I brought a coat hangar with me to work today to solve a problem. RESULT:
Coat Hangar Bicycle Rack
Here is a quick video of the thing:
FEATURES
(*) Holds yer damn bike, what more do ya want?!
(*) Heat shrink tubing on there to keep it from scratching my precious aluminum wheels, because keeping them from being scratched is somehow important. I also clean and polish the rims twice a day and I carry my bike over gravel paths, can you tell from the pic?
(*) Folded ends keep from puncturing sidewalls.
CONS
(*) If yer gonna build one, ya hafta size it to fit yer bike and put it at just the right spot on the wall. Other bikes won’t fit.
VIDEO STABILIZATION
The above video seemed pretty nasty to me. Maybe I took it right after coffee time, ‘cuz it is definitely no steadicam.
I’ve seen some videos on YouTube showing some pretty impressive video stabilization. See just about any of Heroineworshipper’s Youtube videos for examples. ’twas done using Cinelerra, which I have used once or twice, so I thought I’d learn how to do this.
Results:
I’m sure it’s obvious, but I’ll say it anyways: the top part is the raw footage, the bottom is the stabilized version.
Once I had a handle on this technique, I thought I’d try it on some nastier video. I didn’t have any nasty video so I jerry-rigged a threaded post onto my bike handlebars for my camera. Here’s some footage of a quick trip ’round my neighbourhood:
This definitely has potential! I’m sure I’m going to procrastinate for awhile and then eventually do more stuff with the camera on the bike. To start with, I need a better mount. My camera is not designed in an ideal way for mounting: the thread’s at the bottom, the lens is at the top (google Kodak Zi8 for a pic). I have some ideas, so stay tuned for more video!
Off-topic: I lashed my camera to my RC ‘copter and it can lift it pretty easily. Now I just need to find a way to lash it so that the lens points forward and down. And then learn how to fly the ‘copter more than a few feet off the ground.