Announcing “PylonCam Pro”: A new, upgraded phone app for water ski recording

[Slalom.Steve]

Download here: PylonCam Pro on the App Store (apple.com)

I am excited to announce the release of PylonCam Pro, the next progression in automatic phone recording for water skiers. This iOS app works very similarly to our old friend Wakeye, but with better quality and more flexibility (Wakeye max quality is 720p). Here’s the features:

- Ability to record in Full HD (1080p) at 30fps, 60fps, or 120fps*
- Ability to record in 4K quality (2160p) at 30fps or 60fps

- Start/stop trigger based on GPS speed

- Previous settings reload automatically on opening

- Saves videos directly to camera roll

- Ability to select ultra-wide lens when using rear camera (see below for explanation)

- Active support and bug fixing guaranteed!

The app is $9.99 as a one-time purchase with the promise to never switch to a subscription model.

*When recording at 120fps, Apple defaults the video to playback as a “slo-mo” video. It's a super quick fix to make it playback regular speed, though you do have to do it on each individual video.

Get it on the app store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pyloncam-pro/id6480435107

 

Right now this is only available for Apple/iOS. If this version is successful enough and there’s enough demand for an Android version, I may be able to do an Android version as well.

Edited April 20 by Slalom.Steve

[OldboyII]

Thank you for lesson. Downloaded!

[Slalom.Steve]

Will this app solve the issue of “shaky image”?
The short answer is: The PylonCam Pro app gives you the flexibility to choose the best possible settings for your specific phone model. Just record a set using each lens on your phone and see which one is best.

The long answer is: Yes and no, and there’s a lot understand about iPhone hardware and software:
Lens Info: Starting with the iPhone 6S, Apple introduced “optical stabilization” on the rear lens that, while improving image stability under “normal,” hand-held use, creates terrible image shake with the hi-frequency vibration of a pylon. This is a physical mechanism in the hardware of the phone and thus there is no way to turn it off or circumvent it via software. The solution has been to use the front/selfie camera instead, which does not have optical stabilization. The downside is that the front/selfie lens is a lower quality lens than the main rear lens.

At the time of the 6S, there was only one rear camera on iPhones. For a while now though, iPhones have 2 or 3 different rear lenses: On regular models there is a main lens, sometimes called a “Wide” lens, and there is an “Ultra-Wide” lens. On Pro models, there is those two lenses plus a third “Telephoto” lens. No matter what model you have, as you zoom in or out, the lenses aren't physically moving and thus aren’t actually “zooming” (called optical zoom) - the phone is just cropping and expanding the image on your screen (called digital zoom), which means the image quality degrades, because after a crop, you have a lower number of pixels occupying the same amount of space. However, with the extra lenses, at certain "break points" the phone switches to a different lens. As you zoom out, it switches to the wide-angle lens. As you zoom in, on regular models it’s all digital zoom, but on Pro models at a certain point it switches to the Telephoto lens, or it seems sometimes Apple does an interesting software mixture of the Main/Wide lens and the Telephoto lens as you zoom in. If you press and hold on your zoom options while in the camera app, you can see this dynamic a little more clearly, with the different lens demarcated. Here’s a screenshot from an 11 Pro, showing the three lenses and their “start points”:
 

Back to stabilization: On non-Pro models the regular/wide lens has the problematic optical stabilization, and on Pro models the telephoto lens also has optical stabilization and thus unsuitable for pylon recording. On either model, the ultra-wide lens does not have optical stabilization, so as soon as you zoom out to anything less than 1x, it switches lenses to the Ultra-Wide and you “access” a lens without stabilization = no pylon shake.

This seems to solve the “problem” of having to use the selfie camera, except at least on my iPhone 11 Pro, the ultra-wide rear lens isn’t any better quality than the front lens, and the ultra-wide lens is more zoomed out than you need to capture skiing, so if I use the ultra-wide and “re-zoom” the video (which remember, isn’t zooming but just cropping), I end up with slightly lower quality than if I had just used the selfie/front lens in the first place.

