Filming A Hike Versus Just Hiking

Hiking can be exciting, refreshing, a source of spiritual replenishing, and so much more, but what about filming a hike?

Well, I will say that it definitely takes longer to prepare for a filmed hike as opposed to just going hiking.

When I was single I would get in my car after work every Friday, and go do a long hike because I always got out of work at 2pm on Friday. I would just pick a place I hadn’t been before and go and explore armed with a reusable water bottle (long before they were cool), a small trail snack (like a ziplock bag of Gorp, which is granola mixed with nuts, chocolate, and some gummies), and my Cannon camera just in case I saw something that inspired me to photograph. I would be out as long as there was enough light to see by.

During the week I would do shorter hikes through parks and on trails near where I lived so I didn’t need a car or bike.

Now, hiking with three kids and my wife we need to make sure everyone has gone potty before we leave (and sometimes stop on our way to our destination for a pit stop), make sure there is enough water for all to share, that everyone has hats, sunscreen…

When hiking on my own now, just for me and not filming, I find it refreshing and relaxing. The days frustrations and irritations just fall away. I come home and feel renewed.

When I hike by myself for filming I need to make sure I have my camera charged the night before, my backpack ready the night before, I need a snack, water, my camera, my lavalier microphone, whatever mount or holder I plan to use on the hike for either the camera or my phone, or both. Then when I get to where I am starting to hike I then make sure that I have everything ready, gear up, and make sure everything is comfortable and easily reachable.

It can take me fifteen or more minutes to get on the trail once I get there to make sure everything is setup right and good to go, and if there are issues then I need to deal with them before I get going. This means sometimes if I planned to hike just before sunset to catch a really great view of a sunset at a specific place I may not make it there in time for the sunset because of technical issues.

I want to share my hikes with everyone and hope to compress, edit, and upload a new video each week, but I fear that sometimes this may not happen.

Noob troubles. I have made some choice mistakes when it comes to filming hikes. This means that some of the hikes I planned to upload before the Drynan Regional hike never got uploaded because there were issues with the filming, or issues with the editing, or issues with compressing the videos to speed upload and video streaming times up, or just issues like kids clicking on the keyboard and accidentally deleting something.

I filmed Drynan in 4K at 30fps as I had been experimenting and experiencing some good results with 4K @ 30fps on evening sunset test hikes. I realized when I went to upload Drynan that 4K may be a little too much for right now with out current home bandwidth as it took the better part of 2 days to upload a 30 min. hike.

This weekend’s hike was filmed in 4K but is being served up at 1080p. I thought this would give me a little more to play with when trying to reduce motion of the Z-axis (that is when my body and thus the camera) travel in an up and down set of motions.

I have also experimented with 2K, 1080p, 720p, and 480.

For filming I have been using a small gimballed camera called the Xiaomi Fimi Palm, and I love it. It has three axis controls which are right to left, right to left diagonally, and up and down (moving the camera pivot point in terms of where it faces). This doesn’t account for the Z-axis created by normal walking and hiking motions your body, arms, and legs go through.

So I keep experimenting, as I am on a small budget because I am only doing this out of a live for hiking and wanting to share that love with others through video, with new ways to film. I tried handheld at Drynan (which because it was a buggy day in and around a marshy area may not have been the best choice), and I have tried a backpack shoulder strap clip mount too. I am also experimenting with handheld on a stick so I can better see the amount of Z-Axis motion I am imparting to the video.

I will keep experimenting with modes on the camera as well, and hope soon to find a setup that works best for me and for you the viewer(s).