Yi 4k Footage

Tseralo

Active member
I recently bought a Yi 4k on an Amazon flash sale for about ?100. The goal was to document some of our adventures to show none caver friends and family that everything isnt a small dark muddy hole.

We then took it to a small dark muddy hole (moorfulong mine) and I'm really impressed with the quality of the footage it produces. Even when just lit by a HL55 on setting 3 its quite bright admittedly with a bright spot in the middle and sharp enough. The only thing lacking is the audio but that is terrible even on a ?500 GoPro if its in a case.

I've put some footage here if anyone is interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeGWHVWC11M&feature=youtu.be
 

Caver Keith

Active member
Thanks for posting. I agree the footage is impressive and as good as anything my GoPro 6 produces. The sound on the later GoPros is much better than this but still no where near as good as that on my Lumix GX7.
 

GarDouth

Administrator
The little (relatively) cheap Yi and similar cams are great things. I had a SJCam which are very similar until I lost it down a mine shaft! They produce good quality and not so much of a loss when it inevitably meets a sticky end at at some point underground.

4K is very useful for filming, not for the end production which (for caving films at least) is mostly pointless, but it means that you can do a better job of post production stabilization then crop it down to HD without loss of end quality.

Sound is always an issue. It depends what you're trying to film but if you have the time and free hands, separate sound is by far the best way. You can get some pretty cheap digital audio recorders now. They easily fit in a pocket and you just need a fairly basic mic or use the on-board mics. It does mean more time has to be spend editing and syncing audio though.
 

MarkS

Moderator
gardouth said:
4K is very useful for filming, not for the end production which (for caving films at least) is mostly pointless, but it means that you can do a better job of post production stabilization then crop it down to HD without loss of end quality.

Good point, but light-sensitivity tends to be poorer at higher resolution so I think it's a bit of a trade-off.
 
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