Getting that perfect shot is difficult for just about anybody short of a professional videographer, and it’s no easy task for them either. One of the biggest challenges with video is trying to hold the camera still so your footage doesn’t resemble The Blair Witch Project and give all of your friends motion sickness. When you see some of the professionally done videos, the things you don’t see are the rigs they build just to get that smooth, steady shot.
The folks at Slick believe they have come up with solution that will all but perfect your action videos taken with your GoPro. Head past the break and check out the pretty ingenious little gadget they came up with….
I kind of look at this as the dropper post of the action camera. Sure, it’ll add a little weight, cost money, and people will swear they don’t need it…. till they try it. If you spent the day riding the perfect ride with friends and wanted to video some of the highlights of your ride, you’re obviously doing it so you can watch and share it later. You’ll likely edit it, add a song from Metallica’s new album and share it with everybody you know. After all of that effort, your sweet flow is rattling in the confines of your screen making your Aunt Gertrude think riding a bike is torturous.
The Slick unit can be mounted to any thing a GoPro mounts to since it uses a compatible mount and even comes with a adapter to hold the new smaller GoPro4.
How does this work you ask? Each of the camera’s motorized three axes is driven by a micro-controller, so that the camera stays perfectly level regardless of the kind of terrain you’re moving on. Though it’s pretty simple as the only thing you have to do other than charge it, is turn it on. Its battery life runs about the same as the average GoPro, so just charge them together. It’s also waterproof so take it just about anywhere you do your GoPro, though they express that even though surfing and water sports is fine, scuba diving, (submerging), is not guaranteed.
SLICK footage is so smooth that you can simply increase playback speed to get that awesome hyperlapse effect. Check out this hyperlapse street/forest footage shot from a helmet facing backward in Paris. This thing just makes video editing more fun!
Here is some side by side footage of a GoPro on the left by itself, and on the right with the Slick Stabilizer. Though the footage on the left seems a bit exaggerated, using the Slick Stabilizer obviously smooths it out better than humanly possible.
