Soloshot: A new technology to film yourself from a distance
Soloshot is the automatic cameraman, with this gadget you will never need someone to film you hitting rails, kickers, or anything again! This sounds like pretty whacky technology which you most probably think won’t work, but check this out:
The whole concept came from a group of guys not having anyone to film them whilst they were surfing. They invented this clever gadget which fits onto a tripod and your camera then attaches to the top of it. Whilst you are surfing, snowboarding or doing whatever you wear an arm mounted sensor which is paired to the Soloshot unit. From there it follows you wherever you go, panning really smoothly.
Soloshot In Action
One Youtube commenter put this:
I think he has made a really valid point, and I think that if Sloshot do any future upgrades this should be a consideration. But what do you guys think, could this work for snowboarding as it is now?
its great until someone nicks it!
Tricky to say if it’d work for boarding, kinda need someone by the camera to wipe the damn snow off the lens every 5 mins. I’d also been concerned about someone nabbing it, not much to anchor it to on the slops.
Aside from the non vertical motion, which can be fixed its got the problem of being swiped. No one is going to be willing to leave a few hundred quids worth of camera whilst they shoot off for a surf or trek up the slope ready for a run. The only way you would do that is if youre by yourself off the beaten track. Do like the idea alot! But cant see anyone wanting to sacrifice equipment for that one shot they wont get to see.
oh dear! can you imagine the slopes filled with these things. What a bloody nightmare. Resorts could however keep them off the slopes and have them at key points in the park and give out the arm bands to the peeps wanting to ride park.
Just done to price. At the end of the day…..
They have something similar in the Avoriaz park. You swipe your lft pass at the top of the park then again at the bottom to upload footage from your jumps to their website. Don’t think the cameras follow your liftpass ping, but I’ve heard it kind of works.
If I was to own this Soloshot device, I’d attach it to a friend’s ruck sack, then ride behind him and get filmed.
If stationary on the ground, it could work if you place the camera at a wonky angle (eg 20 degrees off centre horizontally) making sure your whole trick is within frame, and then you can play about with the angles in post production to zoom in and make it level. Quality would suffer slightly though.
My ideal option would be to merge this tech with a rotocopter that automatically follows you from a certain distance. An undermounted camera would record your entire run.
Finally, and probably the cheapest option is to get a friend.
Also with a rotocopter you’d look like Travis Rice being followed by a Red Bull helicopter……. until you crash on the jump’s run up!
Its a great idea and would work well for park riding and getting footage in particular. Safety of your camera is an obvious concern. The main plus point for me is that none of my mates can hold a camera still and continuously follow my run (especially through trees) where this potentially could.
I would imagine the reason for not having a vertical axis yet is that when you add in a second point of axis you weaken the whole structure, also not to mention the obvious cost increase. But maybe this is something that could appear in the next generation of SoloShots?
The addition of one of these to a team of riders filming could be a great way to get that one last angle that you don’t have enough people to film.
SOLOSHOT: A NEW TECHNOLOGY TO WATCH YOUR CAMERA GET SOLEN FROM A DISTANCE