Gopro4 black and a Feiyu g3

[Noa Put]

Finally, the wait was over...:) Was it worth the wait? You judge, I basically took the gopro out of it's packaging, charged the battery yesterday and went to a church today to shoot some testfootage with the Feiyu g3 and my mobile phone as lcd screen . This was shot in 4k 25p, 1600 iso max as it was a quite dark church, protune flat, medium view, colorcorrected in post and further stabilised in aftereffects. I shot some more footage but just wanted to show that one continuous shot which would have been impossible to do with my blackbird, the same for the outdoor shot as there was lots of wind.

There where some small "jitters" in the original footage that I had to smooth out with after effects but this is definitely something I would use mixed with my wedding footage, not planning to trow the Feiyu g3 out of the window, it can stay a bit longer in my backpack :D Tomorrow I"ll be using it for a outdoor shot on a company shoot.

The stabilisation in after effects did introduce some artifacts but I can live with that considering the result.

gopro 4 black and Feiyu g3 on Vimeo

[Chris Harding]

Hey Noa

I think they are great. and I'm sure you are happy. I do get a couple of jitters too but both times I have used it at a wedding the wind has been howling and the unit was definitely being buffeted on the beach. Today I have a wedding at a winery so I should be able to keep in reasonable calm winds!!

Yep, I would say that's a keeper! If you felt you wanted to go up a level what gyro would you get for say your GH4 if you decided to move away from action cams like the GoPro???

Chris

[Robert Benda]

The big question, then: for someone buying a GoPro soon, is the 4 worth it, at $500? Looks like the 3+ Black is still $350 so its only $150 difference for 4K and better low light, right?

[Kyle Root]

Supposedly manual exposure control too.

I was debating getting a couple iPods to use for video like this on a small steadicam.

The hero4 silver looks like a nice upgrade from my hero2.

[Kyle Root]

I had never heard of a Feiyu. Looked it up on Amazon. $320 for it.

I was looking at the steadicam smoothee:

Steadicam Smoothee Kit with GoPro HERO and iPhone SMOOTHEE-GPIP5

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Robert Benda

The big question, then: for someone buying a GoPro soon, is the 4 worth it, at $500? Looks like the 3+ Black is still $350 so its only $150 difference for 4K and better low light, right?

4k at 25fps or 2.7k at 50fps are the main differences but I have seen comparison videos where the gopro 4 was more detailed in 1080p as well and like you said it's supposed to have better low light performance but I have not seen a comparison of that yet. If you don't need those higher resolutions then the version 3 will be good enough, I don't plan to shoot at dark venues with the gopro 4 anyway, for that I prefer to use my other camera's.

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

If you felt you wanted to go up a level what gyro would you get for say your GH4 if you decided to move away from action cams like the GoPro???

I would like to have one that could fit a panasonic lx100 but preferably one that has no loose wire dangling out like with the feiyu and one that is of a much more sturdy build, I can get smoother motion out of my blackbird and can do faster pans if needed but the level of tilt control and the fact that your camera always will stay level no matter how much wind is bashing into it is an advantage you can't dismiss, then I wouldn't mind those small jitters you get in the image while flying one.

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Kyle Root

I had never heard of a Feiyu. Looked it up on Amazon. $320 for it.

I was looking at the steadicam smoothee:

Steadicam Smoothee Kit with GoPro HERO and iPhone SMOOTHEE-GPIP5

There are more feiyu look alikes appearing and some seem better build at around the same price or more expensive, I would stay far away from that smoothee though.

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Kyle Root

Supposedly manual exposure control too.

I read about that but have not found how to activate this, if that would be the case it would be an interesting feature, the auto exposure though is very good at slowly but gradually changing and because the lens is so wide even with a backlight like a window the overall exposure stays more balanced.

[Noa Put]

Another one, had to shoot a short promo for a local cinema, it was pretty dark inside, on my gh4 I had to shoot at 1600 iso with a fast lens so it was a good test for the gopro, below are 2 different moves done with the feiyu to highlight the cinema, I loved the fact that I could shoot so wide, only my fisheye lens (7,5mm) on my gh4 could get about the same view.

I did some 1600 and 6400 iso max tests and 6400 iso is too noisy but 1600 looked very good, I had to clean up the footage a bit with neatvideo though.

The gopro lens also does flare quite a bit, you can see it in the second shot on the balcony, both shots will be used in the final video.


password: test (also for the first video I posted, I just added a password because I don't want the video to appear on vimeo.)

Private Video on Vimeo

I had some problems with both the gopro and Feiyu, the gopro locked up once, it gave me a constant loud beeping sound and I had to take out the battery, it was a one time incident and it did perform well before and after that. The Geiyu also once refused to balance, maybe I didn't wait long enough but I had to do a quick shot of visitors entering the cinema and just at that moment it didn't perform :) so you can see why I don't want to use it for critical shots, I had to grab my gh4 instead to take a static shot. After pressing a second time to activate the Feiyu it balanced itself again.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Noa

That works well! I moved away from GoPros as the locking up really was annoying me! I would set up the Hero at a wedding and as the bride was ready to enter ..BAM - Total Freeze up!! and yes the only way to fix it is rip out the battery. So far my gyro has been working well and the SJ4000 camera is way more reliable than gopro but not 4K of course!!

Yeah I don't see many options (unless you want to spend a bucket load of money) for using a normal size camera and I have never seen one that I could use my EA-50 one at all !!

Using the gyro is certainly a lot less hassle than getting into a stedicam vest ... just pick it up and go!!

Have you any idea why it jitters a bit?? Mine also does that but for now I'm flying blind until my monitor gets here.

Chris

[Donald McPherson]

So a question asked earlier. Is these a significant difference between the 2 or 3 axis gimbal. As there is in price..

[Noa Put]

I don't have one to compare to but if I understand right the 3rd gimbal smooths out the panning motion and that is quite important to prevent jerky motion from your wrist. If you have a steadicam the gimbal takes out all unwanted movement while you hold the handle and you need to use your other hand to steer it into any direction, with these 3 axis gimbals the handle you hold is in direct contact with the gimbal so you use just one hand to alter direction, but any move you do needs to be balanced by the gimbals and to get very smooth direction changes you should need 3 axis stabilised.

[Noa Put]

I also just saw that my gopro is not perfectly level in the feiyu, it inclines a bit to the left. (not sure if that was before as the lens is so wide it doesn't notice that easily) A google search showed more users have this issue, I contacted the supplier to see what can be done.

Eventhough the feiyu does what is advertised, I find it a bit too fragile, these wires that stick out are my main concern, it's just a matter of time before one gets caught behind something.

[Noa Put]

Below I found a good example of a 2 axis gimbal and there you can see the jerky panning motion that you don't get with a 3 axis stabiliser. This is because there is no 3rd gimbal to smooth out panning motion. So based on that I would say it's worth the extra cost to get a 3 axis stabilised gimbal.

DOG PARK | Testing Out the Big Balance Gibbon 2-axis gimbal stabilizing a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera (with Adobe Warp) on Vimeo