GoPro (gopro.com), a Half Moon Bay, CA,-based provider of miniaturized and specialized camera systems activity image capture company, has developed a special 48-camera array to shoot a new commercial spot for international surf brand Rip Curl. The rig was employed to capture unique perspectives of two-time world champion surfer Mick Fanning in the waters of the South Pacific.
The video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYBIeQ-1c1g), shot by Tim and Callum Macmillan (Time-Slice Films), veteran camera array photography professionals, used the GoPro Camera Array to promote Rip Curl's Mirage Board shorts. Additional videos for the Rip Curl campaign featuring this new GoPro Array technology will showcase Rip Curl surfers Owen Wright, Matt Wilkinson, Dillon Perillo and Dean Brady.
After its release of its 3D HERO camera system (and syncing technology) in April, GoPro teamed up with the Macmillan brothers and began experimenting and pushing the limits of GoPro's technology. The Macmillans were challenged with creating a handheld underwater camera array system for the new product launch.
Tim Macmillan said he has been waiting for the ideal camera technology to come along to do the video array. "It's like waiting for a wave. You see the wave coming, you start paddling before everyone else and then it hits you and it is GoPro," he said.
The result was the GoPro Array, the world's first video array that can be submerged underwater, operated by one man, and withstand the enormous waves at Cloudbreak, Fiji.
"No other camera could have enabled this shoot," Tim Macmillan said. "What makes the GoPro Array revolutionary is shooting actual video, not still pictures arranged sequentially. Multiple cameras shooting 720p at 60 frames per second all synched together opens up a multitude of possibilities."
