At New Zealand’s Skyline Luge at Rotorrua, one rider comes up with some crazy commentary and an elegant solution to the problem of taking pictures of the view without irritating everyone around him. At least one of the many local fans of this track have pointed out the danger and inconvenience of tourists who stop even in the fast track and take pictures. The Skyline Luge is in a gorgeous but dangerous looking spot. Stopping a ride only increases the danger of a collision with other pilots. So how to get that amazing shot?
Our filmmaker pilot has the right idea when he uses a helmet cam to get the best possible view. He gets more footage than handful of snapshots will ever provide and he doesn’t even have to stop the ride to do it. The video provides you with an eye level view on the track and its surroundings while memorializing the ride for the family. There are even some hairy moments on the last few curves, but as the pilot himself points out, “sorry guys . . . didn’t crash”. Still, my favorite moment is when he stops to adjust the helmet cam and then puts it into the commentary in post-production. This is the most important moment of the ride. It sets everything else up. Without the camera he has nothing, with it, he has his own extreme sports video with a view. Everyone’s happy and no one gets hurt.
VholdR.com member ezilla nabs a great looking Tarpon from a kayak! He gets the whole thing on his head-band-cam from the hook point to holding up his catch. Check out the original here.
Down in the trenches of paintball warfare a recording of enemy movements and tactics might be the only thing between you and utter pigmentation.
Paintball is war, and like war, a paintball game is a chaotic mess for the participant. I can never see anything more that what’s going on right in front of my face. That is probably why I die so often, because its like being in my own first person shooter. Without the benefit of a big picture view, at whatever I see.
So I am thrilled to see that these guys have a solution that goes beyond just hoping to catch my friends by surprise. By recording them with a helmet cam, I can study their moves and prepare for next time. Using footage of a game I could actually plan to catch my opponents by surprise and then follow through. If paintball is a war game then these guys are the most comprehensive correspondents I’ve seen yet. Furthermore, this footage is proof of their victories. It can be used to share the game’s most intense skirmishes with everyone who couldn’t make it. These guys’ use of helmet cams gives them something to take away from the game, something more permanent than a paint splotch, and that takes the whole experience to a new level of seriousness and a new level of fun.
It happens to every rider. You’re out there on the trail, enjoying the speed, the wind, the view, and the tree in your face, and then you’re on the ground. How you got there is as much a mystery to you as anyone else and if you’re alone in the forest and you fall off a bike does anyone have to hear about it? Or should they have a chance to see it instead? A helmet cam gives you the opportunity to actually provide your audience with the visual proof of your epic fall.
Everyone loves a blooper reel and a spectacular fall, or even a silly one, is a moment of great social currency so why be confined to simply telling the story? A recording provides a much more coherent series of events. Otherwise its just obstacle, rider, splat. And since any wipeout comes as a shock to the rider, it’s the helmet cam that can help make sense of the fall. If you were able to note and respond to the obstacle in front of you faster, you would have been able to correct for it. So it’s understandable that a rider might come out of a wipeout not knowing what hit him. Camera footage is the reliable record of exactly where everything went wrong. You may not know where the tree came from, but the eye of the camera catches it, allowing you to train for a faster, and smoother, ride in the future.
