GoPro tutorial?
- Thread starter 100acre
- Start date
Hit Youtube and print out the manual. Look up what you want to do.
My experience, the battery is always dead when I want to use it. I have to look up in the manual how to do some things EVERY time.
There are some cool things - make it so it mounts upside down but records correctly, a "zoom" so your video doesn't have the curved look, skeleton back will give you better audio if you care.
My experience, the battery is always dead when I want to use it. I have to look up in the manual how to do some things EVERY time.
There are some cool things - make it so it mounts upside down but records correctly, a "zoom" so your video doesn't have the curved look, skeleton back will give you better audio if you care.
Herbie
Adventurist
Easier is to figure out what you want to do, since there's SO much you can do with them, it's hard to give details on it "all".
I have a Hero2, and I use it in a lot of different ways. I've set it up to do time lapse, upside down, when hanging from my kite. I also use it to shoot HD video of the cockpit in my race car since I don't have a telemetry system yet, so it's my only way to "post mortem" a race session - I can watch my hands, etc. to see where I made mistakes.
IMHO, the main power of the GoPro system is the range of mounting accessories - it's really nice being able to rig 100+mph-secure mounts on the fly. Most of their stuff is really inexpensive, if you get it online, so it's worth investing in a collection of the short and long pivot adapters, since it'll let you "Lego" up a mount on the fly whenever you need.
My three best tips for new GoPro owners:
1) Go through your initial mount kit and find the one "Long" thumbscrew. (Compare them, and you'll see that one has a longer finger barrel.) Mark this one with white-out or a paint pen. Most people don't realize why there's a long one - when you screw a mount immediate underneath the camera frame, the long screw clears the camera frame. If you use a short screw, the cross parts will interfere on the frame and it's hard to make it tight. I've seen MANY people struggle with this.
2) The thumb screws should actually be tightened with a screwdriver! Finger tight won't do it for anything with a lot of vibration or acceleration forces. Once you get it positioned how you like and finger tight, get a #3 Philips head and finish it off.
3) That little white rubbery "U-shaped" thing is essential, don't throw it out. When you slide a latching mount into the adhesive-backed base, the rubber "U" goes into the gaps in the spring clip so that it can't come loose. Trust me, the spring pressure alone is not sufficient to hold the mass of the camera under load. Jam that thing in there to keep the clip from sliding out!
I've seen upwards of a half-dozen cameras come off of race cars where #2 and #3 in particular were ignored!!
I have a Hero2, and I use it in a lot of different ways. I've set it up to do time lapse, upside down, when hanging from my kite. I also use it to shoot HD video of the cockpit in my race car since I don't have a telemetry system yet, so it's my only way to "post mortem" a race session - I can watch my hands, etc. to see where I made mistakes.
IMHO, the main power of the GoPro system is the range of mounting accessories - it's really nice being able to rig 100+mph-secure mounts on the fly. Most of their stuff is really inexpensive, if you get it online, so it's worth investing in a collection of the short and long pivot adapters, since it'll let you "Lego" up a mount on the fly whenever you need.
My three best tips for new GoPro owners:
1) Go through your initial mount kit and find the one "Long" thumbscrew. (Compare them, and you'll see that one has a longer finger barrel.) Mark this one with white-out or a paint pen. Most people don't realize why there's a long one - when you screw a mount immediate underneath the camera frame, the long screw clears the camera frame. If you use a short screw, the cross parts will interfere on the frame and it's hard to make it tight. I've seen MANY people struggle with this.
2) The thumb screws should actually be tightened with a screwdriver! Finger tight won't do it for anything with a lot of vibration or acceleration forces. Once you get it positioned how you like and finger tight, get a #3 Philips head and finish it off.
3) That little white rubbery "U-shaped" thing is essential, don't throw it out. When you slide a latching mount into the adhesive-backed base, the rubber "U" goes into the gaps in the spring clip so that it can't come loose. Trust me, the spring pressure alone is not sufficient to hold the mass of the camera under load. Jam that thing in there to keep the clip from sliding out!
I've seen upwards of a half-dozen cameras come off of race cars where #2 and #3 in particular were ignored!!