Bicycle vs. Flying Objects

A few minutes after we started riding, an insect collided with my helmet. About 3/60 second before impact:

We paused in a park at the far end of the ride, rolled out, and another insect buzzed past:

Both of those flew within a few inches of the lens, far inside the camera’s fixed-focus near point, and it’s a wonder they look as good as they do. Looking at successive frames reveals wingbeats, although they’re surely flapping much faster than frame rate and therefore heavily aliased.

Fortunately, a Gas Hawk didn’t come that close:

All from the Sony HDR-AS30V in 1280×720 at 60 frame/s. The bug images were ruthlessly cropped to show the full-size dot-for-dot camera image, then stored with minimal compression.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been buzzed on the bike, but it’s a record for one ride.