Or do you use it regularly?

Are these a 5 minute wonder, is the editing out of boring stuff a pita, or are they actually fun to use?

Upcoming birthday, and wondering whether to get one, but not really sure whether I’d use it to record my extreme lifestyle, considering that despite enjoying photography I hardly ever take the camera out on my bike, preferring to ride and take in stuff with my eyes, rather than looking for shots and lighting.

Show me your videos to convince me. 🙂

I bought mine for recording interesting things at work, but truthfully, yeah, it spends most of its time on a shelf.

Use it loads, since I moved out to Oz it’s much easier to film and edit stuff than stop and take pics. I can never be bothered to either take the stills camera or stop on the good trails to make it worthwhile. I just put the gopro on and go for it.

Mine did spend most of its time on the shelf yeah 😆

I did take it out at the weekend for a play though. Here’s my dog chasing and overtaking me… She’s too fast for me!

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmEzcV9eB7s[/video]

(not sure how to embed)

I got mine mainly to record my impending death at the hands of a car driver. After six months I was still alive so it now lives on a shelf. I’ll fit it on the day that someone drives over me.

Click the button marked ‘video’. FTFY.

Mine spent most of its life in a drawer, being used just twice to mess around with the time lapse recording feature.

I was hoping to use it for some surfing but it seemed that as soon as I got it we went through a huge flat spell which vanished not long after I sold it. It also rained, a lot.

I’ve thought about another one but my life simply isn’t exciting or extreme enough to warrant it, although getting an accompanying quadcopter for some aerial work would be great 😀

You could see she was just itching to get past you there 😉

I use mine a bit but more as a small waterproof camera I can take anywhere rather than for boring bike vids. Was perfect for holiday on the booze cruise, random pool photos and foam parties 🙂

Thanks 🙂

samuri, she is always trying to get past me, im constantly shouting ‘STAY!’ just so she waits a little. Then she spotted the shortcut and darted for it. Its amazing how close she gets to the back wheel without hitting it.

She’s only happy about 20-30ft in front of me 😀

[video]http://youtu.be/HzGS0kKO9so[/video]

I got one as a birthday present from my wife earlier in the year. I don’t use it on every ride, for example I was up Thornthwaite Beacon in the cloud yesterday, not much point filming mist!

I use Windows Movie Maker, it’s pretty basic but simple to use, only problem I’ve had is adding music to your videos. Youtube doesn’t like copyrighted material so you’ll need to find some free to use music. There’s a reason a lot of it is free 😉

I’m getting much better at editing the clips now, plenty of different shots and angles to break up the monotony of a long POV helps. I’ve found the camera itself very easy to use and if you pair it up with a smartphone via the GoPro app you can really get a lot more out of it.

Hope this helps.

[video]http://jalopnik.com/5978351/gopro-face-or-how-every-gopro-video-starts[/video]
The “GoPro Face”.

yup

Not a GoPro, but a Contour. It got used a lot initially, both for cycling and RC aircraft flying, but the use tailed off after I got back from overseas.

I still use it, but a lot of the rides I do now are longer and more boring. When I next go somewhere exciting and slightly shorter than halfway across the country, I’ll be using it.

No it’s with team guys who can actually produce footage that doesn’t look slow like the vast majority of footage

The adverts for them are all “extream” lifestyle ads, so unless you live your life like that – regularly doing backflips and 20m gap jumps, your average POV trail vid in your local woods is going to be very boring.

I came close to getting one, but glad I didnt. To do it justice you would have to spend a lot of time with it and an even longer time editing.

A mate who makes films for a living says a 5 min good vid worth showing your mates takes him a week of editing to get it all nice with sound etc.

Just go to Youtube and look for vids of your local woods – 99.9% of them are pants. Can you do a better job ?

Pretty much as I feared then, so far…

Basically, if you don’t like editing, you’ll not use it much. I recorded hours in france, haven’t done anything with it, just too much to start on… But if you take a ride and work on it quickly while you can still remember the highlights, it’s much better. I really like cutting them together, choosing music etc.

Ive not used mine much outside of holidays but ive been struggling to find time to edit this last year. You dont have to be ‘extreme’ to have good videos tho, just enjoy what you do and share with likeminded folks. As shown by forum user coastrider.

If you are rad to the max enough to record something worth watching you probably don’t have time in your life to do the editing justice or dull enough to want to bother sentimentalising about it watching it over and over again in the evening – you’d want to be out giving it more gnar!

Slightly OT – but it is a bit sad when you got to or watch on telly significant moments (sporting occasions, Olympics opening ceremony etc) and the vast majority of the crowd are experiencing the thing through the tiny screen of their phone or their camera rather than actually watching the REAL thing! Live it FFS rather than recording it so you can proove to others you were there! At least with a gopro you can turn it on and get on with doing the do.

