alone is my advice.
Click to expand...

This, ive set my camera up for drives through north wales and scotland and never watched them.:o
 
Booner videos his road trips, and then edits them for all the best bits - he does a pretty good job. However, you've got to be willing to go through all your video, and be fairly ruthless with your editing.
 
I have to say Booner's video is simply superb, if you can do a similar thing to what he did, I say definitely go for it. If you thinking of just sticking it to a fixed mount and recording (even time lapse) while your driving I could see this getting very boring.
 
star wipes and dubstep.... all you need editing wise xD haha

as for charging multiple go pros, I assume it's a usb charger? just get a cigarette plug to usb adaptor with a high current capability and plug in a usb hub to allow simultaneous charging of say 4 go pros? (probably take a bit longer than normal as current will be divided but ya know....)

I have fantasies of doing this but as Fox said.... I'd probably get round to editing it let alone watching it again to justify taking the vids haha. maybe if going to certain spots you know where there's an amazing canyon of something :)
 
Just get an inverter and a multisocket thing, doesn't have to be particularly wafty, I doubt GoPros charge at more than 1A each so 5W. Even allowing for 25% efficiency that'll do five GoPros at 100W draw (less than 10A on the 12V socket) which should be fine.

It hurts to convert from DC to AC then back to DC so I'm sure there are far more elegant ways of doing it - even if it's just a 12V plug to 4+ sockets + a few USB chargers. But an inverter may come in useful for other things.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys, that video was done before I knew how to edit - all self taught with a bit of time thrown at it and now some better gear I'm going to be doing more of them. I'm currently editing the Corvette to Munich via the Nurburgring... Vimeo is where is at for full HD playback and my new stuff, youtube sucks!

In terms of footage for the Euro trip, we had about 150gb of footage taken to a high speed Samsung 64gb card, with 32gb backup. USB 3.0 dongle to Laptop and high speed external HDD. We had 2 x car chargers (<£15 each) in the 12v sockets and charged overnight. We had about 10 batteries and various mounts, but lots of pole action (lol). I used a glide rail for a few shots and now have a tripod with some other bits, so if you get a sec, check out my latest stuff here:

http://vimeo.com/channels/booner
 
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