Years ago I watched an amazing commercial that had a photographer using a Phantom Camera in heavy surf. The camera was pulled out of the barrel of this wave and the footage was slowed down to nearly 10,000 FPS. I was so impressed with the Phantom camera’s ability that I decided to buy one. That is until I found out the price. It sells for nearly $100,000!
But I still wanted a Phantom Camera. I think I am so impressed with this camera’s ability to slow everything down at such a high quality level because I experience something very similar when I’m shooting myself. Let me explain. When I’m in the water in heavy surf (double overhead+) and I’m shooting these massive waves, everything is in slow motion in my head: Paddling to the break, my position, my breathing, the wave coming, my arm reaching into the barrel, my finger pressing the trigger to capture this beautiful wave. It’s all in slow motion to me, then the adrenaline sinks in. So when I found out I can recreate something that’s so hard to explain with words, I jumped on the opportunity to figure out how to do this without spending $100k.
After a lot of research I found that using a GoPro with another software called Twixtor you can blend a video to super slow motion speeds. Technically you’re not really slowing down the video to 1,000 frames per second (FPS), but rather blending it. It looks very convincing, so either way I wanted to do it.
I bought my GoPro edition 1 not too long after it was on the market. I mounted my GoPro on my water housing, and I was set. I had my Canon in the housing for still shots and my poor man’s version of the Phantom Camera on top of the housing, my GoPro.
If you want to see how I did this, I created a tutorial online with step by step instructions here. GoPro also sponsored this tutorial video on their FaceBook Page.
The video above is just one of the many videos that I have using a GoPro and Twixtor software. Have fun with it…
