Flapper The Tourist Goes For Trishaw Ride

After spending many hours mulling over what new adventures I should go on, Mummy and I decided it would be fun to do some touristy activities for the first half of this Sony campaign leading up to National Day.


After all, it is SG50 and surely I, Flapper Choo, can celebrate it in my own way.

But here comes the challenging part.

How do we get organizations to say 'Yes' to some of our ideas?

Part of being 'Proudly Singaporean' is accepting the rejections as I am but a mere dog.  

And rejections, we got.  
Upset, we are not.

Mummy and I agreed that for every one yes, we will just cheer, celebrate and have fun.


"Who me?  A tourist?"


I am an old-fashioned boy.
I do not fancy fast cars (that's Frodo).

Mummy has never been on a trishaw ride and neither have I.  So when the kind people of Trishaw Uncle replied and said they are willing to take me on a Trishaw ride, mummy and I rejoiced.

We are seeing the sights of Singapore in what used-to-be the traditional mode of transport.

We woke up early that morning and got ready for our ride.  But well, mummy got the meeting place wrong and we ended up walking a long way to get there.  We were greeted with big smiles and warm welcome from Uncle Yong.   He loves dogs.  He was very happy to take me for this ride.





I would like to take this opportunity to say a huge THANK YOU to Uncle Sim and Uncle Yong of Trishaw Uncle for agreeing to allow me to go on this wonderful trishaw.  It was such a wonderful experience and such a great adventure.

Special thank you to Uncle Yong for being so kind and friendly to me.

Mummy and I took days to finish editing this trishaw ride video.   The fun part of having TWO Action Cam cameras is being able to take in two perspective.  The laborious part?  EDITING BOTH SET OF VIDEOS!

*guffaw*

After working long and hard on the trishaw ride video, I decided I had to do a special out-take of this adventure.





I am happy that I managed to go on this adventure but I am even happier that I could bring smiles to the trishaw uncles.

And I continue to count my blessings.... look not at the rejections but the acceptance that comes along the way.



Adventure rating:






Sony Action Cam 4K Features & Accessories Review (by Flapper's mummy)


For this trishaw ride, I did not use the fancy settings on the camera.  I kept it really simple.

  • HD Mode
  • 1080 / 60p / 50M
  • Steady Mode: ON
  • White Balance (WB): Auto
  • Mount: Body
This is like the default mode I set the Action Cam too.  My "cannot-go-wrong" setting.  I am no professional photographer so forget about me diligently figuring out the white balance.  

I like simple settings that work.
Press record and go.

You know, THAT idiot-proof setting for lazy users like myself.

I was not sure how the trishaw ride videos would turn out.  So far, my tests with the camera mounted on Flapper (read more below) has not been very successful.  And without our trustworthy "Uncle Nic", I (the human) was nervous about how the vids would turn out.

That constant question of: "WHAT IF NONE OF THE FOOTAGES WORK"????

And fortunately, the videos turned out better than I expected and personally, I really liked Flapper's POV videos even though the footages ended up with "a lot of Flapper's head".

The pace of the trishaw ride was perfect especially since I am still not confident of my knowledge of the Action Cam.  So I heaved a huge sigh of relief when I downloaded the videos and realized how great the videos turned out.

Here's a tip:
Make sure you sync the cameras to your devices (Live Remote Viewer and/or mobile phone) before embarking on the adventure.  The multi-view function helps... A LOT!  I could play around taking the ride at different camera angles and intermittently check Flapper's POV to make sure the camera was not capturing sky shots only.





For this trishaw ride, I was used the Dog Harness Mount for Flapper's POV and the Clip Mount to capture the ride.


Sony Dog Harness Mount

The biggest struggle so far using the Action Cam on the dogs is the nauseating effect from movements.   So far, neither GoPro nor Sony has devised a suitable mount for dogs that is able to take stable videos.

Sony Dog Harness
(image taken from gizmag.com)
The dog harness is created with LOADS of velcro.  That makes sense to make it 'one-size-fits-all' but it feels... well, inferior quality because of all that velcro.  And it does not make it friendly for beach use.  Think sand.

It comes with that mount extension you see at the top.

Good because you can detach it to use with the other mounts.

Bad because it makes the nauseating takes on the movements even more unforgiving!  When the camera is attached directly to the harness, the trotting takes are very decent.  Forget about running.  But with the extra mount, it is far worse.  Even the trotting pace cannot make the cut.  And once the waterproof case goes on, it gets even worse.  The weight of the camera becomes too heavy.

In addition, the extended mount does tilt on its own when the dog starts running.

In this Octo-dog image, you can see that the camera has already tilted upwards on its own.

HOWEVER, for this particular trishaw ride, I should have used the extended mount on Flapper.  The camera was attached directly to the harness base mount as I was not sure at the start if I would end up with unusable shaky videos.

Better safe than sorry.

The result: Flapper's point-of-view (POV) videos came out with "too much head" (Flapper's  head).  The pace of the trishaw ride and with Flapper standing relatively still for most part of the ride, the extended mount should have worked and taken better POVs with less of Flapper's head.  Lesson learnt.

And the thing about a harness mount, all the big dog needs to do is sit and it's the sky.  Still thinking of ways to create a front chest or neck mount.

The Sony dog harness is Flapper's latest fashion-do.
Never leave home without it.

Oh yes, and that very precious waterproof casing too.
Never trust Flapper without it.


Dog Harness Rating:




The Clip-Mount

The other accessory used for the trishaw ride is the clip mount.

Sony Clip Mount for the Action Cam
(image from www.sony.com.sg)
The trishaw ride was my first time using the clip mount and I was impressed with it.  This was actually the last accessory I chose and thank goodness for Sony's recommendation (and almost-insistence) that this should be the third accessory!

It is a very versatile piece of accessory.  You can tilt it to different direction and the clip itself can be tilted forwards or backwards to get the favourable camera angle.  It can also be mounted on sticks to use for selfie purpose.  I wanted to do that for the trishaw ride but once we hit the main road and saw the traffic condition, I don't think the other motorists are going to be too impressed with a stick jutting out from the trishaw!  Ha!

I ended up putting the clip mount at the back of the trishaw.  And aided by the Steady Shot function, the videos turned pretty darn decent for a dummy end-user like myself.

But as Flapper's grandma said, "I want to see Flapper's face!"

Sorry grandma.
I did the best I could.

Clip Mount Rating:







And that's my Trishaw Ride adventure with my Action Cam 4K!

"I am Flapper the Tourist.  Never leave home without me Action Cam"
(photo credit: Furry Photos Pet Photography)

I wonder what's my next big adventure.....


xxoo
Flapper Choo



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