My Motovlog Camera Setup Isn’t Working Out

If you’ve been around the channel for a bit, you know I like to keep things pretty simple when it comes to my motovlog camera setup. One camera, mount it, ride. But I’ve got a restoration project coming up, and off-bike, in-garage filming is a different animal. I started digging through bins to figure out what I already had. What followed was a solid hour of trial and error that did not go the way I hoped.

The project I’m building toward is a full restoration of my dad’s 1976 Honda CB750F. I want to document the whole thing. The wrenching, the history, the story behind the bike. It’s the kind of thing I want to have for myself and for my kids, and if other people find it useful or entertaining along the way, even better. But before I can document it, I need a camera I can point at myself in the garage without it looking like I filmed it in a basement in 2009.

Testing Old Gear Before Buying New

My first instinct was to use what I already own. I’ve got a bunch of old motovlog cameras sitting around from previous setups. We moved about a year and a half ago and some of that gear got packed away. So I went digging.

The DJI Osmo Action

The first camera I pulled out was my first-generation DJI Osmo Action. I actually have two of them. Liked the first one enough that I bought a second. I used one for the Motorcycle Adjacent Podcast recordings and it held up fine in that context. Ring light on my face, shooting in the shed. It worked.

So I got it charged up, set it on a tripod on my Domino table with the bikes in the background, and recorded a test clip talking through the CB750F project. Pulled the footage. It looked terrible.

The issue is my garage lighting. I’ve got LED work lights, the kind that look like fluorescent shop lights but are LED. Turns out those flash at a rate your eyes can’t pick up, but the camera absolutely can. You get these dark bands rolling through the frame. It’s not a complete dealbreaker, but it’s noticeable enough that I don’t want it in finished video. On top of that, the image just isn’t as crisp or saturated as what I’m used to seeing from my Insta360 X5. Side by side, the Osmo footage looked flat and dull. Maybe with more natural light coming in it would be a different story, but in the garage it wasn’t cutting it.

The GoPro Hero 8

Next I dug out my old GoPro Hero 8. This was actually the camera that replaced the Osmo Actions in my original chin-mount motovlog setup. Before I could even test it indoors, I threw it on the handlebars of my Yamaha MT-09 for a ride with Goofy. Felt like old times running a two-GoPro setup again.

Got home, pulled the footage. Also not great.

The Hero 8 on the handlebars shoots up at me, so I’ve got a bright sky behind me and I’m dark in the foreground. The colors are punchy, which I actually like, but the shadows are crushed. Everything in the darker areas of the frame just goes black. And when I tried it handheld inside the garage, same banding issue from the LED lights. Less noticeable than the Osmo, but still there.

The difference between the Hero 8 and the Hero 10 I’m running now is honestly mind-blowing. I didn’t realize how much ground GoPro covered between those two generations until I put them side by side.

The Media Mod Option

I do still have a GoPro Media Mod kicking around for the Hero 8. The media mod would let me either use the built-in shotgun mic or wire in a wireless lapel setup, which would be ideal for sit-down garage recordings. That’s actually worth testing on a tripod in the garage before I write the Hero 8 off completely for this use case.

On the bike though? Probably not. There’s just too big a gap in quality between the 8 and what I’m shooting with now to justify going backward for motovlog footage.

Maybe I Just Use the X5

The fallback I keep coming back to is just using the Insta360 X5. I’ve been reluctant because it feels like overkill for a single-camera, one-person setup. The workflow is more involved. Instead of just pulling the clip, I’m exporting a specific camera angle out of the 360 footage first.

But here’s the thing. If I’m doing a restoration series, I’m probably going to want to move the camera around anyway. Point it at the engine. Point it at my dad when he’s talking. Point it at me when I’m explaining something. A 360 camera actually makes a lot of sense for that kind of documentary-style shooting.

The one limitation is how wide the X5 is. When I use it for Smoke and Steel, my cigar podcast, I’ve got to zoom in to 2x just to get a decent shot of the people at the far end of the table. That’s a real constraint depending on the setup. In a restoration context where I’ve got more control over proximity, it might not matter as much.

The Lights I Threw Away

Here’s the kicker. I had a whole backdrop and lighting kit, soft boxes on tripods with diffusers, the kind of setup that would have helped with exactly the flickering problem I’m dealing with now. I used them once, hated looking at them taking up space, and threw them out when I was reorganizing the garage.

Now that I’m dealing with banding from the LED lights, I’m sitting here thinking about whether that kit would have solved the problem. Probably would have, at least partially. Can’t do anything about it now.

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Ride With Me

If you’re sorting through your own camera setup or just want to follow along as I figure this stuff out, come hang out. Subscribe to the WaltInPA YouTube channel for more riding content as the CB750F project gets underway.

Share this post with a friend who rides, especially if they’ve dealt with the same garage lighting headaches I’m running into. And come hang out in the WaltInPA Discord where we talk about riding, gear, and everything that goes with it.