However, Apple is perpetually updating their lenses (most models) and stabilization (stabilization was upgraded on the 12 Pro Max and again on the 15 Pro), so with newer models or not-yet-released models, the ideal pylon-recording settings may change. The best thing to do for now is just record a set on each lens of your specific phone and see which is best. To restate the important part: The PylonCam Pro app gives you the flexibility to choose the best possible settings for your specific phone model.

*one final note to understand about lenses: the MP (mega-pixel) size is not the only, or even really a good way, to determine the actual quality of a lens. Sensor-size is a better measure, and you can find that info for some models but Apple doesn’t seem to proactively list it, so it takes digging, and even then, there’s still other factors. So don’t just assume that two lenses with the MP will turn out the same

Edited April 20 by Slalom.Steve

[Ufda]

Is there a phone mount you recommend using this with?

[Slalom.Steve]

1 hour ago, Ufda said:

Is there a phone mount you recommend using this with?

There's only been two commercial products (that I'm aware of) for pylon mounting/tracking: Wakeye and Ski-Doc.
Wakeye has gone silent as a company for years now and you can't buy them anymore. Ski-Doc is still active and makes a great solution in the Ski-Doc Orbit: Camera Mounts (theskidoc.com)

[BSBELL]

Just bought it and so so glad you had a fix for wakeye. I hated being limited at 720 quality!

[Slalom.Steve]

@swbca Yeah rope shake is the biggest problem with any kind of pylon-mounted mechanism. The way to "solve" it is to use a GoPro or something with similar stabilization software. But a side effect of the way all that software works is that the video has to be pretty zoomed out, and within the frame of the video, the skier moves from one edge of the frame to the opposite edge of the frame as they cut back and forth, so if you zoom in at any one point, the skier quickly moves out of the zoomed-in frame as they cut side to side.

Edited April 20 by Slalom.Steve

[BSBELL]

I uploaded this to YouTube from this afternoon even though it was very overcast and rainy here. Really digging it over wakeye.

Test Video

One question: Will 4k at 24fps ever be an option in the future? Only reason I ask is I don't want to cut down video quality, but I would like to cut down file sizes to make them quicker to send over text message or airdrop.

[Slalom.Steve]

@BSBELL Glad to see it at work! Curious, could you post your "full specs"?
Phone model:
Camera Select:
Lens used:
Video mode (HD/4K, fps):
Pylon mount (Ski-Doc/Wakeye):

I could add 4k at 24fps in the future!

Edited April 21 by Slalom.Steve

[BSBELL]

I skied at 15off 30mph

Iphone 14 Pro

Rear camera at 1.0x

Lens Normal

4k30

Latest version of Ski-Doc on pylon

[Slalom.Steve]

Oh I almost forgot! Wakeye would also, at least on some phones, save any selfie-camera videos backwards, and you'd have to manually reverse each video. No such issues on PylonCam! All videos save in the correct orientation.
 

@BSBELL Interesting... I would've expected the background vibration to be much worse on the main rear camera! Well, that's the idea behind the Camera and Lens selectors - it's gonna depend on each person's phone. Test each configuration and see what works best for yours!

Edited April 21 by Slalom.Steve

[swbca]

Would it be possible to have the zoom level be a saved value ?   When out on the lake in the sun its hard to setup the app, or for your driver to verify settings in the sun if you are already in the lake.   We lost getting good videos sometimes with wakeye because someone touched the phone screen while changing rope length.   I can understand why saving zoom level might be difficult but it would be a nice feature.    

[Slalom.Steve]

@swbca So right now, if you go to your home screen or another app but don't actually "close/quit" the PylonCam app (ie it's still in the background), it does save the zoom setting when going back to PylonCam. I'll look into whether I can get it to save/re-load the zoom even after a "full quit and re-open."

[MatadorMaine]

Thanks! Excited to use this updated version. 

[BGrow76]

Hopefully it works out and the Android version becomes available sooner rather than later. Worldwide Android has 70% of the market, 40% in the USA.

