I watch a lot of surf videos nowadays. It’s become part of the job. And while I’m sitting around some days, looking for something interesting, cool, or just flat out mind blowing to share from the creative minds of people that love the outdoors, I regularly come across edits that are shaky as hell.
With how far technology has come with action cams — and given how crystal clear and beautiful that imagery usually is — some people just can’t get past that one tiny amateur challenge of keeping you from yelling “Hold still, dammit!” at your computer screen. It is maddening to have a beautiful moment missed by a shaky shot. And that’s become one of the last gripes about GoPro’s list of limitations.
Enter SLICK, a battery powered camera stabilizer.
Stabilizer = Moving. Camera = Not moving.
If you want to break the bank these days, your best bet is to take any ingenuity you have and apply them to the action cams field. And that is exactly what SLICK did: the brand new product launched an Indiegogo campaign this week and raised over $120,000 in its first two days alone.. so we can probably expect to see a lot of these things pretty soon.
The way it works is by balancing your camera over three different motorized axes. This allows you to record video at that desired high quality without having to compromise resolution through post-production software stabilization. Basically, the idea is you could shake your GoPro (translation: crash) as violently as you like and the stabilizer will keep the camera itself as still as possible. And yes, it’s waterproof.
Now go film something gnarly (but safe-ish).
