With the hopefully imminent arrival of my latest velocipede, the Sonder Broken Road Ti, an off-road wilderness trail bike, I’m super-excited (oh I hate that term!) to be able to get out into the hills again with a bike more suitable for the task. I’ve also been looking at YouTube and found the above video which I just love. It’s very akin to some of my early Pugsley on Patrol videos.
It was self-filmed and edited by Kaz Yamamura and shot in the forests of British Columbia, Canada. What I love about this video is that it’s not the usual hell-for-leather crazy downhill stuff backed with heavy metal music. It’s calm, gentle and serene, perfect for older blokes like myself who like to plod along at a steady pace, enjoying the scenery and simply chilling out.
So, my brain is simply buzzing with ideas for some self-filmed turfing/cycling videos, looking at the Pentland Hills, the Eildon Hills and a bunch of other locations as well. However, while I have the bike, I don’t have all the video gear I would like. My two GoPro’s are fine after a fashion and fit their own niche very well but they cannot compete with a decent video camera or camcorder.
My own camcorder is a Panasonic HCD-SD900 bought some 14-years ago in 2010. It works but the batteries are reaching their end of life and locating original Panasonic replacements has proved impossible. Plenty of compatibles about but I just don’t feel confident that they will a) hold much of a charge, b) live for very long and c) not burst into flames when charging. No, perhaps time for a new camera.
Now, you might be thinking, camcorders! That’s old school, are they still around? Well, yes, they are but there are fewer models to choose from these days. I suspect due to people opting for D-SLR cameras with interchangeable lenses. The one I’ve got my eye on, that is if I cannot get the Panasonic up and running is the Sony AX43A 4K Handycam.
It’s not cheap at £600.00 but the beauty of a small camcorder, and this one has a Zeiss lens, is that it can easily be carried on a rucksack with the tripod attached, making it simple and quick to setup or remove. Other features include built in stabilisation and it can also be controlled from my phone.
The other item on the wanted list is the amazing DJI Neo selfie drone. It only £169.00 it will not break the bank and has palm take-off and landing, various quick shot models such as follow me and tracking, i.e. it will film while flying ahead of you. It does not even require a remote controller but does have the option of being controlled via an app on the mobile phone. Flight time is limited at only 18 minutes, so additional batteries would be essential. Cost for those is £35.00 each.
Anyway, that’s my thoughts at the moment, just need to wait until I get the new bike first which should be here first week in October, fingers crossed. More soon.
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