Top GoPro II tips welcomed

Just got a deal on one with LCD screen….and got a chest mount…

Top tips on setting / editing software / general best practice etc welcomed

Assuming its for biking the chest harness is worth getting as creates a better shooting angle than the helmet mount.

Get a good class 10 memory card, this can make a massive difference – http://www.unsponsored.co.uk/press/?p=1836

A couple of spare batteries are also worth getting. One battery will not last out a whole days ride.

GoPros free software is pretty good. I have a mac and use imovie.

Chest mounted and flipped upside down to get the angle right. You can use the short mount doing this which eliminates a bit of wobble.

EDIT: you may not be able to use the short mount with the screen

Just an observation but try and find a sunny location as most uk gopro footage seems dark n dingy compared to the rest of the world.

try and find a sunny location

😆 🙄

+1 for running it upside down with the chest mount, you will need it to point up higher than you think. I bought Sony vegas Movie studio HD platinum as all the other offerings didn’t impress here
Its more complicated than some but worth the effort imo

Two strips of electric tape across the place where the camera attaches to the clip reduces rattle and makes a tighter fit so less likely to detach.

The photo mode takes awesome wide angle landscape shots. Make lots of short clips if possible. Anything longer than 5 minutes is a huge file and a pain to edit.

What do people do to ‘remember’ what angle to point at??

First GoPro outing on Sun at Degla…..not viewed results yet…..was mostly mud splatter I would guess….

Make sure your computer is powerful enough to cope with editing and playing 720p @ 60 fps.

For chest mount do upside down mode and put the J clip into the chest mount upside down. Attach without the screen as you can’t see it when on your chest anyway and it makes it too fat to get the angle right.

Record in a 4:3 mode (e.g 960p) when on chest as it gives a wider vertical angle than the widescreen modes.

To get the angle right simply stand in your normal riding position and get a mate to tell you if it’s pointing forwards.

Always have someone to follow! Plain trail is boring as hell! Don’t bother filming unless its down hill or bloody fast – everything will look slower and less steep on camera!

Edit it properly to get rid of all the rubbish before sharing.

Two strips of electric tape across the place where the camera attaches to the clip reduces rattle and makes a tighter fit so less likely to detach.

That’s what the white rubber clip thing is for.

Well the first outing resulted in no footage as just let it run…..and I had not turned it on correctly.

A few test clips at home…..converted to AVI to edit in windows media player….not as easy as I hoped it would be….

Will do lots of clips next time and hopefully get a result….

Don’t forget to take it off you sometimes, It’s an awesome camera stood still or on the floor too.

The newer ones may be better but going into direct sun is never that good.

Lots of light to dark doesn’t work that well either.

I use Adobe Premiere for editing and can pull some of the dark footage back with balance tools etc but it mostly looks like thats what I did.

Be brutal with the editing, make more shorter vids rather than one long one! I split some alps days up when I edited the footage.

And get the music right – I’m trying to use free music but it’s too easy to just sort your music collection by duration and pick the one that fits…..

Also Vimeo is nicer than YouTube and the Pro (massive uploads) is sensibly priced. Work with a modern video suite and get the correct output settings and Codecs for the upload to get the size right (some of mine are not the best output/comprimise for size etc) When I have time I will re-export on better settings.

Last tip hit stop when you go for a pee

FWIW, Gopro say you don’t need more than a class 4 card.

For chest mounting I use the longer arm rather than turning it upside down, it’s one less thing to fanny around with later. You can buy them separately but I got mine for free by emailing Gopro and having a proper moan 🙂

For filming, it doesn’t matter how awesome you are, if you film everything from one shot it gets dull. Doubly so if you’ve got nobody in shot. Even switching from chest to head or to a rear view is good but shooting some static shots helps a lot. And what I’d recommend, is to get a mini-tripod (I use a gorillapod) and stick a gopro mount to the top- you can quickrelease the camera off your chest onto the tripod in seconds and avoid annoying all your mates.

stick a gopro mount to the top- you can quickrelease the camera off your chest onto the tripod in seconds and avoid annoying all your mates.

In the end I found that there are 2 uses:
– capturing stuff that goes on – follow/chase cam, stand & watch at an obstacle etc.
– filming stuff which takes longer and more effort and is not to be done on a ride 🙂 Top video on mine was done with all static shots and took an hour or so of running and re-running section (would be easier with screen or wifi to phone now) It was mostly an experiment in what I could do with it.)

also through some photos in too!

As others have said, vary the shot. Wee edit here with various shots on way up Snowdon (but not down as couldn’t be arsed stopping as much 🙁 ). I’m no expert (clearly) but works well for a novice.

Chest mount, sucker mount and also wee tripod for ride-bys.

Top vids from Brycey and MS….any consensus on best editing software and in what format (mp4/avi) to edit in??

Great help guys – just got my working and edited over the weekend

Looking forward to more practice on the weekend

Cheers. I used a 30 day free Sony Vegas trial. Not had camera long, so need to bite bullet and buy a license as per bigh. I went for MP4 but I really was feeling in the dark (I’m a total IT idiot).

Incidentally, discovered last night that car sucker I used at the start of my edit works a treat on a snowboard.

Edit: Really like the wee short non-onboard edits MS.

Hmmmmm…free trial you say…..might bounce from that one to the adobe premier free trial then….just to compare like 🙂

Best focus on getting some footage first though….

Adobe stuff is good and the elements is cheaper.

I edit in whatever the camera shoots now it accepts it. Sometimes though I have edited with reduced quality/size files and swapped before rendering to make the editing easier.

and what setting where you shooting on as two thoughts posted so far….

960 or 720p and what fps?

I was at 960 on 30fps (Original HD) but now mostly at 1080 at 30fps.

Go play, its the best way to learn!

960 and the fastest (60?).

Edit – hmm, maybe not

I’m using 720p 60fps.

It’s a bit smoother on faster-moving film (compared with 1080p 30fps) and even comparing footage it’s very difficult to see the difference in resolution between the two settings. Also the 1080 footage will fill your card / computer up a lot quicker, and take longer to process etc.

You can use the 960 mode at 48fps but it’s in 4:3 rather than widescreen so it doesn’t look as nice to me, at least not for a full edit.

I’ve got the Hero 3 Silver which in terms of image processing I think is very similar to the Hero 2. For those lucky people with the black edition, you could consider 1080 60fps, although that runs the battery down pretty quickly…

not sure how you guys have got on with updating the hero 2 firmware,
my first hero 2 worked great for just short of a year and i put the protune update on and the hero 2 jut started locking up all the time

got it swapped over from the place i got it from in the uk and updated that one as i needed to do so to get it working with my wifi remote…..2 weeks in and in the middle of a skiing holiday that also packed in, that got sent back to gopro in the usa

now i have another hero2 and so far so good, only time will tell, its not put me of at all , great bits of git

cant wait to get a hero3 black when i have some spare cash 🙂

as for the lcd screen, i have one and have never used it , now i use the wifi pacpac and hook it up to the mobile phone is great for getting the hero lined up for the best shot

Is the wifi backpack working properly then (iPhone as view finder)?

Any bad light e.g. normal UK conditions tips. It is possible to do post processing?

My tip would be edit the bejesus out of all footage.

yes the wifi iphone and the gopro remote are all working fine.

not going to hook the gopro up to cineform for a very long time

When using chest mount you need to mount the camera upside down to get the correct angle.ake sure you go into the gopro settings and select the invert option to flip the recording mode. This saves lots of hassle trying to do it with editing software