Monday, February 13, 2012

29in29: Thirteen

I was looking forward to the weekend, and even though I had some errands to do I managed to squeeze in a ride. Forcast was a little flakey with isolated showers around so rather than cut the tags off my new boots I purchased last August, I wore my leaking pair

GOPR1049

and headed south on the highway. It felt nice to twist the throttle and click into 6th gear. I didn't stop for any photos but I had two cameras mounted and I thought that I would just record video instead, except that I have the older GoProHD Model 1, and one of the shortcomings is that you cannot tell which mode you are in. You are not even able to know if it is turned ON . I pushed the ON button as usual then pushed the top record button thinking all was well, but when I returned home I noticed it was on camera mode and had only take one photo each time I hit the shutter button. So instead of a full days worth of video I got a handful of useless single shots like the one above, rather than some on-ramp twisties, and a few of passing some slower moving cars on the freeway.

The GoProHD Hero1 was mounted on my left crash bar, low down and was set for 720p60. The older Hero1 has a hieroglyphic interface where you you need a cheat sheet to determine how to set it. The new Hero2 has a simple system written in English. The crash bars are rigidly mounted to the frame of my bike, Suzuki DL650K9 so there is a lot of vibration but if you set the Hero1 to Mode 3 it shoots double the frame rate at 60 Frames per second which really helps to smooth out the video.

I wanted to purchase a second GoProHD Hero2 for the smoother interface, and revised lens which they say is 2x sharper than the one I have, but there are reported problems with their new remote control LCD backpack. I wanted to have multi-angles while recording with perhaps a PIP for rear view. Instead I purchased a Panasonic Lumix TS3

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The Lumix TS3 was discounted by $100. as the new TS4 was just announced. No changes except for the time lapse mode, which I would really want. I thought that this would be my GoProHD replacement being waterproof, shockproof & dustproof. It also had a built-in screen where you had to purchase Extra on the GoProHD Hero2.

For the past couple of years I was quite content with my Lumix ZS3 with the Leica lens. Lumix cameras have a slight tendancy to overexpose so as long as you know this you can set your EC to -minus a bit, but it attracted some dust into the sensor which I noticed on my Hawai'i videos. Many that I know have purchased these models of Lumix cameras due to my praise of them.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I did something very STUPID, and I have never done anything like this before. I normally download my photos when I get home and clear the card, but on Saturday we had to go out for dinner. Another problem I have is sometimes the camera does not keep images in sequential order. Many times the number sequence seems to start with "000000", where I would prefer the sequence to keep incrementing, thus I have gotten into the habit of formating the card after I recharge the battery.

So no need to guess what happened . . . I inadvertenty FORMATTED my SD card and lost all my images and video. I am not sure how many images were lost but certainly a few which I need for the 29in29 project.

So I am left with an image of my SD card. If you concentrate and stare really hard, perhaps through telepathy you can see the images "that were" previously there .

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On Sunday I tried to download some SD recovery programs but could not retrieve the AVCHD videos, but I do have some video using the Lumix TS3 as a GoProHD subsitute.

11 comments:

  1. I can see them! I have a vivid imagination. :-)

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  2. Doh! I agree with ToadMama, we can see them. You rail around those off ramps like a pro Bob.

    Sorry you lost your pics and video. Good excuse for another ride.

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  3. oh yikes :( so sorry.
    but i can see a toe tho... :)

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  4. Yikes! I hope to never do that but I've heard you can't be a REAL photographer / movie maker until you have.

    My last super duper sandisk card came with some free recovery software but I don't want to try it out, you know what I mean?

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  5. Those last two shot were a little blurry, but still... great pics! lol!

    Welcome... I think we've all done that at least once in our lives!

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  6. ToadMama/Kathy:

    Try as I might, the images are "lost" forever. I really wanted to recover the video

    Trobairitz:

    I was flying down the highway making my lane changes . . . and now you can't view them. Another ride will have to wait until the weekend. It is too dark by the time I leave work

    Ms M:

    Oh, you noticed . . .

    IronDad:

    My new procedure will be to press the "playback" button first to make sure there are NO images on the card. The images cannot be replaced as we were at a special dinner with 35 other people. I hope no one will ask to see any of them

    Lady R:

    the fuzziness is my fault. I was hand holding and in macro mode for the SD card photo. The other one was shot through my rear view mirror, and the intent was to get the background in focus, NOT the camera. I wanted you to see our traffic mess

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  7. Somebody said I should put a go pro on the bike....I don't think I have the patience....I tell you what though it is hard work keeping up with people posting every day.

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  8. Arg - doesn't that just make you sick!
    Not a formatting issue, but when Ron and I did our Redwoods tour a bunch of the photos were corrupted, and we never did recover them. Sucks to lose pics/vids!

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  9. Ah Bob...welcome to the club. When I've taught people about computers or cameras I've always prefaced my words with "You can't make any mistakes I have not made myself."

    I'll bet that's the last time you make that particular mistake though. Once was enough for me too.

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  10. When I said the last two shot were blurry... I was referring to the ones I was able to view with my penetrating x-ray vision when I gazed upon you scan disc.

    Your pics in the post were perfect... even your fuzzy toe! :D

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  11. Roger/Raftn:

    a GoProHD is the way to go. I purchased mine so it would be safer to take photos whilst riding. Video editing is a very satisfying pastime

    BlueKat:

    That's why you should always have two cameras and alternate your shots, or change cards once in a while so you always have some in a different place. You could also change your memory card every half day, and carry a few spares

    Doug:

    I was half awake, and was charging my camera battery. My new method will be to click the review button first, to confirm NO Images are on the card. I shoot AVCHD video and the files are in matched pairs, with parameters in separate files. If you don't format the card when you drag the files to your computer, using WExplorer, it confuses the camera when you go to playback mode. That's why I prefer to format the card each time

    Lady Di:

    AH shucks, you say the nicest things. I am usually shoeless at home and I put things on the floor to photograph

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