Posted By: Catfish Tim
I just can't help it - 01/21/23 01:47 PM
Y'all I think we need a catfishermans anonymise, or maybe it's just me...
So I've been putting together a plan to start producing video content on the boat again. I have been studying and studying how to make this work. For those of you that do it, I have a great deal of respect for you. You make it look easy and it's not. I confess that I am doubly cursed as I am a catfisherman and an engineer by trade. So I approach things like this from a decidedly technical perspective. I work in a field where I have been refining an automation process for almost 40 years now and when I think about how I want this to work, for me I want to focus on fishing. I want the video capture process to be automated and run in the background without any intervention from me. I don't want to miss things because batteries need changed or SD cards are full. And, more importantly, I don't want my focus on fishing to be compromised by having to fuss with the cameras.
What to do, what to do...
Well, as usual, I jumped in with both feet... To start with I studied cameras. I would like to have the new GOPro 10s or 11s or 25s, lol, whatever the newest one is. They seem to advance faster than iPhones. However, I am not in the realm yet where I think I need $900 cameras. Maybe when the content gets better I will upgrade but for now, I have a GoPro wanna be that seems to do what I want it to. I also have a small handycam for my other one and a DSLR for my B roll footage. My phone also does a good job for my B roll stuff.
Now just having those has proven to me how difficult this can be. I have missed more takedowns and good catches than I have caught. The batteries do not last. Especially in the handy cam. It will barely run 20 minutes on a full charge and I have just 2 batteries so, you do the math and you can see where that leaves me. The action cam does better on battery life but after a couple or three hours I am dead in the water, literally.
I also have struggled mightily with view angles and camera placement. I can see all the rods and get a takedown but then I jump up on the back deck and all you can see is my big behind. Not something anyone wants to look at. So my research continued. I needed a way to power the cameras for an extended period of time, and more data storage capacity. In addition to that, I needed a way to mount the cameras so I could see better what's going on when I'm up on the deck and when I'm not. Plus the view needed to be able to see over the gunnells to capture the netting process.
Add to all this that in my opinion, audio makes or breaks a video. Audio not only has to be good clear and intelligible, but it needs to maintain a constant level. Are you starting to understand why I say I am doubly cursed? Let's continue...
Issue number one: Battery life...
I now have a single 12 volt, 12 Amp Hour deep cycle battery, sometimes called a kayak battery to run the cameras. I have the battery in an ammo box with a connector plate on the side that has USB outputs and a battery level indicator. I also rigged a maintainer on the battery so when I pull it, I can plug it in and charge it for the next use. From the USB ports on the can, I have two 15 foot charger cords. One with a micro USB for the action cam and one with a USB 2.0 for the handy cam. The box is designed to fit in the gunnel storage compartment on the boat. The charger cords will route up through the bimini posts to the locations of the cameras. By my calculations, the battery should give me in excess of 10 hours of run time on both cameras without any need to service them. I am sure that I will need to address thermal shutdowns in the summer but, we'll cross that bridge when we get there... So now we have power fixed.
Next is storage. I continue to be impressed with the density of storage technology. In my work world I deal with video management systems that have pico bytes of storage. For those of you that don't know what that is, you have kilobytes (hundreds of thousands) megabytes (hundreds of millions) Gigabytes (hundreds of billions) terabytes (hundreds of trillions) then picobytes (hundreds of quadrillions). So before I get even further off topic, I'll just say that I have two new cards one SD and one micro SD. They are both 256 GB chips. So I have a half a terabyte of storage between the two cameras. I should not get even close to using all that in a single trip even if I'm out for eight or ten hours. Stunning to me that not too long ago that would have sunk my boat, but I'm a geek so...
Right, that's power and storage capacity, check!
Camera position and views. There is a device called a YOLO stick. It is designed to plug into the stern light socket and it gives you power from the cranking battery on the boat (I am not a fan. I don't want to just hear a click when it's time to head in because I was running too many accessories off of the cranking battery all day. Plus the YOLO stick seems to me to be better suited to bass fishing where the target view is at the front of the boat. I considered one of these and installing a new receptacle somewhere up the gunnel but I thought better of it. It just doesn't seem like a good fit for catfishing to me. I looked a lots of other options. I watched lots of videos paying particular attention to where and how guys were mounting their cameras. What I decided on were two eleven inch magic mount arms. They have a jaw clamp at one end and a camera post at the other end which is just a 1/4 - 20 threaded post. But in the middle it articulates so you can adjust it infinitely. They are really solid mounts and they stay where you put them. I plan to mount them on the outside of the bimini posts. This should give me the takedown and the fight and the netting/boating. I am hopeful they will give the results I'm looking for. If not, it will be back to the drawing board.
Lastly, audio. I have a wireless mic that I plan to wear. With the life vest, the trolling motor remote and a lot of clothes on this time of year, I don't know if I am going to get a lot of scratch from things hitting the mic. If I do, I think plan B is a shotgun mic on a hot shoe mount. Stay tuned for that. What I want is a good level of fidelity at a constant level so you don't turn up the sound and then get your ears blasted.
I have what I consider a decent mid level video editing software package that I have gotten reasonably proficient at using. So, in the next couple weeks, when I'm not out of town, I hope to get this implemented and start making some content to post up on my YouTube channel with links here on the TFF.