[Adam Caldwell]

Awesome work Steve! Will check it out!

[VermontSkier]

Purchased. Thank you!

[swbca]

14 hours ago, Slalom.Steve said:

@swbca So right now, if you go to your home screen or another app but don't actually "close/quit" the PylonCam app (ie it's still in the background), it does save the zoom setting when going back to PylonCam. I'll look into whether I can get it to save/re-load the zoom even after a "full quit and re-open."

I tested it and I see the zoom value survives when you put the app in the background.  Until today, I have been using an Android phone with Wakeye and it didn't preserve the zoom value when minimized.   That feature of the iPhone and your new app pretty much solves the problem.   I can set all the values of that app in our kitchen before I head for the lake and they will be ready when we start the app from background when we start skiing.  No worries about trying to do it in bright sun without my reading glasses 🙂  Thanks this is a great improvement ! 

[Hucklefin]

Any thoughts on buying a old iphone 6 off ebay to use for camera use only?

[Slalom.Steve]

@Hucklefin Creative thinking, but the camera specs have come so far since the 6 that even the selfie camera on any model from the iPhone 11 or later is probably better than the rear camera is on an iPhone 6.

[Interjon]

Downloaded today.  Look forward to using tomorrow.  

[swbca]

17 hours ago, BGrow76 said:

Hopefully it works out and the Android version becomes available sooner rather than later. Worldwide Android has 70% of the market, 40% in the USA.

Saving your ZOOM setting when minimized is currently a feature exclusive to PylonCam Pro.   
-Wakeye on iPhone loses your ZOOM when minimized
-Wakeye on Android loses your ZOOM when minimized (tested on Galaxy S22 and S7
-iPhone native camera loses your ZOOM when minimized
-Android native camera loses your ZOOM when minimized

So PylonCam Pro didn't just inherit this characteristic from the iPhone, its unique to PylonCam Pro APP.

Many skiers have a phone dedicated to their Pylon Videos.  So even if you have an Android phone, you could buy a used iPhone on ebay for your skiing.  It avoids the complication of having your phone usage getting tangled up with your ski outings.

Of course they could probably get the ZOOM save feature on an Android if they get to it, but its a big effort for a small market.   Steve the developer had to do this out of the "love" for high achievement.  

[MitchellM]

On 4/20/2024 at 2:27 PM, Slalom.Steve said:

There's only been two commercial products (that I'm aware of) for pylon mounting/tracking: Wakeye and Ski-Doc.
Wakeye has gone silent as a company for years now and you can't buy them anymore. Ski-Doc is still active and makes a great solution in the Ski-Doc Orbit: Camera Mounts (theskidoc.com)

Why are those mounts so expensive?

[buechsr]

@mike_mapple would performance be willing to do a group buy on the orbits yall have in stock?

[Drago]

2 hours ago, MitchellM said:

Why are those mounts so expensive?

You're asking the guy that didn't make them

Downloaded the PCP, does it warm up the water?

[mike_mapple]

2 hours ago, buechsr said:

@mike_mapple would performance be willing to do a group buy on the orbits yall have in stock?

Unfortunately as a dealer we have signed agreements on what the pricing on items has to be sold at with Orbit. 

[buechsr]

1 hour ago, mike_mapple said:

Unfortunately as a dealer we have signed agreements on what the pricing on items has to be sold at with Orbit. 

BOS discount offerred? 😀

[Shell]

Used it yesterday, worked perfect! Love that the videos go directly into Apple photos unlike Wakeye. Will use again here in a little bit! 

[swbca]

I don't recall if it was posted on BOS in the past, but I read about iPhone users disabling the mechanical stabilization with a small rare earth magnet near the lens.   Has anyone here done that ?   

[mbabiash]

I also downloaded it and used it yesterday. Very nice product. 
Only complaint and it could’ve been my phone but when I mounted the phone horizontally and videoed it worked perfectly. 
I turned off but left app running in the background and when I turned the camera back on it was in vertical orientation and wouldn’t turn horizontal unless I closed app and re opened. Using selfie camera. 
everything else worked perfectly. 
thanks for a great product!!! 