Use mine quite a lot. Recently upgraded from V1 to V3. I especially use it on the “annual holiday” each year. The lads are usually hassling me for the holiday video straight after!

I’d like to use it more for “proper” mini-movies but it’s a time thing. Takes time to do a proper record and edit.

However a quick POV of a trail with edit and upload is quick and easy if you know what you’re doing?

My YouTube channel

so whos used theirs for recording naughty vids with the missus?

😉

😆 😯 I hope they wipe the memory card if they do, don’t want to be seeing that!

Yep, think I’ve used by Contour GPS about twice in the last three years!

I use mine for the car racing stuff, and its proved itself useful many of time with that, for both entertainment and performance values.

Must admit though i didn’t find it that thrilling on the bike, but thats just because i could never be assed with the faff of it all at the start of a ride. Although when i did snowdon in december it was great to muck around with.

Just ordered myself a laptop (using works laptop since i’ve owned the camera so had no access to vid editing software) so i’m looking forward to spending time playing. (I have lots of spare time as i’m working away in Finland for August.)

Ah…Kimbers asks the great unasked question of headcam owners…!

Go on, admit it. You ALL have, haven’t you?

I was given a Muvi wotsit as a gift and have only used it a handful of times and then just to record the kids on their bikes while we’re out in the woods.

I’d love to buy a GoPro or Contour for the extra quality but can’t justify it for the amount of use it would get compared to cost.

Like others have said, you’ve got to put some time into editing. I tend to take a load of footage, from as many angles as I can and only small snippets, that way it’s not just one long shot from the same angle so it’s not boring. I too use it for family videos to as you can give it the kids and get life through their eyes too which often throws in some great footage. I also use Vimeo as that doesn’t get clash with music copyright either, and works better on mobile devices.

tend to only use mine or motorbike trackdays now to check on body position (trying to correct a bad habit) adn to check on laptimes to see if they’re generally improving.

STW Vimeo Page (Unofficial until Mark sends me the logo he promised!)

so whos used theirs for recording naughty vids with the missus?

which mount for…

there is a narrower diameter one too

I tend to use my friends a lot when I go riding with him, it makes sense because he has no wifi, so he can’t submit them to youtube, which I instead. Editting wise, my laptop is awful so it takes longer than it should, but I generally just run some chesty (best angle by far imo) footage to music comme ca:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6yFR3TVh6k[/video]

But yeah, if I had my own, I’d probably use it a lot, untill I ran out of trails that I hadn’t filmed on before…

I use mine a fair bit for a mix of MTB, cars, climbing, skiing, motorbikes and anything else vaguely worthy of filming.

I’ve never really spent enough time mucking about with editing software to get anything good, but I try to keep things looking vaguely interesting with a few different angles and bright sunlight where possible.
It helps if you’re filming fast people, too as they will hopefully not look too ridiculously slow and mincey on camera..

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dacleshk1Hg[/video]

There are exceptions, but 99% of footage looks dead dull IMO. Seen so many holidaymakers spend their evenings crowded around laptops in chalets, laboriously comparing hours of almost identical and very monotonous footage of themselves and their mates pottering down trails that look flat. WTF?

There are exceptions, but 99% of footage looks dead dull IMO. Seen so many holidaymakers spend their evenings crowded around laptops in chalets, laboriously comparing hours of almost identical and very monotonous footage of themselves and their mates pottering down trails that look flat. WTF?

Kind of agree with you. I think most of my videos are kind of boring to an outsider. It’s very self indulgent to publish biking videos of yourself on the internet, but I enjoy it, they get a few likes on youtube, so some others enjoy it, so I don’t see a problem.
I agree the fisheye makes the trails look really tame too, but this is much better on the GoPro 3.
I also enjoy having a sneaky peak at other’s videos on trails which I’ve ridden or will ride to see how it is (or isn’t in some cases) done.

In defense of using a gopro it does make you ride quicker and push yourself more. If you only use it for that and never actually watch any of the footage you’ve taken you’ll get the best of both worlds

I reckon GoPro bike stuff looks better if it’s edited into shorter bits, long sections of trail are boring to watch unless it’s something like that gnarcroft headcam I remember seeing a while back! Here’s a quick gratuitous video I made the first day I got my gopro!

so whos used theirs for recording naughty vids with the missus?

In defense of using a gopro it does make you ride quicker and push yourself more.

😆

[video]http://youtu.be/MYWVSeCZxQE[/video]

most of this was gopro – edit hard

I still ise mine occasionally but probably wont get a new one any time soon