Tiny Planet Tips for Earth Day

tools of the trade

Apr 22, 2019

Happy Earth Day! In honor of today, and our beautiful planet, we're offering up some tips to create a tiny planet of your own using Fusion.

ICYMI, a Tiny Planet (pictured above) is the zoomed-out version of a static spherical image. Because Fusion captures video and photo in a complete sphere, OverCapture allows for the creation of framed, 2D punch-outs from anywhere in the sphere, giving creators the ultimate control on 2D perspectives.

The simplest way to elevate your 360-capture game and pop out a tiny planet is using the OverCapture feature on the GoPro app. This can be done using a single spherical image or by pulling a still from 360 video.

To do so, after capturing 360 content on Fusion, open the GoPro app and use the OverCapture feature to zoom out until you start to see a perfect sphere start to form. Once you've perfected the planet-esque look, tap the OverCapture button twice* to capture a still image of what you are seeing. This will be saved in the content library in the GoPro app, where you can save to a photo stream or share direct to social. *After tapping the OverCapture button once, you can select between capturing a static spherical photo and a dynamic 360 OverCapture video.

Here are some of our favorite Tiny Planet creations:

Classic Tiny Planet: With Fusion specifically, there is a lens on either side of the camera, and each lens captures just over 180 degrees to create a seamless stitch line after the content is captured. The result is a perfect sphere.

Star Trail Tiny Planet: This tip comes from Fusion expert Russel Preston Brown, a.k.a. @dr_brown: I positioned my tripod on a deck overlooking the coast and set the Fusion to Night Lapse Mode with an ISO of 400 and a shutter speed of 30 seconds. I sat back, relaxed, and listened to the waves crashing on the rocks while the Fusion shot for 30 minutes. What an incredible evening! Later, I imported all of my photos into Adobe Photoshop as a single document with multiple layers. I then selected all of the layers and set the Photoshop Blend Mode to Lighten. This blended my exposures and created the star trails. Finally, I exported the file and composed the framing with GoPro's Fusion Studio.

Subject-Focused Semi-Planet: The beauty of OverCapture is that it allows you to rearrange the angle and subject of the spherical content an infinite amount of times by simply tilting the smart phone or tablet that you are using OverCapture on. Tilt, zoom in, zoom out, rotate and get creative until you've found the perfect how did they do that?! shot.

As long as you hold Fusion at least 8 inches (20 centimeters) away from your body, the camera will not appear in the shot nor affect the hand/arm/object that falls in the stitch line.

Inverse It: Much like the last tip, OverCapture enables you to play with the focal point of the spherical content. So after zooming out to create a tiny planet, try running your finger top-to-bottom on your screen (or vice versa) and watch as the tiny planet inverses itself. Mind. Blown.

After you've created the perfect Earth Day tiny planet, head over to GoPro's Instagram page for the chance to win a National Parks pass. The contest runs through the Friday, April 26 in honor of National Park Week.

LINK:	https://gopro.com/news/fusion-tiny-planet-earth-day...
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