The waddling dog dilemma

[Iso286]

Through luck and happenstance I managed to acquire a free go pro style knock off sports camera about a year ago, it's not great but good enough for projects where a fairly disposable camera would be ideal.

So I did what any sane person would do and bought a cheap harness for it, strapped it to my beagle pup, and then went to a car show, the final setup being something I christened the "GoPup Hero" and visible here https://youtu.be/_c3-p3CkLMA?t=130 (not my video, this was the "official video" for the event), and for the most part it worked well, except for one little thing that stopped it working very well at all, or more specifically 4 little things.

You see the organic part of the "GoPup Hero", which we shall refer as Artemis, or Arty, by beagle standards is quite short and the aforementioned four little things are her stubby legs, which give her quite a waddly gait, which looks adorable in person, but makes footage when viewed full size on a computer screen a foolproof fix to a migraine or motion sickness free life. Although it looked absolutely fine previewed on the camera or my phone, as soon as I started looking at it on a computer screen within minutes I wanted to do nothing more than lie down reach for the ibuprofen... If you want an example of this or just if you want to justify an addiction to over the counter pain or motion sickness meds I've stuck a bit of the footage from it on youtube here https://youtu.be/5AzbUn76RG4 so you can see what I mean!

So my first question, any suggestions how to salvage the footage I have? I've tried things like the basic anti-shake reduction in the standard windows included tools, but the end result looked like it was filmed on a potato (some might argue it was already filmed on a potato, but I mean as in a real dug out of the ground and cook for dinner potato).

Next question, I'd like to try this again in future on other day trips, holidays, car shows, etc, etc (and I realise this may be impossible but, you never know) is there an inexpensive, compact, lightweight way of avoiding the nauseous swaying in any future outings of the GoPup Hero, like some kind of miniature gimbal mount or something? It needs to be fairly compact and low profile firstly to avoid the dog lead constantly catching the camera more than it already does (that's the SKKKRrrt sound you keep hearing in the vid), but also to avoid the discomfort for Arty of having something resembling weight and appearance of a scale model of the Eiffel Tower strapped to her back. Additionally it needs to be cheap because beagle reasons, which (especially as future videos might be taken with Arty off the lead and running free) any beagle owner will know means it might get rolled in poo, bashed and smashed into anything imaginable or just lost, or lost then found and then chewed, or lost, found, then dropped in poo, then chewed, just look seriously you never ever strap anything expensive or that you don't mind losing or breaking to a beagle! I have done some research into this myself but all I see to come across are the tall stick mounted style gimbals which would create the aforementioned Eiffel Tower scenario, or smaller FPV style drone mounts that would require messy 12v power packs, wires and cables and would risk making Arty look like something that escaped a Borg cube... but maybe one you more experienced in such things might know of something that would better fit the bill?

 

 

 

Anyway thanks in advance to anyone that can suggest anything that might help, and for those interested, additional picture of the fuzzy little dick head attached.

 

[Gegger]

just going to comment cuz the pup is sooooo cute!

 

also fyi the vid is private

[Iso286]

Should now be less private

[LyondellBasell]

3 hours ago, Iso286 said:

So my first question, any suggestions how to salvage the footage I have? I've tried things like the basic anti-shake reduction in the standard windows included tools

I would recommend something like ReelSteady for AfterEffects, that's about as good as you can get on a budget. 

3 hours ago, Iso286 said:

Is there an inexpensive, compact, lightweight way of avoiding the nauseous swaying in any future outings of the GoPup Hero, like some kind of miniature gimbal mount or something? It needs to be fairly compact and low profile Additionally it needs to be cheap.

The best you can do would be a purpose-made head camera harness that properly fits your doggo, companies like Mohoc and GoPro make them. Depending on how your dog moves it still will not give you a perfect image but it's a step in the right direction, the dog's neck will act like a gimbal and cut some of the resonant motion of walking.

[Iso286]

Thanks I'll look into ReelSteady.

The harness I have for her already is basically a copy of the GoPro Fetch dog harness mount, I couldn't find a GoPro branded head mount. The Mohoc looks designed for much larger headed dogs, but honestly I don't think she'd be happy wearing any kind of head mount... I got a very definite *NOPE* from her, when I tried sticking Elf ears on her last year, and pretty sure she'd like this even less!

I *think* I may have found a cheap not terribly durable looking, but cheap enough for me not to care drone mount gimbal with much lower voltage requirements then I'd seen previously so I can get away with a much smaller battery pack than previously expected. The 12v packs I was looking at previously all seemed a bit too big and unweldy, but seems I can get away with voltage as low as 5V, meaning I could get away with connecting 2 much more manageably sized 18650's (which I have loads spare) in series.

I mean she'd still look a bit Beagle Borg like, but I guess Resistance is FURtile right?