Tuesday, March 18, 2008

It's all about me

Been windy and gusty here in Maui with a mix of ground and wind swell waves (now down to pure windswell only). Still kind of fun at Hookipa, as the following photos clearly show.
For a change, the photos are of my beautiful self, so nothing radical.

For the first one I want to thank Gisela Helenius, an extraordinary Swedish woman who can take photos (and enjoy doing that) of her husband Ola and take care of two kids at the same time. Pretty much every windsurfers' dream wife...


The second photo's thanks go to photographer Benjamin Thouard. He's in Maui for a while and he's available for photoshoots (email me if interested). This day I sneaked in one without knowing that he had a fish-eye lens and that I had to be really close to him. Still, I like this shot a lot. Too bad I'm clearly applying way too much pressure on the back foot... can't blame the photographer for that!


For the next slideshow I want to thank the gopro digital Hero underwater camera guys that sent me the expansion kit for all kinds of mounts. When I opened the box, I started playing with them like a kid with the Lego...
The first one I tried was on back footstrap, shown in the photo below with the empty case.


Disappointing results out of the video (too much water around, you can't see the waves at all), but I got some cool snapshots out of it.


So long.

13 comments:

badneck said...

I read your blog everyday, its great. I went to school at UH back in the late 80s and havnt been back since. My gal and I are coming to Maui in the fall or spring would love to sail with you. Any ideas on a really cool cottage to rent on the beach? Heres my blog, not as fun as yours but whateva http://duckobx.blogspot.com/

Billy

Anonymous said...

Hey Giampaolo, we sympathise with your 'windswell only' problems ;-) Poor boy!

Are those shots just clipped from the video or did you try the 'every five seconds' 3 meg still shot setting? I still haven't tried that one, I'm always hoping the video will bee too good to bother with stills. Looking back always seems to give the best impression of speed, are you going to try a backwards-looking nose mount? Might be prone to damage from a catapault, but you're sponsored, right, so if the results were good it would encourage us to fool around more (and buy more cameras when WE loose them!). Any mounts good for mast top out of the grab box? I know you made your own, I wouldn't have time myself....
Moreforce4 (who's account doesn't seem to be working)

cammar said...

Billy,
I replied to your email about the cottage.
Good job with your recovery!
As for sailing with me... sure! Just make sure to be at the spot of my choice that particular day... ;-)

Moreforce4,
those are snapshots out the video. I didn't try the photos every 5 seconds option... because I didn't know there was one! I had a couple of old cameras. Now I just got a newer one, will have to check it out.
But, what's the chance of getting good photos out of ramdom shots every five seconds? Pretty low, I'd say...
Backward looking mount? Check this out.
The mount is just like this
On the shortboard, I just reinforced it with some duck tape.
Here's the resulting video

Nope, I would not recommend the kit mounts for mast top. All those joints are pretty cool to get all kind of angles, but even if you tighten them like crazy they would still move under water impact pressure.
Top of the mast needs something sturdier.
But they are good for mounts where you can "easily" get and put them back where they were.
On the back footstrap, for example, they bent every wipeout I had. And that was great, otherwise either the mount or the sail would have got damaged. Instead, I just had to wait to sail out in a safe area again, stop in the water, put the joints back in the position I wanted and go sailing again.
Hope this helps...

fswp said...

cool video of the backview, to bad you aren't a midget or you had a full camera view :D

no, i'm going to try that out myself, i find a real cool mount

cammar said...

fswp,
yes a wider angle would help.
I did that mount only once... I find the video kind of boring.
I like it better on the longboard, 'cause you can see more.
I haven't find one self shooting mount that I'm 100% happy with. They are all just too close.
But trying has been really fun.
And I'm not done!

badneck said...

Giampaolo gopro says their coming out with a wide angle lens...

cammar said...

Cool!

Lano said...

Nice calves!

tmr84 said...

thats pretty cool. the shots are still awesome considering the position of the camera. Are the mounts custom made? Are they available for purchase? thanx

Tom

http://www.njwindsurfing.info

cammar said...

Lano,
let me believe that the ladies at your office wrote that comment with your computer when you went for a coffee break...

Tmr84,
it's the Helmet HERO Expansion Kit that you'll find clicking on the link to the gopro home page on the post.

fswp said...

it's not boring @ all, although such things are very personal...

but i think, for shots with the gopro, you'll will never find a mount that will 100% keep you satisfied the whole time. for me, the gopro is more like a .. uuhm (don't know who to put in English).. a temporary shot base, you know??

great for shooting some awesome footage, that you can use in you're editing for switching from front, to mast, to head to filming from to beach...
just so you can keep even the less exciting video interesting by switching the viewpoints..

i hope it makes some sense...

cammar said...

It makes total sense.
I thought many times to do a video taking the best shots I've done so far from the different angles, but somehow the idea doesn't get me going.
What I would like is to have different shots if not of a particular session, at least of a particular wave.
See what I mean? Showing a wave from the mast and then one from the front and then one from the back and then one from the top of the mast, all waves belonging to different sessions... it's just not appealing to me. Maybe I should just try...
Anyway, I'm working on the video I shot with the camera on the back footstrep and I will publish it shortly (that can mean anything from tomorrow to a month). Not much action, but kind of fun/goofy.

Fantastic session Wednesday 26th at Hookipa: head to logo high, clean and not gusty. I had a shocking amount of fun. Top 10 of my life...

fswp said...

i know what you mean with the not appealing thing about different sessions, but with all you're mounting experience, you can easily change the position of you're gopro during the session... or ask @ you're gopro for some more camera's, so you can shoot @ all times from different angles :):)

honestly, i don't think that it would be sooo annoying if it came from different session, i mean, if you look at windsurf movies it's also not from just one session...
and common, i bet that in hookipa every day is a great sunny day so that you don't even notice the difference between different sessions :):):):):):) lucky bastard

i guess you should just try it out and let you're editing creativity do the work :)