Last Sunday saw a trip to Newport Velodrome with the trackdropouts.com. It’s the first time I’ve ever visited a track and was surprised at how steep the corners actually are, they don’t look anything close to that vertical on the TV! With both me and Gav armed with Canon 550D’s and an assortment of lenses, the order of the day for us at least was to film. The Trackdropout boys did an awesome job on the track, getting out there just after the Irish Olympic team had finished their own practice and we managed to get a nice collection of shots to be included in BÖIKZMÖIND, however the best shots we picked up that day were our dolly shots. Luckily the amazing folks at Glidetrack had lent Gav one of their Glidetrack SD’s to test out, and so with the track mounted onto two Velbon tripods we gave it a little trial from the centre of the track.
The first two attempts were a bit of a failure as we simply tried holding the camera and dragging it along the track, but after a few minutes we’d decided to change our tactic. With one of us at either end, Gav pressed record on the camera, and I pulled it along the track using the shoulder strap. It took a couple of attempts to get the speed right with each pass the guys took on the track, but after a short while the results were really pleasing.
The Glidetrack really is an awesome piece of kit and I can’t wait to use it again with a bit more familiarity. We can see a sneak peek of the results below.