[Slalom.Steve]

@mbabiash - Ah shoot, that's an issue I ran into during testing and thought had been solved. I'll get it re-fixed and do an update this week!

[Shell]

@mbabiash @Slalom.Steve I had the same issue , I am not using selfie mode, yet it still records perfectly even when in vertical mode, when you playback the video it goes horizontal. One glitch I found (or it could be my phone , iPhone 13 Pro Max) when I go to play it in my photos, it doesn’t always play when I press the play button, but if I advance the reel it starts to play immediately.
it seems a little more “shakey” than Wakeye, yet wakeye also has a stabilization toggle as well. Thoughts?

[swbca]

@Slalom.Steve  I think you comment in your posts above that iPhone users may want to use the selfie camera to avoid the stabilization with the rear cameras when they are zoomed in to some level.   I tested the selfie camera on my iPhone-XS and my wife's iPhone-14 Pro.  You also commented the Selfie cameras are probably better on later phones - You were correct on that - I tested two iPhones yesterday.      

- The iPhone-XS selfie camera was not good zoomed in 1.5.  Soft Focus - not sharp.
- The iPhone-14 Pro selfie camera is very good when zoomed in the same amount . . this would be good for slalom videos

 

[Slalom.Steve]

@Shell - In terms of playback, anything is possible but I don't think that's a PylonCam issue, because once the video is saved to the camera roll, it's no longer "connected" to the PylonCam app, and I haven't been able to replicate the issue. But I'll keep an eye out if anyone reports something similar!

For the shakiness, are you using the same lens and zoom on both PylonCam and Wakeye? I will be honest, I don't know exactly what the Stabilization feature on Wakeye does or how it works. I always found it to not really make a difference, and maybe even looked better with it off. 

[AdamCord]

I used this yesterday and it worked great! Totally worth the $10. Everyone with an iphone should download it.

[Shell]

@Slalom.Steve yes to your question! The app is great and I will continue to use it! Totally worth the $10 bucks! 

[BKistler]

@Slalom.Steve Will this app work with a Pro Xtreme camera?  Considering this as a low cost high function alternative to GoPro. 

[Slalom.Steve]

@BKistler This is an iOS/Apple app, so unless a Pro Xtreme camera can run iOS apps (doesn't look like it based on a quick google search), then no it won't work.

[Slalom.Steve]

@mbabiash @Shell - Alright, that bug has been fixed in the just-released version 1.0.3

Edited April 29 by Slalom.Steve

[mbabiash]

Nice!!!  Thank you! 

[Jaypro]

Downloaded!

[Robbo5252]

Purchased, now to get out on the water before it gets too cold here in Aus.

Anyone got an STL file for a 3D printed Phone holder to mount on the pylon?

[Slalom.Steve]

Tagging some other folks who've expressed interest in the past:
@Wish, @skiermk, @BGrow76, @Bbrandau, @nate93, @sunperch, @DanE, @GWaterski, @C5Quest, @Zman, @greghayes, @bkreis, @roda, @nautique1228, @Stathis Ventouris, @ral, @Inboardfix, @SkiRV, @CReckard, @switchbackr, @MattW, @RAWSki, @BobF, @Laz, @aupatking, @Golfguy, @Indyskier, @OK_SKIER, @igkya, @ToddA, @Waternut, @lw_moskier, @Alberto Soares, @TLeach, @lakeho26, @motoskier, @gator867, @Mastercrafter, @JackQ, @mac, @MickeyThompson, @darinmontgomery, @mrawle, @LanceHCook, @Beezer, @MarkTimm, @Sunapee, @tjm, @jercrane, @cp, @Vernon Reeve, @Stefan

[BGrow76]

Any update on a Android version?

[Slalom.Steve]

@BGrow76 If I do one, it won't be for a little while still, sorry!

[C5Quest]

Downloaded