Switzerland

Today I tried a Via Ferrata with Climbing shoes. With a group we went to the Moléson which you see in the picture below. This mountain stands in the middle and has fantastic views on to Neuchatel, the Lac Leman, Bulle and more. The drawback is that this mountain is often in cloud due to its location and height. [caption id=“attachment_3042” align=“aligncenter” width=“660”] Heading to Moléson[/caption] If you’re still reading despite the mention of clouds then you will see that this is an enjoyable place to visit. It is located in Gruyère, known for its cheeses and the Giger Museum. I don’t think I have visited either of the two latter options. Climbing is more fun. Today was different. I took the blue easy route and I wore climbing shoes rather than normal shoes because I wanted to see whether the experience was pleasant. At first it was worthless to have these shoes on because of the mud and humidity. They did become more fun as we climbed. The person in front of me was a novice at Via Ferrata so she was fighting for the courage to move onwards and upwards. This gave me plenty of time to get as much contact with the rock as possible. I focused on using the natural rock as foot holds as much as possible and I even tried to use the rock as hand holds. My reservation about safety meant that I did not want to fall with via ferrata gear. The rock on this via ferrata is perfectly adapted to rock climbing shoes when it is drier. The rock is friable and this provides justification for climbing shoes. Rather than two or three foot holds that you can use with hiking boots (which I usually use) I used slivers and cracks of rocks. I tried not to “felix the cat” too often. That is a term a climbing instructor used South of the Alps when I took climbing lessons and as I like the term I share it. I have been practicing via ferrata for five years now and I have explored almost all via ferrata within a two hour drive multiple times. As a result I know that I can do them and I know what to expect. This means that I can be generous and climb last. I can help novices and beginners experience the sport for the first time and through experiments such as climbing shoes on a via ferrata I keep myself entertained. Leukerbad and other such via ferrata would be interesting with climbing shoes because of the rock type. They are not essential and I did this out of good humour. I was perfectly happy using hiking boots for the first five years. And now for desert, a view from the top. [vrview img=“http://www.main-vision.com/richard/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/molesontop.jpg" pimg=“http://www.main-vision.com/richard/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/molesontop.jpg" width=“500” height=“400” ]

Flowing Water - A visual experiment is a simple one minute video. The first images were filmed at the Arboretum in the Jura and the timelapses show clouds playing above the Jura near La Dôle. La Dôle is where the doppler radar is located. That radar shows rainfall and precipitation so that air traffic controllers can advise pilots of weather conditions. With the amount of rain that has fallen over the last six or more weeks every river is full of water. As a result of this they are flowing fast and debris can be seen. When rivers flow fast they are fun to watch. The next step would be to capture waterfalls over a period of minutes or hours. If we stopped recording just as the rain stopped we might get interesting results. The peak wouldn’t appear until soon after the rain stopped. I was lucky with these clouds because they moved quickly from one side of the screen to the other. They also formed and dispersed quickly. As a result I could set the interval to take images every few seconds. I could quickly see the result and adjust. When I filmed the clouds I filmed the ground and the trees as they came in and out of the shadow of clouds, I filmed a tighter shot where you could see the transmission mast and then I pointed to the sky and tried to capture the movement of clouds with blue sky as a backdrop. Some moments are fun to watch.

Time-lapse videos are fun because we can see something happen faster or slower than real time. By watching this content we gain a better understanding of the world and how it works. For years I have been filming time-lapses and the results can be fun. In some cases we record time-lapses with video cameras and at other times we set an interval timer to take pictures every so many seconds. In this post you will be watching clouds form as a 360 timelapse. I have chosen to share both the flat image and the spherical image. The reason for sharing both versions is to give you an overview of how objects move in both.

Yesterday I went for a 360 timelapse walk through the woods above Trelex. I set the camera to take an image every 8 seconds. As the woods were dark and dense it took some effort not to walk in too much mud and not to slip too many times. The result of the timelapse is not as good as I had hoped. Ideally I want to find a way to fix the camera so that it looks at my direction of travel. From this footage you see that the camera suffered with the lack of light and that because the camera occasionally rotated to the right it is easy to become disorientated. It is for this reason that it is useful to find wide open spaces when possible and to find places with a lot of ambient light. What I like about this video is that we can see the various exercise locations. We can see the horizontal bars, the rings and other activities. When I design something to hold the camera steady while I walk with it I can have a little more fun. I could hang on the rings or play with the bars. With a little luck the month and a half of bad weather is coming to an end and I will be able to go out and get to some interesting locations to film some time lapses. There are a number of panoramic locations that I think would lend themselves well to 360° views. Imagine a walk by the lake side or a walk near the summit with a view of the landscape below. What locations or sites would you like to see as 360° timelapse videos?

For several weeks now it has rained almost every day and almost every weekend. As a result of this rain acitivities have been cancelled. On Sunday we were meant to go outdoor climbing and when we got to the wall we found a rock climbing snail where, in dry weather we could have enjoyed some good climbs. The climbing site in St Triphon has about 150 climbing routes of differing climbing difficulties. When the conditions are so wet outdoor climbing is not possible. It rained as we drove to the climbing site, it started to get brighter and then it started to rain hard again. As we drove away from the climbing wall where snails were climbing instead of humans we saw that the weather improved as we got to Lausanne.

I find this swiss kettlebell advert amusing. It shows a cow peacefully grazing in a field until a woman starts ringing a cow bell.

Tony Tremblay - 28th of Nov, 2016

Made a 360 degrees portrait page on facebook https://www.facebook.com/Portrait360-112660985877101/ amazing little camera

I was in Spain with the Ricoh Theta S last week so I took the opportunity to experiment with the Ricoh Theta S in a number of locations. What I like about such a device is that it takes a click to get pictures. I experimented with a manfrotto monopod and a smaller monopod. The Manfrotto base was clearly visible in shots so the immersive experience is degraded. With the smaller monopod the base is the same width as that of the camera. This means that at least the support was hidden.

  I was at the World Virtual Reality Forum in Crans Montana this weekend as a volunteer. During this time I was able to try many of the demonstrations and get a real feel for the potential of 360° and immersive videos. I was also able to listen to people comment on what they appreciated about the experiences and what they did not like.

Vulkane in 3D und 360

One of my favourite experiences was Vulkane in 3D und 360. I worked at this exhibit two out of the three days helping two people at a time every three minutes experience this. I had watched a number of videos before this one and when I watched this one I said Wow because the experience was so beautiful. The quality is excellent and there are some vistas that are spectacular. We are familiar with watching volcanic eruptions but with this experience we are watching the scene as if we are there. As the volcano erupts we can see the projectiles and follow their course through the sky. This is a novel experience for many of us.

Spring is finally back and the fun sports are about to start again. Via Ferrata, Rock climbing, hiking and other sports will be possible and we will see what new places I explore. While waiting for the season to start properly I took some time to film bees pollinating a form of apple tree. The images were captured with a Sony PMW-200. This camera records high quality images. Springwatch - some swiss bees from Mainvision on Vimeo. This summer I will work on projects and share them.I hope to realise my documentary about via ferrata at last. I have acquired some new skills but need to find people with whom to collaborate with.