GoPro Usage

[dwatson636]

After a long time of contemplating whether or not to buy a helmet camera, Santa has delivered to me a GoPro Hero 3+. An expensive toy? or a worthwhile tool when riding? What I am asking my VR brothers here is a few usage questions. Do you film all the time when you are riding? Is it better to mount on the helmet or on the handlebars? If I mount it on the helmet, should I be concerned that it will pop off? Will the coolness wear off and it will sit in the house more than on a ride? Anything else I am not thinking off?

Thanks

Dave

[Phoneman1981]

Hello Dave: I do not have answers for you but we purchased the same for our Son in Law for Christmas. He indicated he used it yesterday. Filmed while he pulled the neighbor kids sleds behind the four wheeler. Amazing video quality!!! He spends a lot of time on a snowmobile during the winter months.

[SapperMedic]

Got the JVC Adixxion (stupid name) for Christmas and if I had it yesterday, would have filmed our legion riders homecoming for my buddy. I plan on using it a lot, but as you say, will the newness wear off and sit in the closet?

[ragtop69gs]

I have a hero 3. Last summer was our first with it, we used it alot and have a lot of video sitting ,waiting for me to edit into usable footage. I have mounts on the handlebars and rear luggage rack, I had thought about a helmet mount but with the way I rubber neck while riding I didn't think it would make for good video. When I have it mounted I always have a tether strap on it for extra piece of mind. I know several people who use the suction mount and have only heard of 1 that lost the camera.

[midnightventure]

There is a fellow named Mark Sampson that has ridden all over North America and videoed a lot. He doesn't use a Gopro but he just happens to be working on a tutorial on advrider.com. He has a lot of really good videos on his site. The tutorial is here.

http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=942809

His personal site is here if you want to sample his videos.

http://www.bigdogadventures.com/

[syscrusher]

It seems like it would be a nice reminiscence to collect video over the summer and edit over the Winter. You can collect a lot of video in a seemingly short time though so consider getting some large SD cards and keeping it turned off when it's not the good stuff. I have a Sharper Image HD camera but I really thought the wrist mounted wireless remote for the GoPro would be handy if I it but that set-up is $400. With the one I have mounted on a helmet I would never know if was on or off for sure so it'll have to go on the bars or somewhere. If I had the GoPro and the remote I would put it on my helmet and hope a bug didn't splatter across the lens.

 

Please post your findings when you find them?

[etcswjoe]

I have had mine 2 years and have used it maybe half a dozen times, it's a neat toy but if I had to do it over again I would not have bought it. As for mounting I have mine on the handle bars and it's a little unsteady but I have seen several good videos taken form ones mounted to the helmets and the stick on mounts adhere very well.

[alwrmcusn]

I have two Ram mounts, one on top of the brake/clutch reservoirs. GPS and GoPro. I do not video every ride. Basically I use it for special events, i.e. riding up the BRP/Skyline to STAR days or a new ride that I've never done before. I find it rather difficult to program because it uses a tiny, tiny, tiny LCD screen and the button pushes to bring up the cryptic letters that tell you the various settings are not (to me at least) all that clear. I would like it better if it had a simple on/off switch. Helmet mount provides the least shaky method of videoing. However when you turn your head you turn the camera. The mounts included are very good but do follow the instructions and allow the adhesive to sit in the proper temperature and length of time. Still no guarantees that it will not blow off. There is software that you can find that will remove some of the "jitters" and I've tried it and it works reasonably well. However I reformatted and installed Win 8/8.1 and neglected to keep a copy so I'll have to search and find it again .

Polaroid makes a nice unit, and Cycle Gear has a unit that looks very good and has an LCD that is bigger than my thumbnail. The GoPro does a lot, I just find it hard to setup.

[RJD]

used it some but not alot... my issue is with editing. I have downloaded gopro cinema and apparently you have to convert the MP4 format to either mov or avi for editing purposes. I originally tried to convert to avi and it is massive. It used 23 gig of my hard drive and still hadn't finished... I tried converting to .mov format and it wouldn't open it to allow editing. At this point I have given up. I really would like to edit these videos, just don't know the best way to go about it.

[CaptainJoe]

I've been helmet mount for 15 years... It's the best pic as you body is a huge shock absorber.

 

Yes you must train yourself not to rubber neck but its easy to do...just move your eyes.

 

the thing about helmet mount is you can board, ski, cycle, horseback, skydive, four wheeling... anything you can think of...

 

I've got an old Panasonic Pvdv mini that i place in a backpack. It came with A REMOTE... the camera plugs into the Panasonic and is only 1"x 2" cylinderical in shape which i have velcroed to my visor. Don't know how a Gopro would look??? they are quite a bit larger???

 

Have a lot of skiing footage from park city utah and boarding from Snowshoe...

 

Dang... now I'm gonna have to dig it out and see if it still works

Edited December 26, 2013 by CaptainJoe

[billmac]

been thinking about one, did win a bid on ebay but the seller would not honor by bid and wanted to send me a lower model #. you can down load an app for your smart phone from go pro and use the phone for a viewing screen while filming or check the angles of the camera.

[videoarizona]

After a long time of contemplating whether or not to buy a helmet camera, Santa has delivered to me a GoPro Hero 3+. An expensive toy? (snip)

Thanks

Dave

 

Hi Dave,

Welcome to the GoPro World!

I've used various mounts for the GoPro and all have worked fine. The sticky mounts are designed for high speed auto mounting, so they will stay where you put them if you follow the instructions. As for shaky cam, yep...some mounts have long arms that transmit vibrations to the cam. I would look for an area on bike that gives the shortest mounting arm for best video.

Some video editing software (Sony's Vegas for instance) has plugins to help reduce the shakes.

 

As far as "usefullness"? I would save the GoPro for times when the weather and scenery are something you want to remember. It is cool to watch yourself going through a scenic section of road. I've even sped up the video for comic relief.

 

I've used the cam on my sailboat, my bike, the car, in the pool and home for events like Christmas. Most fun for me are my bike videos.

 

Enjoy,

david

[videoarizona]

used it some but not alot... my issue is with editing. I have downloaded gopro cinema and apparently you have to convert the MP4 format to either mov or avi for editing purposes. I really would like to edit these videos, just don't know the best way to go about it.

 

 

The least expensive version of Sony's Vegas that I would recommend is here....the Platinum version. It has all the bells and whistles, is easy to learn, has self-help built in and handles multiple formats.

 

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/moviestudiope

 

I run the Pro version for business and have been extremely satisfied with the company.

BTW, all video takes up lots of drive space...so plan on that. Large external USB3 hard drives are cheap now.

david

[RJD]

for the advise on the software. I may just have to try that.

 

Bob