UKC

I'm thinking of getting a Go Pro to record some of my walks. I tried a cheaper camera(Mobius at £50) but have not been able to find a satisfactory means of mounting it AND being able to get a stable image.

I was talking to a chap out walking today with a head mounted Go Pro and he seemed very satisfied with his.

Can anyone recommend which one to go for; nothing to sophisticated, just enough to record walks and treks..

Thanks.

In reply to mypyrex:

What mount or mounts are you currently using?

There's a few tricks to getting things like the chest mount set up.

In reply to Bob:
Haven't really seen any. I did try modifying a small tripod head and attached it to my rucksack straps but it kept bouncing around.

In reply to mypyrex:


Serious Question. Just wondering...why do you want to record your walks?

In reply to Padraig:


Serious reply. Because I do. (Do you not photographically record any of your activities)

In reply to mypyrex:

I have both a Möbius and a GoPro.

And if I did a little video using each, with both on standard settings, then you would be hard pressed to spot the difference when viewed on a telly.

The problem with little action cameras is, as you know, the camera shake.

My top tip would be to invest your pennies in an electronic gimbal. This would illuminate all camera shake and show off the amazing capabilities of your Möbius or GoPro.

Check out the Swiftcam website.

I have one and can not recommend them enough.

In reply to mypyrex:

That will be a lot raw footage of nothing happening very quickly!

In reply to mypyrex:

That's your problem! The camera is a 100g or so weight compared to your vastly larger weight so any movement you make is amplified massively. The reason that your "chap out walking" gets reasonable shots is that the camera is attached to his head - we've evolved to keep our heads relatively still when in motion.

I'm assuming that your existing camera is compatible with Gopro mounts, in which case you can get pretty complete sets of mounts for not very much - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Deyard-ZG-634-GoPro-Accessories-Session/dp/B00KU70F...

I use the chest mount from the above set for mountain biking and it's cinched down really tightly otherwise there's a lot of shaking in the resulting video. The extendible pole is good for getting "over the head" shots as the field of view of the Gopro style cameras is so wide.

In reply to neuromancer:


Not necessarily. By using a remote control, I understand, you can shoot selectively at will.

In reply to Bob:


Thanks for a useful response. Unfortunately the Mobius does not seem to be compatible with Go Pro mounts. Also, the other advantage I can see with Go Pro is that you can get a remote control option.

In reply to mypyrex:

OK. With some Gopro models (those with bluetooth) you don't need their remote as you can use a smartphone as a remote - this also has the advantage of being able to see what the camera is seeing as it broadcasts the live video to your phone which is useful when setting up a shot. I've used it occasionally but wouldn't say that it's a deal breaker (for me).

If you are going the Gopro route then I'd avoid the low end models which don't have replaceable batteries. In typical usage you get about 2hrs of battery life (using things like bluetooth reduces this) so unless you can charge on the go then you need spare batteries and to be able to swap them. I shoot reasonable amounts - I've usually an idea of what's coming up and likely to be worth shooting so the camera is being turned on and off fairly regularly to save battery - and reckon on using one battery a day but will have at least one spare with me.

Finally: be prepared to spend a lot of time editing, nothing is so boring compared to as little as a minute of un-edited video footage! Given two videos of the same event, one ten minutes long and one two, most people will watch the two minute version. I'll edit two days' worth of clips down to under five minutes. My workflow is: find some suitable legally free music; import the clips in to the editor; pick two to five second bits from the clips and then further trim them to change on the beat of the music; remember to add titles and credits. Surprising just how ruthless you can be when you have to be. This reminds me - the sound picked up by Gopro cameras when in their waterproof casing is poor. There are two ways round this: either modify the casing so you can plug in a quality external mike but lose the waterproofing or use a separate recording device and sync the two up when editing.

In reply to mypyrex:

Don't underestimate how much computer power and memory editing a movie will use up. If your PC/Laptop is relatively low powered/old, you may struggle so need to budget for an upgrade.

Friends with GoPros love the quality, but moan about battery life!

As others say, keep things really tight when editing, even shots lasting just a second or two can really make for an interesting video if editing together well. And don't just include shots from one viewpoint, try other angles, close ups, scene setters etc.
I am useless at all this, which is why I stick to traditional photography and words!

