Carla King is a trailblazing travel writer, memoirist, and publishing coach dedicated to helping authors transform their stories into polished, professional books. Renowned for her solo motorcycle adventures and as a pioneer in online travel blogging, Carla’s memoirs and essays capture the power of personal storytelling. With a Silicon Valley background in tech writing, she combines creativity with efficiency, offering clear, actionable guidance to nonfiction and memoir authors. Through her books, courses, podcasts, and partnerships with writing and publishing organizations, Carla empowers writers to achieve their publishing goals with confidence and expertise.
I just started experimenting with capturing video on my motorcycle, so I have started with basic tools. I use an Oregon Scientific ATC1000 camera mounted to the crash bars of my Suzuki V-Strom to record videos when I am riding. For a $99 camera it’s not bad, but it’s definitely no Hero HD. For editing software, my favorite is iMovie on the MacBook Pro, although I have also experimented with Pitivi on Ubuntu (I’m a network admin by day, so I prefer to use Open Source software as much as possible). Some of my experiments are available on You Tube (search for N600LW), if you are interested in seeing what low-budget tools can accomplish.
Regardless of the tools you use, IMHO, the best tip I’ve found so far is practice, practice, practice! I record as much as possible. Most of my video ends up in the bit bucket (trash bin) rather than compiled into a completed recording, but that’s one of the beauties of digital video — there’s nothing lost by recording something that doesn’t make the cut, while there’s nothing gained by *not* recording a ride that turned out to be epic. I just returned from a solo trip on the Denali Highway, from Paxson, AK to Cantwell, AK. Due to weather and time constraints, I didn’t bother to run the video for most of the Denali Highway…and now I’m kicking myself.
Here’s a great helmet camera article by Anthony at MotoJournalism.com
http://motojournalism.blogspot.com/2011/02/motorcycle-helmet-camera-tips-n-tricks.html
What really works good is to have an experienced passenger take the videos and do some preplan for the ride. Have the passenger get off a video you going through a curve, tunnel etc.