Back in 2012, Felix Baumgartner successfully become the first person to break the sound barrier outside of a vehicle in a freefall 38,969.3 metres or 127,852 feet (over 24 miles) above the Earth's surface. He reached a top speed of 1,357.64 km/h or 843.6 mph before slowing down and coming to a safe landing in New Mexico. While there is plenty of amazing POV footage out there, this new footage released by GoPro taken from the HERO2s attached to his body is as thrilling as any Hollywood action movie. Check out the breathtaking 8 minute video below:
GoPro is showing this shortened version as an ad during the Super Bowl on Sunday:
Video is no longer available: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEsIMp67pyM
Baumgartner had a total of seven GoPro HERO2 cameras strapped to his body, and the above video used only the footage from those cameras. It would be interesting to see just what the videos might have looked like with the new HERO3 that was announced just days later. If you missed any of the original videos, here's one that takes you through more of the process:
It's remarkable the kind of videos we're getting thanks to these little cameras. But what would be even better than GoPros? Maybe on the next jump RED could strap some modified Carbon Fiber DRAGON cameras to someone so we can watch the footage in 4K. That's probably as close as you could get to being there.
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10 Comments
It had more drama than any movie I've ever seen.
The GoPro has to be the greatest achievement in cameras ever. I know the Red is amazing. I know ARRI is amazing. And the GH3, and the Haselblad H5D, are amazing. But I think GoPro has passed all of them. How did they get such a beautiful picture in such a small, rugged, inexpensive camera?!
Could the Red carbon take the centrifugal force of spinning that fast? You could see how fast he was spinning by how fast the reflection of the sun was spinning on the faceplate of his helmet.
January 31, 2014 at 8:30PM, Edited September 4, 8:45AM
You should try to watch movies from Belgium, they deliver real drama (kill me please, Bullhead, May22...), they are deep and surprising as they don't follow hollywood script stereotypes. However, nothing related to high jump....
Go Pro are great product, but here the positionning of the camera was not very interesting for such jump, and 4K or Red or whatever upgrade would be totally useless if the framing still the same: no perspective, no feel of speed, no references in term of distance or space. It could be exciting if cameras were at distance as it is done for sky diving video, which are much more interesting to watch than this.
Too bad that with such a huge budget they couldnt figure out to design a drone or any remote system to film the guy from a distance with the earth as a background... A sky diving camera operator was out of question (too heavy) and Felix wanted to be the one to get the record. Here, the framing is just not adapted and the overall feel is far to be amazing and doesn't serve well the incredible performance done by Felix Baumgartner.
February 1, 2014 at 2:01AM, Edited September 4, 8:45AM
How fast he accelerated after he dropped out of the balloon looked very, very fast. He got smaller and smaller pretty dang quick.
But I see what you are saying. It would have been more dramatic to see, somehow, how fast he actually was traveling. It's hard to tell how fast something in the sky is traveling with no reference point, and only miles and miles of open sky, around it. That's why it's hard to tell how fast a passenger plane overhead is traveling. Seems like it's going slow. It's probably going 600 miles an hour. A meteorite entering earth's atmosphere is traveling much faster than a bullet. But it doesn't look like it because there's nothing around it to refer to. If there was a large stationary object that the plane or meteorite could pass you'd get a better idea how fast they are going.
So how they could have gotten a reference out in the wide open sky that would have shown how fast he was really going would have been quite a trick to pull of. One way, possibly, is if a camera on the ground recorded him as he shot past a vapor trail left by a plane. But then where he was traveling over 800 miles and hour was above the atmosphere. I don't know if a plane leaves a vapor trail without atmosphere to create it. So I don't know.
Anyone know how they could have gotten a reference point?
February 1, 2014 at 10:16AM, Edited September 4, 8:45AM
If only Go-Pro would:
1. Make a simple, robust interchangeable lens-mount part of their system. Just 3 fixed-focal lenses would be sufficient: wide, medium, long. The wide-angle distortion is so heavy as is, giving every go-pro video the same aesthetic and feel no matter the action.
2. Have a "Pro" mode where all automatic ISO/Iris/Shutter adjustments have been killed. And...
3. ... a remote or, better yet, a tablet/phone app that controls basic camera functions while in the Pro mode. Nothing too fancy, but a few fps of streamed video should be doable. Preferably one could sync multiple Go-Pro's up with a single control device.
All of this could be done without complicating the camera for those who just want to strap it to their head and jump of a cliff - but boy would it really take of as a tool for slightly more elaborate filmmakers (way beyond the 2-3 second snippets they allow themselves with the current Go-Pros).
February 1, 2014 at 5:52AM, Edited September 4, 8:45AM
GoPro glues the lens in. They HAVE to glue it in so it stays in place through all the jarring and centrifugal forces of extreme sports. One solution for that though (with more cost of course) is Back-Bone RibCage:
http://nofilmschool.com/2013/12/back-bone-ribcage-gopro-hero3-plus-inter...
A second solution is if they would use the guts of the camera to make a second line of cameras. But it doesn't look like that is going to happen. Their time is completely consumed with making upgrades to the camera they now have to even consider taking time to do anything else.
GoPro does have WiFi.
February 1, 2014 at 9:31AM, Edited September 4, 8:45AM
Even the Carbons are a little heavy to be sticked to the man himself. Let the GoBros do their thing.
February 1, 2014 at 8:37AM, Edited September 4, 8:45AM
Wow. an energy drink company did this.
February 1, 2014 at 12:22PM, Edited September 4, 8:45AM
Nothing beats the reality. Thank god he woke up and landed safetly. Spining is extremly dangerous.
February 1, 2014 at 5:29PM, Edited September 4, 8:45AM
Enjoy Mr. Kittinger freefall couple years earlier
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2zKARkpDW4
February 1, 2014 at 5:42PM, Edited September 4, 8:45AM
I think it's a lot more likely that the next iteration of GoPro cameras will do 4K than that they would strap something as large as a RED Dragon, Carbon or otherwise, to someone about to do the ultimate skydive.
Wow!
February 6, 2014 at 11:09AM, Edited September 4, 8:45AM