Does anyone have any experience with the GoPro cameras?
I’m considering getting a new one and was looking for some first-hand experiences with them.
Thanks for your input.
Brian
I’ve been looking into them as well. I’ve heard plenty of good things. I believe Fly Goddess has been using one for about a year now, hopefully she will see this and give her review.
I just got mine. I have not had much opportunity to use it yet. I got the black edition and have added the head band and the tripod mount. What I have done with it appears to live up to their claims. Keep in mind the videos on their website may be professionally produced.
I have been eyeing them as a way to record my rides. I am interested in hearing from others about their experiences. Thanks for posting this bgreer.
The videos I have seen produced with a GoPro have ranged from horrible to pretty good, mainly due to the guy aiming the camera. I see a lot of them on motorcycle and snowmobile helmets, as well as on snowboarders and such, and have had numerous good reviews from those sorts of users. The H3 black ($400) looks like a good product. Not sure how I would attach it to my head while fishing, tho, since I don’t wear a helmet and any other mount is kind of bouncy.
If I was going to get one, though, I would invest in several extra batteries and several extra SD cards, which would up the price considerably. No sense having a good video camera that runs out after a couple hours. After all, you won’t know when the fish will take, and so you will likely end up filming a whole lot for the few minutes of good footage each day. I have an OS helmet cam I bought for $50 on a lark for a trip several years ago and couldn’t get the thing to sit right on my head, so I have a lot of angled vids and howling static from Montana winds. Edited down, it is about 20 minutes of worthwhile shots from three days on the water. Not really worth the money. Haven’t used it since.
DG
Yes I own one. I have the GoPro, the Gopro flat “Dive Housing”, headstrap mount, trip pod mount, 5 extra batts and an extra charger. What would you like to know?
Steve
How do you determine what your pointing at is what is showing up in the actual picture except to play it back? How does it handle focusing shifts? I want to use one to record my riding adventures and my biggest concern is the ability to focus on constantly changing depths of field.
Steve,
Which version do you own?
How is picture and video quality on them? Are they good “right out of the box”? Or do you have to do a lot of processing?
Is it handy to use? Is it quick to grab and shoot? Or do you have to do a few things before it gets going?
How is battery life?
Brian
I have the Original Hero. I’ve compared the hero to the new hero2 and IMO there is no real difference that I can tell in video quality between the two of them. I don’t use the picture setting on mine, I use it for video only because I am a bit of a camera nut and always have my Canon 20D or Nikon pocket camera in the boat/vest which I use for still pics. So I use my Gopro for Video only.
It’s very simple to use. Because of the design there are only two buttons that are used when it is in it’s waterproof housing so it is designed to be real simple. Just hold the button down and it listen for the beeps and it’s filming. Each set of beeps means something such as 2 beeps mean on 3 beeps means off etc etc so you do have to read the manual and remember what the beeps mean so your not constantly taking it off your head to see if it is on or off.
The one thing I did do before I even used it for the first time was to invest in the GoPro “Dive housing” which has a flat lens on it. The factory housing is good above water but underwater it loses a lot of detail and it gives a “fisheye” effect that is not very pleasant. So I would advise you to opt to spend the extra $60-$70 and get the GoPro Dive Lens right off the bat if you plan to use it underwater for shooting fish in the below the surface.
I like mine a lot, but I use mine in conjunction with my Kodak Playsport HD video camera and find that to be better than just relying on just one camera. Mainly because the GoPro even with the flat lens still has a “slight” fisheye look to it at some angles, so I find it best to use the Kodak as my stationary camera, and then the GoPro as my “action” camera (mounted on me for POV shots).
Battery life is REALLY good. I bought extra “off brand” batts from AMAZON last summer and I get a soild 45-60mins off one charge on my GoPro brand batt, then about 35-40mins off one charge on my off brand batts.
This video is one I made last summer fishing the Au Sable at my cabin. All the stationary videos are done with my Kodak Playsport, then all the POV ones are done with my GoPro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8EjyrYfoxk0
Hope that’s of some help to you. Let me know if you want to know anything else about it.
Steve
The GoPro cameras do not have a view finder. They are designed to be mounted in places where you couldn’t look through it if it had one. So to answer the question of how do you know what is being recorded, you use the wifi connection and your smart device / phone. The new ones have wifi.
My Hell-bent-for-leather 14 year old grandson has one. The Go-Pro Hero. He uses it as a helmet cam on dirt bikes and motocross. Mounts it to his skateboard, and other things he rides. I bought him extra batteries, a charger and a 32gig sd card for Christmas. He likes it and hasn’t broken it yet. I don’t know the quality of filming it does. Jim
Thank you for that information. Most helpful.
It seems the new ones (Hero 3) have wi-fi…so you can use a remote or a smartphone app.
The H3 housing also has a flat lens, compared to the older housings.
Those seem to be two big +'s.
As to the no viewfinder on it, you can actually add one if you like. Runs about $69 but I have seen it on sale as low as $50 a few times http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSwa0P-Kpp4