And, as my addiction knows no bounds, I have also put a cellular hot spot out at the marina so I can put up a couple security cameras and... a weather station. Help me y'all, I'm sick.
So I've been putting together a plan to start producing video content on the boat again. I have been studying and studying how to make this work. For those of you that do it, I have a great deal of respect for you. You make it look easy and it's not. I confess that I am doubly cursed as I am a catfisherman and an engineer by trade. So I approach things like this from a decidedly technical perspective. I work in a field where I have been refining an automation process for almost 40 years now and when I think about how I want this to work, for me I want to focus on fishing. I want the video capture process to be automated and run in the background without any intervention from me. I don't want to miss things because batteries need changed or SD cards are full. And, more importantly, I don't want my focus on fishing to be compromised by having to fuss with the cameras.
What to do, what to do...
Well, as usual, I jumped in with both feet... To start with I studied cameras. I would like to have the new GOPro 10s or 11s or 25s, lol, whatever the newest one is. They seem to advance faster than iPhones. However, I am not in the realm yet where I think I need $900 cameras. Maybe when the content gets better I will upgrade but for now, I have a GoPro wanna be that seems to do what I want it to. I also have a small handycam for my other one and a DSLR for my B roll footage. My phone also does a good job for my B roll stuff.
Now just having those has proven to me how difficult this can be. I have missed more takedowns and good catches than I have caught. The batteries do not last. Especially in the handy cam. It will barely run 20 minutes on a full charge and I have just 2 batteries so, you do the math and you can see where that leaves me. The action cam does better on battery life but after a couple or three hours I am dead in the water, literally.
I also have struggled mightily with view angles and camera placement. I can see all the rods and get a takedown but then I jump up on the back deck and all you can see is my big behind. Not something anyone wants to look at. So my research continued. I needed a way to power the cameras for an extended period of time, and more data storage capacity. In addition to that, I needed a way to mount the cameras so I could see better what's going on when I'm up on the deck and when I'm not. Plus the view needed to be able to see over the gunnells to capture the netting process.
Add to all this that in my opinion, audio makes or breaks a video. Audio not only has to be good clear and intelligible, but it needs to maintain a constant level. Are you starting to understand why I say I am doubly cursed? Let's continue...
Issue number one: Battery life...
I now have a single 12 volt, 12 Amp Hour deep cycle battery, sometimes called a kayak battery to run the cameras. I have the battery in an ammo box with a connector plate on the side that has USB outputs and a battery level indicator. I also rigged a maintainer on the battery so when I pull it, I can plug it in and charge it for the next use. From the USB ports on the can, I have two 15 foot charger cords. One with a micro USB for the action cam and one with a USB 2.0 for the handy cam. The box is designed to fit in the gunnel storage compartment on the boat. The charger cords will route up through the bimini posts to the locations of the cameras. By my calculations, the battery should give me in excess of 10 hours of run time on both cameras without any need to service them. I am sure that I will need to address thermal shutdowns in the summer but, we'll cross that bridge when we get there... So now we have power fixed.
Next is storage. I continue to be impressed with the density of storage technology. In my work world I deal with video management systems that have pico bytes of storage. For those of you that don't know what that is, you have kilobytes (hundreds of thousands) megabytes (hundreds of millions) Gigabytes (hundreds of billions) terabytes (hundreds of trillions) then picobytes (hundreds of quadrillions). So before I get even further off topic, I'll just say that I have two new cards one SD and one micro SD. They are both 256 GB chips. So I have a half a terabyte of storage between the two cameras. I should not get even close to using all that in a single trip even if I'm out for eight or ten hours. Stunning to me that not too long ago that would have sunk my boat, but I'm a geek so...
Right, that's power and storage capacity, check!
Camera position and views. There is a device called a YOLO stick. It is designed to plug into the stern light socket and it gives you power from the cranking battery on the boat (I am not a fan. I don't want to just hear a click when it's time to head in because I was running too many accessories off of the cranking battery all day. Plus the YOLO stick seems to me to be better suited to bass fishing where the target view is at the front of the boat. I considered one of these and installing a new receptacle somewhere up the gunnel but I thought better of it. It just doesn't seem like a good fit for catfishing to me. I looked a lots of other options. I watched lots of videos paying particular attention to where and how guys were mounting their cameras. What I decided on were two eleven inch magic mount arms. They have a jaw clamp at one end and a camera post at the other end which is just a 1/4 - 20 threaded post. But in the middle it articulates so you can adjust it infinitely. They are really solid mounts and they stay where you put them. I plan to mount them on the outside of the bimini posts. This should give me the takedown and the fight and the netting/boating. I am hopeful they will give the results I'm looking for. If not, it will be back to the drawing board.
Lastly, audio. I have a wireless mic that I plan to wear. With the life vest, the trolling motor remote and a lot of clothes on this time of year, I don't know if I am going to get a lot of scratch from things hitting the mic. If I do, I think plan B is a shotgun mic on a hot shoe mount. Stay tuned for that. What I want is a good level of fidelity at a constant level so you don't turn up the sound and then get your ears blasted.
I have what I consider a decent mid level video editing software package that I have gotten reasonably proficient at using. So, in the next couple weeks, when I'm not out of town, I hope to get this implemented and start making some content to post up on my YouTube channel with links here on the TFF.
And, as my addiction knows no bounds, I have also put a cellular hot spot out at the marina so I can put up a couple security cameras and... a weather station. Help me y'all, I'm sick.