29 August 20243:55509 views on YouTubeWatch on YouTube
A 360 camera on a stick gives you shots a normal action cam cannot, but only if you are willing to spend sessions failing at them. This episode is one of those experiments: an eFoiling piece cut to Burn the Witch by Radiohead, made mainly as an excuse to chase a bullet time effect on the water.
The bullet time idea
The effect being copied is the camera orbiting a subject that stays more or less frozen in the middle of the frame, the trick everyone knows from The Matrix. On an eFoil you get at it by rotating the Insta360 X3 around yourself while riding and reframing the sphere afterwards, which is why the angles keep swinging past and around the rider rather than sitting still behind them. The description is honest about the cost: balancing the camera, holding speed and hitting the angle at the same time took a lot of trial and error, and learning the controls while actually riding was its own problem.
The board under all of it
The ride for this one is a Lift4 Pro 4’2″ on the 32 inch mast, with an LCS prop running without the shroud, a 100 Surf V2 front wing and the 36 Glide stabiliser. That is a small, quick package rather than a cruising one, chosen for exactly the reason a filming session needs: tight turns and smooth carves that hold a line long enough for the camera to work around them. Editing was done in Final Cut Pro with motion tracking and grading plugins.
Worth trying yourself
If you already own a 360 camera and have only ever used it as a follow cam, this is a decent argument for pushing it further. The mounts and angles are cheap to experiment with, the failures cost you nothing but a session, and one good orbit shot changes how the whole edit feels.
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