In reply to mypyrex:

If head mounted had you thought of disguising it with a couple of aerials and maybe an aluminium colander?

In reply to Bob:


May I ask what sort of external mike you use, and what options are there to reduce or eliminate the sound of wind or breezes?

In reply to Mal Grey:


The battery life on my GoPro 4 Black is, to put it mildly, truly awful. I'm lucky to get an hour per battery, and I have four of them to feed its insatiable desire for.t energy. I also have a 13,000 Anker power pack and gopro battery charger to keep my spare batteries topped up for as and when needed.

I have to admit that the Timelapse feature of the GoPro is quite impressive but unless you have an external power source, don't even bother trying any project with an internal battery.

If you do get a GoPro 4 then I can recommend these to keep it happy

Protective lens caps
http://to.ly/UlCF

A charger
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00VTEI0YE?psc=1&redirect=true&r...

Extra batteries
http://to.ly/UlBQ

In reply to The Lemming:

I don't! Nothing I have to say whilst biking is either fit for public consumption or of any use Gopro reckon any lavalier type microphone will do. There's some hints on the Gopro site about wind noise https://gopro.com/support/articles/how-to-prevent-wind-noise-on-videos

Don't know what you are doing to get such poor life on your Gopro, I've the same model and get closer to 2hrs but I haven't explicitly timed it. Have got bluetooth turned on?

In reply to mypyrex:

If you have your heart set on a go pro get the silver does all you need the black is too powerful will eat up too much memory and unless you have a very powerful pc you wont be able to edit also do you have a 4k viewing platform , the 3 or 3+ are good prices if you can find them , think about what your needs are the contour roam available for around £100 shoots 1080 full hd but not stills but you can take stills off in the edit

In reply to koolkat:

That's true to an extent but you don't *have* to shoot at 4K. The black has a more powerful processor which means you can shoot at higher frame rates at lower resolutions so whereas the silver might be able to shoot 1080p at 60fps the black can do so at 120fps.

If the OP has no interest in producing slo-mo shots from those sorts of speeds then the 4 series black is of little use, I doubt walking needs it. You do need a powerful machine to edit in reasonable time but it doesn't have to be cutting edge if you don't mind waiting for some activities to complete. I find that it's my decision taking time and making the adjustments that takes time, almost as much as the computing processing.

I'd agree with you that the Silver 4 or the 3 series would be more than enough for what the OP has indicated but for different reasons.

In reply to mypyrex:
I deliberated several months about getting a new action cam. And I very nearly went again for a cheap go pro clone. But buy cheap pay twice.

As for which version to buy, I chose the Black version because of its versatility of slow motion footage. There are a sh1t load of other features, but that was the deal maker for me. I don't use the feature all the time, but when used selectively its sexy.

As for editing, I prefer to use Adobe Premier Elements 13. I just can't cope with the go pro software.

And for all those doom Sayer's that demand a powerful computer, I'm guessing what you have at the moment is suitable. And if you do need an upgrade then chuck in a SSD drive. Make sure it's no smaller than 500Gb to give you some wiggle room while editing. The SSD hard drive will most definitely speed up the editing process.

In reply to The Lemming:

SSDs are great, but you have to keep them backed up. When they die they tend to do so without warning - no grace period while it reports errors and you get to copy off your stuff like a mechanical drive.

In reply to davidbeynon:

Normal hard drives die too, and without warning. They don't always give mechanical hints that they are going to drop off their perch.

As it is, the slowest part of a modern computer is the mechanical hard drive. Bang in a SSD and you really notice a difference when doing serious number crunching such as video editing.

In reply to The Lemming:
I know that, but the most common failure mode I have seen in SSDs looks like one operation fine, the next dead. Internal lookup table corruption I think. My colleagues and I have killed maybe 4 or 5 over the last few, but never seen one die gradually.

I have killed a lot of HDDs over the years too and only once had one blow up with no warning at all.

Having said that. There's no way I would go back to spinning metal HDDs for laptops etc.

In reply to Bob et al:

Thanks for all the useful replies. I'm now mulling over them.

In reply to mypyrex:

Have you taken the plunge yet and bought one?